s treasure is not the
action of _The Miser_. Again, unity of action, while excluding those
unconnected episodes which Aristotle so severely condemns, does not
prohibit the introduction of one or even more subsidiary actions as
contributing to the progress of the main action. The sole indispensable
law is that these should always be treated as what they are--subsidiary
only; and herein lies the difficulty, which Shakespeare so successfully
overcame, of fusing a combination of subjects taken from various sources
into the idea of a single action; herein also lies the danger in the use
of that favourite device of the Spanish and other modern
dramas--"by-plots" or "under-plots." On the other hand, the modern
French drama has largely employed another device--quite legitimate in
itself--for increasing the interest of an action without destroying its
unity. This may be called the dramatic use of backgrounds, the
depiction of surroundings on which the action or its chief characters
seem sympathetically to reflect themselves, backbiting "good villagers"
or academicians who inspire one another--with tedium. But a really
double or multiple action, logically carried out as such, is
inconceivable in a single drama, though many a play is palpably only two
plays knotted into one. It was therefore not all pedantry which
protested against the multiplicity of action which had itself formed
part of the revolt against the too narrow interpretation of unity
adopted by the French classical drama. Thirdly, unity of action need not
imply unity of hero--for hero (or heroine) is merely a conventional term
signifying the principal personage of the action. It is only when the
change in the degree of interest excited by different characters in a
play results from a change in the conception of the action itself, that
the consequent _duality_ (or multiplicity) of heroes recalls a faulty
uncertainty in the conception of the action they carry on. Such an
objection, while it may hold in the case of Schiller's _Don Carlos_,
would therefore be erroneously urged against Shakespeare's _Julius
Caesar_. Lastly, as to the theory which made the so-called unities of
_time_ and _place_ constitute, together with that of _action_, the Three
Unities indispensable to the (tragic) drama, the following note must
suffice. Aristotle's supposed exaction of all the Three Unities, having
been expanded by Chapelain and approved by Richelieu, was stereotyped by
Corneille, thoug