h he had (as one might say) got on very well without
them, and was finally set forth in Horatian verse by Boileau. Thus it
came to be overlooked that there is nothing in Aristotle's statement to
show that in his judgment unity of time and place are, like unity of
action, absolute dramatic laws. Their object is by representing an
action as visibly continuous to render its unity more distinctly or
easily perceptible. But the imagination is capable of constructing for
itself the bridges required for preserving to an action, conceived of as
such, its character of continuousness. In another sense these rules were
convenient usages conducing to a concise and clear treatment of a
limited kind of themes; for they were a Greek invention, and the
repeated resort to the same group of myths made it expedient for a Greek
poet to seek the subject of a single tragedy in a part only of one of
the myths at his disposal. The observance of unity of place, moreover,
was suggested to the Greeks by certain outward conditions of their
stage--as assuredly as it was adopted by the French in accordance with
the construction and usages of theirs, and as the neglect of it by the
Elizabethans was in their case encouraged by the established form of the
English scene. The palpable artificiality of these laws needs no
demonstration, so long as the true meaning of the term "action" be kept
in view. Of the action of _Othello_ part takes place at Venice and part
at Cyprus, and yet the whole is one in itself; while the limits of time
over which an action--Hamlet's progress to resolve, for
instance--extends cannot be restricted by a revolution of the earth
round the sun or of the moon round the earth.

Completeness of action.

In a drama which presents its action as _one_, this action must be
_complete in itself_. This Aristotelian law, like the other,
distinguishes the dramatic action from its subject. The former may be
said to have a real artistic, while the latter has only an imaginary
real, completeness. The historian, for instance, is aware that the
complete exposition of a body of events and transactions at which he
aims can never be more than partially accomplished, since he may present
only what he knows, and all human knowledge is imperfect. But Art is
limited by no such uncertainty. The dramatist, in treating an action as
_one_, comprehends the whole of it in the form of his work, since, to
him who has _conceived_ it, all its parts, from cau