The students are in dire need of something that helps them to understand basic concepts in simple language. This presentation attempts to explain key concepts like Criticism, types of criticism, critical theory and about other literary terms.
Matthew Arnold (24 December 1822 – 15 April 1888) was an English poet and cultural critic who worked as an inspector of schools. He was the son of Thomas Arnold, the famed headmaster of Rugby School, and brother to both Tom Arnold, literary professor, and William Delafield Arnold, novelist and colonial administrator.
During this time Arnold wrote the bulk of his most famous critical works, Essays in Criticism (1865) and Culture and Anarchy (1869), in which he sets forth ideas that greatly reflect the predominant values of the Victorian era.
An Apology for Poetry[7] (also known as A Defence of Poesie and The Defence of Poetry) – Sidney wrote the Defence before 1583. It is generally believed that he was at least partly motivated by Stephen Gosson, a former playwright who dedicated his attack on the English stage, The School of Abuse, to Sidney in 1579, but Sidney primarily addresses more general objections to poetry, such as those of Plato. In his essay, Sidney integrates a number of classical and Italian precepts on fiction. The essence of his defence is that poetry, by combining the liveliness of history with the ethical focus of philosophy, is more effective than either history or philosophy in rousing its readers to virtue. The work also offers important comments on Edmund Spenser and the Elizabethan stage. from wikipidea
Comparative literature in India an Overview of an It's History AnjaliTrivedi14
This Presentation is about one article by Subha Chakraborthy Dasgupta which is about "Comparative Literature in India an Overview of its History".
this is a group task.
Matthew Arnold (24 December 1822 – 15 April 1888) was an English poet and cultural critic who worked as an inspector of schools. He was the son of Thomas Arnold, the famed headmaster of Rugby School, and brother to both Tom Arnold, literary professor, and William Delafield Arnold, novelist and colonial administrator.
During this time Arnold wrote the bulk of his most famous critical works, Essays in Criticism (1865) and Culture and Anarchy (1869), in which he sets forth ideas that greatly reflect the predominant values of the Victorian era.
An Apology for Poetry[7] (also known as A Defence of Poesie and The Defence of Poetry) – Sidney wrote the Defence before 1583. It is generally believed that he was at least partly motivated by Stephen Gosson, a former playwright who dedicated his attack on the English stage, The School of Abuse, to Sidney in 1579, but Sidney primarily addresses more general objections to poetry, such as those of Plato. In his essay, Sidney integrates a number of classical and Italian precepts on fiction. The essence of his defence is that poetry, by combining the liveliness of history with the ethical focus of philosophy, is more effective than either history or philosophy in rousing its readers to virtue. The work also offers important comments on Edmund Spenser and the Elizabethan stage. from wikipidea
Comparative literature in India an Overview of an It's History AnjaliTrivedi14
This Presentation is about one article by Subha Chakraborthy Dasgupta which is about "Comparative Literature in India an Overview of its History".
this is a group task.
Bahria Universiry Karachi Campus- Bs English, Semester 5.
Definition of literary criticism and theory.
Comparison between both the terms.
Types of theories and approaches to literary criticism.
English 205Masterworks of English LiteratureHANDOUTSCritica.docxYASHU40
English 205:
Masterworks of English Literature
HANDOUTS
Critical Approaches to Literature
Plain text version of this document.
Described below are nine common critical approaches to the literature. Quotations are from X.J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia’s Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama, Sixth Edition (New York: HarperCollins, 1995), pages 1790-1818.
· Formalist Criticism: This approach regards literature as “a unique form of human knowledge that needs to be examined on its own terms.” All the elements necessary for understanding the work are contained within the work itself. Of particular interest to the formalist critic are the elements of form—style, structure, tone, imagery, etc.—that are found within the text. A primary goal for formalist critics is to determine how such elements work together with the text’s content to shape its effects upon readers.
· Biographical Criticism: This approach “begins with the simple but central insight that literature is written by actual people and that understanding an author’s life can help readers more thoroughly comprehend the work.” Hence, it often affords a practical method by which readers can better understand a text. However, a biographical critic must be careful not to take the biographical facts of a writer’s life too far in criticizing the works of that writer: the biographical critic “focuses on explicating the literary work by using the insight provided by knowledge of the author’s life.... [B]iographical data should amplify the meaning of the text, not drown it out with irrelevant material.”
· Historical Criticism: This approach “seeks to understand a literary work by investigating the social, cultural, and intellectual context that produced it—a context that necessarily includes the artist’s biography and milieu.” A key goal for historical critics is to understand the effect of a literary work upon its original readers.
