What are the 3 Unities of Drama as outlined by Aristotle in his text "POETICS"?
Unities, in drama, the three principles derived by French classicists from Aristotle’s Poetics; they require a play to have a single action represented as occurring in a single place and within the course of a day. These principles were called, respectively, unity of action, unity of place, and unity of time. These three unities were redefined in 1570 by the Italian humanist Lodovico Castelvetro in his interpretation of Aristotle, and they are usually referred to as “Aristotelian rules” for dramatic structure. Actually, Aristotle’s observations on tragedy are descriptive rather than prescriptive, and he emphasizes only one unity, that of plot, or action. (Sourced from ENCYLOPEDIA BRITANNICA)
“We are all born to our mothers straddling the grave”
ReplyDeleteI found the most interesting aspect of this video to be the way Nick Mount talks abut how Beckett “drops all pretense and pretentions” while writing. Beckett does this by stripping protagonists down to their bare essence- by making them homeless, tattily dressed and hungry. By stripping the characters of these necessities, Estragon and Vladimir drop all pretense and are more aware that life is perhaps meaningless, and that we are all born “straddling the grave.” Mount reflects that this is perhaps why all the prisoners at San Quentin appreciated “Waiting for Godot” more than their sophisticated counterparts. Since they themselves were stripped of excesses, their freedom even, they understood that that despite not knowing an answer, it is in human nature to wait for Godot.
Beckett also drops all pretentions by making his characters forget their roots and their cultural context. This is seen when Vladimir and Estragon don’t seem to remember if they had met Godot before, and if they remembered what he looked like. This is also seen when Estragon says he “might have read the Bible, but [he] can’t remember.” The cultural amnesia behind this line shows that not only religion is forgotten, but also all of Western inheritance. This amnesia is perhaps what helps us to remember that this culture is all for naught, because death is inevitable.
Another way in which Beckett drops all pretenses is by writing in French. According to Mount, Beckett wrote in French because it “freed him from the weight of literary convention.” By stripping off the excesses of language, Beckett can perhaps make the audience arrive at their own conclusions about the play better.