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A Neglected Passage on the Three Unities of the French Classic Drama
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
Extract
The need for critical research in at least one field of modern literature is exemplified by the lack of exact information regarding the establishment on the French stage of the three dramatic unities that characterized so markedly many pieces of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Although our knowledge of the history of these unities has been increased by several works that have recently appeared, a number of facts concerning them remain to be determined, as Dannheisser, the chief authority on the subject, has clearly shown. Thus, while demonstrating that these unities of action, time, and place were not imposed at one time, but, developing separately, came only after a half century into general acceptance and a rigorously narrow form, he has left unfixed the date at which they were first singled out in seventeenth century France as the distinguishing marks of the classic drama.
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- Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1908
References
page 307 note 1 In his admirable treatise Zur Geschichte der Einheiten in Frankreich, Zeitschrift für französische Sprache und Litteratur, 1892, xiv, 1–76.
page 307 note 2 Cf. Petit de Julleville's Histoire de la Langue et de la Littérature française, iv, 241.
page 307 note 3 Cf. Herrig's Archiv, 1905, cxv, 433.
page 308 note 1 Recherches sur les Theatres de France, ii, 106, Paris, 1735.
page 308 note 2 Histoire du Theatre français, iv, 497–8, Paris, 1745.
page 308 note 3 Bibliothèque du Theatre françois, ii, 64 seq., Dresden, 1768.
page 308 note 4 Pages 349–372.
page 309 note 1 The dates given indicate the first known appearance of the plays, when they were acted, privileged, or printed, as the case may be.
page 309 note 2 Cf. Du Ryer's Argenis et Poliarque (1630 and 1631) and Schelandre's Tyr el Sidon (1628).
page 309 note 3 For a careful investigation of these dates I am indebted to the kindness and scholarship of Mr. W. A. Stowell, Fellow in the Romance Department of the Johns Hopkins University.
page 311 note 1 Cf. Morf, Geschichte der neuern französischen Litteratur, pp. 206–207, Strasburg, 1898.
page 311 note 2 Cf. ibidem, p. 207.
page 311 note 3 Cf. Arnaud, Théories dramatiques, p. 334, Paris, 1888.
page 311 note 4 See L'Art poétique de Vauquelin de la Fresnaye, Paris, 1885.
page 311 note 5 Especially to Castelvetro, to whom the first promulgation of the law of three unities is commonly ascribed. Even he, though dilating upon the unities, does not speak of them as the three essential rules of the classic drama, as does Mareschal. See La Poetica d'Aristotele vulgarizzata et sposta, pp. 109, 173, and 534 in the edition of Bâle, 1576.
page 312 note 1 Cf. E. Bovet, La Préface de Chapelain à l'Adonis, page 42, in the Festschrift Heinrich Morf, Halle, 1905.
page 312 note 2 Ibidem, page 46.
page 312 note 3 See Dannheisser, Zur Geschichte der Einheiten, page 71.
page 313 note 1 Cf. Dannheisser, who, in Zur Geschichte der Einheiten, page 57, points out Corneille's error without acquaintance with Mareschal.
page 314 note 1 Cf. ibidem, p. 75.
page 314 note 2 Cf. Arnaud, op. cit., p. 343.
page 314 note 3 See ibidem, p. 240, and Castelvetro, op. cit., p. 109.
page 314 note 4 See his Examen to Clitandre.
page 314 note 5 Op. cit., p. 23.
page 315 note 1 Published at Lyon, 1632.