· Gender Criticism: This approach “examines how sexual identity influences the creation and reception of literary works.” Originally an offshoot of feminist movements, gender criticism today includes a number of approaches, including the so-called “masculinist” approach recently advocated by poet Robert Bly. The bulk of gender criticism, however, is feminist and takes as a central precept that the patriarchal attitudes that have dominated western thought have resulted, consciously or unconsciously, in literature “full of unexamined ‘male-produced’ assumptions.” Feminist criticism attempts to correct this imbalance by analyzing and combatting such attitudes—by questioning, for example, why none of the characters in Shakespeare’s play Othello ever challenge the right of a husband to murder a wife accused of adultery. Other goals of feminist critics include “analyzing how sexual identity influences the reader of a text” and “examin[ing] how the images of men and women in imaginative literature reflect or reject the social forces that have historically kept th ...
Take the quiz to discover what poem you have been assigned to discus.docxbriankimberly26463
Take the quiz to discover what poem you have been assigned to discuss this week;
"On Being Brought From Africa to America" By: Phillis Wheatley
2.Look through the critical approaches in the Week 4 lesson, and CHOOSE 2 that you think could be used to analyze the poem you chose.
Literary Critical Theory:
Interpretive Strategies
1. Historicism considers the literary work in light of "what really happened" during the period reflected in that work. It insists that to understand a piece, we need to understand the author's biography and social background, ideas circulating at the time, and the cultural milieu. Historicism also "finds significance in the ways a particular work resembles or differs from other works of its period and/or genre," and therefore may involve source studies. It may also include examination of philology and linguistics. It is typically a discipline involving impressively extensive research.
2. New Criticism examines the relationships between a text's ideas and its form, "the connection between what a text says and the way it's said." New Critics/Formalists "may find tension, irony, or paradox in this relation, but they usually resolve it into unity and coherence of meaning." New Critics look for patterns of sound, imagery, narrative structure, point of view, and other techniques discernible on close reading of "the work itself." They insist that the meaning of a text should not be confused with the author's intentions nor the text's affective dimension--its effects on the reader. The objective determination as to "how a piece works" can be found through close focus and analysis, rather than through extraneous and erudite special knowledge.
3. Archetypal criticism "traces cultural and psychological 'myths' that shape the meaning of texts." It argues that "certain literary archetypes determine the structure and function of individual literary works," and therefore that literature imitates not the world but rather the "total dream of humankind." Archetypes (recurring images or symbols, patterns, universal experiences) may include motifs such as the quest or the heavenly ascent, symbols such as the apple or snake, or images such as crucifixion--all laden with meaning already when employed in a particular work.
4. Psychoanalytic criticism adopts the methods of "reading" employed by Freud and later theorists to interpret what a text really indicates. It argues that "unresolved and sometimes unconscious ambivalences in the author's own life may lead to a disunified literary work," and that the literary work is a manifestation of the author's own neuroses. Psychoanalytic critics focus on apparent dilemmas and conflicts in a work and "attempt to read an author's own family life and traumas into the actions of their characters," realizing that the psychological material will be expressed indirectly, encoded (similar to dreams) through principles such as "condensation," "displacement," and "symbolism."
5. Femini.
Memorabilia 2024 | Department of English | MKBUDilip Barad
Memorabilia 2024 captures the essence of creativity and academic exploration within the Department of English at MKBU. This anthology showcases a diverse range of creative works and insightful reports, each reflecting the passion and dedication of our students. From compelling short stories and evocative poetry to thought-provoking essays and in-depth research papers, this publication celebrates the intellectual curiosity and talent nurtured within our academic community. Through engaging narratives and meticulous analysis, the students of the Department of English at MKBU demonstrate their commitment to excellence and their contributions to the fields of literature, language, and critical inquiry. Memorabilia 2024 serves as a testament to the vibrant scholarly environment and the profound impact of our students' endeavors on the broader academic landscape.
This booklet is documented record of various activities carried out during academic year 2022-23 by the students of the Department of English, Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar University, Bhavnagar, Gujarat.
Modern Theories of Criticism: An OverviewDilip Barad
Modern Theories of Criticism: An Overview
[Note: This presentation and video recording are of Prof. Dilip Barad's session in the Refresher Course for College / University teachers. The Refresher Course was organised by UGC-HRDC, University of Mumbai.]
