1.

IntroductionThis paper will analyse the significance of the Aristotelian Unities

in William Shakespeare’s

Hamlet, The most representative drama of the western civilisation and its plot
takes place in the Castle ofElsinore, which may be seen as only a unity of space, as
if it kind of conforms to one of threeAristotelian unities. But the aim of this paper
is to analyse how Shakespeare dealt with the Unities.Firstly, it will be illustrated
the origin of the three Classical Unites through a short historical excursusand
secondly how Shakespeare dealt in general with this perspective criticism in
general and the inthe case of

Hamlet

.2. The Aristotelian Unities in RenaissanceBefore looking closely how the three
Aristotelian unities conform or not to the tragedy of Hamlet, itis necessary to
introduce briefly, in which way this perspective criticism set in during the
Englishliterary period that spans from the late fifteenth to the seventeenth century,
namely the Renaissance.The first Renaissance humanists found a tie with the great
classics and took them as model, by doingso they started to institute the practice of
imitating Classical texts. The Renaissance humanists,especially the Italian ones,
made their own theory of drama from the Greek tragedians and foremostfrom the

Poetics

of Aristotle

, a work that was unavailable before the end of the fifteenth century andthat was
not widely known before the middle of the sixteenth. The impact of this text on
Renaissanceliterary criticism was unprecedented. The translations, editions and
commentaries of the

Poetics

andits literary reception from the fifteenth to the eighteenth century is different
from all those receptionswhich have preceded them. On one hand this is due to the
fact that the literary interpretation of the

Poetics

was unhistorical in these centuries, since this type of criticism did not take into
account itshistorical background and the general philosophical conceptions of
Aristotle. On the other hand inthe fifteenth and sixteenth centuries the majority of
work were realized in Italy, where the scholars produced more unnecessary and
mistaken emendations than appropriate ones and these scholars didnot know the
principle of textual criticism.

One of the main precursors of those scholars and authorsis Ludovico Castelvetro,
who wrote

The Poetics of Aristotle in the Vulgar Language

, the first majorcommentary on the Poetics. Castelvetro refuses Aristotle

s theory and suggests his own theories

conceptions and assumptions of Poetry, instead that of Aristotle.

an incomplete draft on the subject [...] It is therefore not surprising to see that
Castelvetro opposessome of the key ideas of the Poetics [...] Thus it is clear that
while Aristotle posits only the unity of

Reiss page 231

Taran and Gutas page 36

Weinberg page 69

plot, not that of time and that of space, Castelvetro, however, maintains that there
are three unities oftime, of place, and of plot and that in fact the latter is a
consequence of the former two.

So Castelvetro added to the single unity of action, the unities of time and place.
This type of criticism
made on Aristotle’s

Poetics

portrays the worst mistake of the neoclassical humanists, who turned

Aristotle’ observations into arbitrary rules and even foisted on him rules for which
his

texts furnishno pretext at all

. Consequently, from this kind of misinterpretation, the theory of three unities

3. Shakespeare and the ClassicsAfter introducing the three unities from this short
historical excursus and after shedding a light onthis exemplum of literary criticism.
This paragraph will analyse how Shakespeare dealt with thesethree unities, to do so
it is important to recall firstly what the three Aristotelian unities demanded. Assaid
before, the three unities are represented by the Unity of Action, the Unity of Space
and the Unityof Time. Regarding the precepts of the neoclassicals, a drama should
respect all the three unites, inorder to be a proper drama:
Unity of Action: a play should have one single action, hence the focus should
beconcentrated on one central happening

Unity of Time: the dramatic action could not exceed one day

Unity of Space: the action can occur only in one placeAccording to Castelvetro, if
dramatic action is continuous, so that dramatic time and stage time areidentical,
hence it is impossible to suppose that the setting has changed. This is due to the
fact thatunities of time and place are a consequence of the verisimilitude concept,
which became a controllingdoctrine of neoclassicism. Thus the unities of time and
place were consequences of the belief inverisimilitude and it indeed control
neoclassical thought in regard to the nature of truth in the theatre

. Neoclassical theorists felt that the switch of space and sudden jumps in time woul
d overload theimaginary of the audience and that the breaches of those principles
would threaten or destroy thedramatic illusion. But such restrictions on time and
place could led also to endanger the principle of

Ivi 5
5

Lewis page 19

Preminger and Brogan page 1027

Hochman page 261

Ibid.

verisimilitude, that it has to be preserved and making the whole thing becomes
implausible.

Bycontrast

the form of Shakespeare’

s drama was not static and he dealt with diverse forms of dramas ofmultiple
origins, such as the rhetorical drama in the Senecan tradition or Mar

lowe’s powerful

tragedies.

10
Shakespeare was child of his time, since the Classics have had great influence on
hiswritings, he and his generation did read some Ovid and Seneca and imitating
classical literature waswhat they usually did at school. For instance, the Latin
revenge tragedy, which finds its archetype inthe Senecan

Thyestes

did affect the dramatic features and the main plot of Hamlet. Revenge
was probably the most dominant
theme of English Renaissance tragedy and it was a popular bestsellergenre. The
Revenge plays did draw on Senecan plays and less directly the Greek plays, which
Senecarevised. In fact early revenge dramas in England often translated or
imitated plays of Seneca.

11

So theLatin Literature and Latin writers, such as Seneca,

did have an influence on Shakespeare’s writings

and doubtlessly on

Hamlet

. Seneca was considered a great master of style and a great representativeof the
rhetoric, also because the Elizabethan tragedians were able to read Latin texts and
studied

Seneca’s tragedies, so

they sort of continued the tradition of Seneca. Thus the Elizabethans playwrights
did adopt the Senecan devices and his rhetorical work in their dramas, as for
instance theStichomythia, which was a Greek invention, but the Elizabethan
identified it with Seneca and it isabout the speech of each speaker as one line-one
verse, that was used typically in moments of conflict,since the language is used as
a kind of weapon, so we can imagine this type of language during ascene of great
pathos or tension. Foremost Shakespeare copies Seneca in

Titus Andronicus

and we dofind this type of language in

Hamlet

too, for instance in the first scene of the first act during thenightly change guard
between Barnardo and Francisco

12

Barnardo: Long live the King!Francisco: Barnardo?Barnardo: He.Francisco: You

Where the two cannot see each other, due to the darkness of the scene, so they did
not know whocould have come across in their pathway during the guard, so it is
clearly a moment of tension andthe verse uttered are very brief.To put in another
way Shakespeare revised and copied the Classics, and most probably he was well

aware of three unities, maybe through Sidney’s

The Defence of Poetry

, published in 1595, because

9
Pfister page 250

10

Ibidem

11

Pollard page

12

Elam page 115, Footnote 1