Modern Literary Theory and Criticism refers to the examination and interpretation of literature using various theoretical frameworks that emerged in the 20th century. This approach encompasses diverse schools of thought such as Marxist, Feminist, Psychoanalytic, and Deconstructionist theory that offer a critical lens to analyze literary texts and reveal their deeper meanings and societal impact. The purpose of this introduction is to provide a comprehensive overview of the key concepts, influential figures, and historical developments in Modern Literary Theory and Criticism, highlighting its significance and impact in the field of literary studies.
Research Publication | Guidelines for the BeginnersDilip Barad
This presentation was made for the Postgraduate students of DAV College, Chandigarh. It is on the Research Publication. It deals with guidelines for the beginners.
Genre Study | Political Satire | Absalom and AchitophelDilip Barad
This presentation deal with Absalom and Achitophel as political satire. In the prologue, "To the Reader", Dryden states that "the true end of satire is the amendment of vices by correction".
Thematic Study of Absalom and Achitophel - John DrydenDilip Barad
The following themes are discussed in this presentation:
1. Politics, Allegory, and Satire
2. God, Religion, and the Divine Right of Kings
3. Power and Ambition
4. The Erosion of the Value and Power of Poetry
The Past, the Present and the Future of Dissecting Literary Texts: From Mora...Dilip Barad
This presentation was made in the Refresher Course in English on the theme of Pleasure of Dissecting the Text: The Poetics of Literary Theories and Criticism in English organised by UGC HRDC - Madurai Kamraj University, Tamilnadu
Two Ways to Look at Life | The Only StoryDilip Barad
There were two ways of looking at life; or two extremes of viewpoint, anyway, with a continuum between them.
One proposed that every human action necessarily carried with it the obliteration of every other action which might have been performed instead; life therefore consisted of a succession of small and large choices, expressions of free will, so that the individual was like the captain of some paddle steamer chugging down the mighty Mississippi of life.
The other proposed that it was all inevitability, that pre-history ruled, that a human life was no more than a bump on a log which was itself being propelled down the mighty Mississippi, tugged and bullied, smacked and wheedled, by currents and eddies and hazards over which no control was possible.
Theme of Love - Passion and Suffering - The Only Story - Julian BarnesDilip Barad
Passion – the Latin root of this words – suffering
Love = Passion + Suffering
Jacques Lacan – The Subject of Desire – Love-object
Love in ‘The Only Story’
Embracing GenAI - A Strategic ImperativePeter Windle
Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies such as Generative AI, Image Generators and Large Language Models have had a dramatic impact on teaching, learning and assessment over the past 18 months. The most immediate threat AI posed was to Academic Integrity with Higher Education Institutes (HEIs) focusing their efforts on combating the use of GenAI in assessment. Guidelines were developed for staff and students, policies put in place too. Innovative educators have forged paths in the use of Generative AI for teaching, learning and assessments leading to pockets of transformation springing up across HEIs, often with little or no top-down guidance, support or direction.
This Gasta posits a strategic approach to integrating AI into HEIs to prepare staff, students and the curriculum for an evolving world and workplace. We will highlight the advantages of working with these technologies beyond the realm of teaching, learning and assessment by considering prompt engineering skills, industry impact, curriculum changes, and the need for staff upskilling. In contrast, not engaging strategically with Generative AI poses risks, including falling behind peers, missed opportunities and failing to ensure our graduates remain employable. The rapid evolution of AI technologies necessitates a proactive and strategic approach if we are to remain relevant.
2024.06.01 Introducing a competency framework for languag learning materials ...Sandy Millin
http://sandymillin.wordpress.com/iateflwebinar2024
Published classroom materials form the basis of syllabuses, drive teacher professional development, and have a potentially huge influence on learners, teachers and education systems. All teachers also create their own materials, whether a few sentences on a blackboard, a highly-structured fully-realised online course, or anything in between. Despite this, the knowledge and skills needed to create effective language learning materials are rarely part of teacher training, and are mostly learnt by trial and error.
Knowledge and skills frameworks, generally called competency frameworks, for ELT teachers, trainers and managers have existed for a few years now. However, until I created one for my MA dissertation, there wasn’t one drawing together what we need to know and do to be able to effectively produce language learning materials.
This webinar will introduce you to my framework, highlighting the key competencies I identified from my research. It will also show how anybody involved in language teaching (any language, not just English!), teacher training, managing schools or developing language learning materials can benefit from using the framework.
Macroeconomics- Movie Location
This will be used as part of your Personal Professional Portfolio once graded.
Objective:
Prepare a presentation or a paper using research, basic comparative analysis, data organization and application of economic information. You will make an informed assessment of an economic climate outside of the United States to accomplish an entertainment industry objective.
Read| The latest issue of The Challenger is here! We are thrilled to announce that our school paper has qualified for the NATIONAL SCHOOLS PRESS CONFERENCE (NSPC) 2024. Thank you for your unwavering support and trust. Dive into the stories that made us stand out!
Welcome to TechSoup New Member Orientation and Q&A (May 2024).pdfTechSoup
In this webinar you will learn how your organization can access TechSoup's wide variety of product discount and donation programs. From hardware to software, we'll give you a tour of the tools available to help your nonprofit with productivity, collaboration, financial management, donor tracking, security, and more.
Unit 8 - Information and Communication Technology (Paper I).pdfThiyagu K
This slides describes the basic concepts of ICT, basics of Email, Emerging Technology and Digital Initiatives in Education. This presentations aligns with the UGC Paper I syllabus.
A Strategic Approach: GenAI in EducationPeter Windle
Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies such as Generative AI, Image Generators and Large Language Models have had a dramatic impact on teaching, learning and assessment over the past 18 months. The most immediate threat AI posed was to Academic Integrity with Higher Education Institutes (HEIs) focusing their efforts on combating the use of GenAI in assessment. Guidelines were developed for staff and students, policies put in place too. Innovative educators have forged paths in the use of Generative AI for teaching, learning and assessments leading to pockets of transformation springing up across HEIs, often with little or no top-down guidance, support or direction.
This Gasta posits a strategic approach to integrating AI into HEIs to prepare staff, students and the curriculum for an evolving world and workplace. We will highlight the advantages of working with these technologies beyond the realm of teaching, learning and assessment by considering prompt engineering skills, industry impact, curriculum changes, and the need for staff upskilling. In contrast, not engaging strategically with Generative AI poses risks, including falling behind peers, missed opportunities and failing to ensure our graduates remain employable. The rapid evolution of AI technologies necessitates a proactive and strategic approach if we are to remain relevant.
How to Make a Field invisible in Odoo 17Celine George
It is possible to hide or invisible some fields in odoo. Commonly using “invisible” attribute in the field definition to invisible the fields. This slide will show how to make a field invisible in odoo 17.
The French Revolution, which began in 1789, was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France. It marked the decline of absolute monarchies, the rise of secular and democratic republics, and the eventual rise of Napoleon Bonaparte. This revolutionary period is crucial in understanding the transition from feudalism to modernity in Europe.
For more information, visit-www.vavaclasses.com
Biological screening of herbal drugs: Introduction and Need for
Phyto-Pharmacological Screening, New Strategies for evaluating
Natural Products, In vitro evaluation techniques for Antioxidants, Antimicrobial and Anticancer drugs. In vivo evaluation techniques
for Anti-inflammatory, Antiulcer, Anticancer, Wound healing, Antidiabetic, Hepatoprotective, Cardio protective, Diuretics and
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4. • to the outer world
• Mimetic Criticism
• to the reader
• Pragmatic Criticism
• To the author
• Expressionism Criticism
• Treat the work as an entity itself
• Objective Criticism
. . . inexplainingand judgingawork of literature, theyreferthework
primarily . . .
5. Assessment of creative work: considered judgment of or
discussion about the qualities of something, especially a
creative work
More specifically literary criticism, is the overall term
for studies concerned with defining, classifying, analyzing,
interpreting, and evaluating works of literature.
Presentation on Criticism
Presentation on Critical Theory vs Criticism
6. Theoretical criticism proposes an explicit theory of
literature, in the sense of general principles, together with a set
of terms, distinctions, and categories, to be applied to
identifying and analyzing works of literature, as well as the
criteria (the standards, or norms) by which these works and
their writers are to be evaluated.
The earliest, and enduringly important, treatise of theoretical
criticism was Aristotle's Poetics (fourth century B.C.). Among
the most influential theoretical critics in the following centuries
were Longinus in Greece; Horace in Rome; Boileau and Sainte-
Beuve in France; Baumgarten and Goethe in Germany; Samuel
Johnson, Coleridge, and Matthew Arnold in England; and Poe
and Emerson in America. Landmarks of theoretical criticism in
the first half of the twentieth century are I. A. Richards,
Principles of Literary Criticism (1924); Kenneth Burke, The
Philosophy of Literary Form (1941, rev. 1957); Eric Auerbach,
Mimesis (1946); R. S. Crane, ed., Critics and Criticism (1952); and
Northrop Frye, Anatomy of Criticism (1957).
7. Practical criticism, or applied criticism, concerns itself with
the discussion of particular works and writers; in an applied
critique, the theoretical principles controlling the mode of the
analysis, interpretation, and evaluation are often left implicit, or
brought in only as the occasion demands.
Among the more influential works of applied criticism in England
and America are the literary essays of Dryden in the Restoration;
Dr. Johnson's Lives of the English Poets (1779-81); Coleridge's
chapters on the poetry of Wordsworth in Biographia Literaria
(1817) and his lectures on Shakespeare; William Hazlitt‘s lectures
on Shakespeare and the English poets, in the second and third
decades of the nineteenth century; Matthew Arnold's Essays in
Criticism (1865 and following); I. A. Richards' Practical Criticism
(1930); T. S. Eliot's Selected Essays (1932); and the many critical
essays by Virginia Woolf, F. R. Leavis, and Lionel Trilling. Cleanth
Brooks' The Well Wrought Urn (1947) exemplifies the "close
reading" of single texts which was the typical mode of practical
criticism in the American New Criticism.
Practical criticism is sometimes distinguished into
impressionistic and judicial criticism:
8. Impressionistic criticism attempts to represent in words the
felt qualities of a particular passage or work, and to express the
responses (the "impression“) that the work directly evokes from the
critic.
As William Hazlitt put it in his essay "On Genius and Common
Sense" (1824): "You decide from feeling, and not from reason; that is,
from the impression of a number of things on the mind . . . though
you may not be able to analyze or account for it in the several
particulars."
And Walter Pater later said that in criticism "the first step toward
seeing one's object as it really is, is to know one's own impression as it
really is, to discriminate it, to realize it distinctly," and posed as the
basic question, "What is this song or picture . . . to me'' (preface to
Studies in the History of the renaissance, 1873).
At its extreme this mode of criticism becomes, in Anatole France's
phrase, "the adventures of a sensitive soul among masterpieces."
9. Judicial criticism, on the other hand, attempts not
merely to communicate, but to analyze and explain the
effects of a work by reference to its subject, organization,
techniques, and style, and to base the critic's individual
judgments on specified criteria of literary excellence.
Rarely are these two modes of criticism sharply distinct in
practice, but good examples of primarily impressionistic
commentary can be found in the Greek Longinus (see the
characterization of the Odyssey in his treatise On the
Sublime), Hazlitt, Walter Pater (the locus classicus of
impressionism is his description of Leonardo‘s Mona Lisa
in The Renaissance, 1873), and some of the twentieth-
century critical essays of E. M. Forster and Virginia Woolf.
10. Types of traditional critical theories and of applied
criticism can be usefully distinguished according to
whether, in explaining and judging a work of
literature, they refer the work primarily to the outer
world (Mimetic), or to the reader (Pragmatic), or to
the author (Expressionist), or else treat the work as an
entity in itself (Objective):
11. Mimetic criticism views the literary work as an
imitation, or reflection, or representation of the
world and human life, and the primary criterion
applied to a work is the "truth" of its representation to
the subject matter that it represents, or should
represent.
This mode of criticism, which first appeared in Plato
and (in a qualified way) in Aristotle, remains
characteristic of modern theories of literary realism.
12. Pragmatic criticism views the work as something
which is constructed in order to achieve certain effects on
the audience (effects such as aesthetic pleasure,
instruction, or kinds of emotion), and it tends to judge the
value of the work according to its success in achieving that
aim.
This approach, which largely dominated literary discussion
from the versified Art of Poetry by the Roman Horace (first
century B.C.) through the eighteenth century, has been
revived in recent rhetorical criticism, which emphasizes the
artistic strategies by which an author engages and
influences the responses of readers to the matters
represented in a literary work. The pragmatic approach has
also been adopted by some structuralists who analyze a
literary text as a systematic play of codes which effect the
interpretative responses of the reader.
13. Expressive criticism treats a literary work primarily in
relation to its author.
It defines poetry as an expression, or overflow, or utterance
of feelings, or as the product of the poet's imagination
operating on his or her perceptions, thoughts, and feelings;
it tends to judge the work by its sincerity, or its adequacy to
the poet's individual vision or state of mind; and it often
seeks in the work evidences of the particular temperament
and experiences of the author who, consciously or
unconsciously, has revealed himself or herself in it.
Such views were developed mainly by romantic critics in
the early nineteenth century and remain current in our
own time, especially in the writings of psychological and
psychoanalytic critics and in critics of consciousness
as George Poulet and the Geneva School.
14. Objective criticism deals with a work of literature as something
which stands free from what is often called "extrinsic" relations to the
poet, or to the audience, or to the environing world.
Instead it describes the literary product as a self-sufficient and
autonomous object, or else as a world-in-itself, which is to be
contemplated as its own end, and to be analyzed and judged solely by
"intrinsic" criteria such as its complexity, coherence, equilibrium,
integrity, and the interrelations of its component elements.
The general viewpoint of the self-sufficiency of an aesthetic object was
proposed in Kant's Critique of Aesthetic Judgment (1790)—see
distance and involvement—-was up by proponents of art for art's
sake in the latter part of the nineteenth century, and has been
elaborated in detailed modes of applied criticism by a number of
important critics since the 1920s, including the New Critics, the
Chicago School, and proponents of European formalism
15. Deus ex Machina is Latin for "a god from a
machine." It describes the practice of some Greek
playwrights (especially Euripides) to end a drama with
a god, lowered to the stage by a mechanical apparatus,
who by his judgment and commands resolved the
dilemmas of the human characters. The phrase is now
used for any forced and improbable device—a telltale
birthmark, an unexpected inheritance, the discovery
of a lost will or letter—by which a hard pressed author
resolves a plot. Conspicuous examples occur even in
major novels like Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist (1837-
38) and Thomas Hardy's Tess of the D'Urbervilles
(1891).
16. Among the ancient Greeks the chorus was a group of people, wearing masks,
who sang or chanted verses while performing dancelike maneuvers at religious
festivals.
A similar chorus played a part in Greek tragedies, where (in the plays of
Aeschylus and Sophocles) they served mainly as commentators on the
dramatic actions and events who expressed traditional moral, religious, and
social attitudes; beginning with Euripides, however, the chorus assumed
primarily a lyrical function.
During the Elizabethan Age the term "chorus" was applied also to a single
person who spoke the prologue and epilogue to a play, and sometimes
introduced each act as well. This character served as the author's vehicle for
commentary on the play, as well as for exposition of its subject, time, and
setting, and the description of events happening offstage.
Modern scholars use the term choral character to refer to a person within
the play itself who stands apart from the action and by his comments provides
the audience with a special perspective (often an ironic perspective) through
which to view the other characters and events
17. The term is broadly applied to literary, and especially to dramatic,
representations of serious actions which eventuate in a disastrous
conclusion for the protagonist (the chief character).
More precise and detailed discussions of the tragic form properly
begin—although they should not end—with Aristotle‘s classic analysis
in the Poetics (fourth century B.C.).
Aristotle based his theory on induction from the only examples
available to him, the tragedies of Greek dramatists such as Aeschylus,
Sophocles, and Euripides.
In the subsequent two thousand years and more, many new and
artistically effective types of serious plots ending in a catastrophe have
been developed—types that Aristotle had no way of foreseeing. The
many attempts to stretch Aristotle's analysis to apply to later tragic
forms serve merely to blur his critical categories and to obscure
important differences among diverse types of plays, all of which have
proved to be dramatically effective.
When flexibly managed, however, Aristotle's discussions apply in some
part to many tragic plots, and his analytic concepts serve as a suggestive
starting point for identifying the differentiae of various non-
Aristotelian modes of tragic construction.
18. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, critics of the drama in Italy and
France added to Aristotle's unity of action, which he describes in his Poetics,
two other unities, to constitute one of the rules of drama known as "the
three unities."
On the assumption that verisimilitude—the achievement of an illusion of
reality in the audience of a stage play—requires that the action represented
by a play approximate the actual conditions of the staging of the play, they
imposed the requirement of the "unity of place” (that the action
represented be limited to a single location) and the requirement of the
"unity of time" (that the time represented be limited to the two or three
hours it takes to act the play, or at most to a single day of either twelve or
twenty-four hours).
In large part because of the potent example of Shakespeare, many of whose
plays represent frequent changes of place and the passage of many years,
the unities of place and time never dominated English neoclassicism as
they did criticism in Italy and France. A final blow was the famous attack
against them, and against the principle of dramatic verisimilitude on which
they were based, in Samuel Johnson's "Preface to Shakespeare" (1765). Since
then in England, the unities of place and time (as distinguished from the
unity of action) have been regarded as entirely optional devices, available to
the playwright to achieve special effects of dramatic concentration.