Anywhere on this page, click on 'the rail,' the vertical blue band on the left, to go to top of page quickly and easily. So, after consulting one entry in the list below, you can go back to the top of the page to consult the list again, if you wish, by simply clicking anywhere on the blue band. To read about this innovation in Web Design, please click here.
Introduction
The key system
The unities of dramatic theory
{distance} The theme is applied to time as well as space, to experienced distance as well as empirical, measurable distance. It tends, at greater values, to {remoteness}.
The {distance} between C major and G major is small. Only one note is changed, F becoming F sharp. D major is more distant from C major. The key C sharp major is remote from C major, in fact the most distant of all. The two keys don't have one note in common, even though the scale is based on the note next to C. (On the piano, there is physical proximity rather than remoteness.) The scheme of key linkages is generally shown as a circle.
The unities of dramatic theory
The unities were codified by neo-classical writers, basing their work on the discussion in Aristotle's 'Poetics.' There are three unities:
(1) Unity of action. A play should have a principal action,
without appreciable diversification or digression.
(2) Unity of time. The action should take less than 24 hours,
excluding the lapse of days, weeks, months or years.
(3) Unity of place. The play should be within a single space,
not represent, in turn, many places.
Using the term from the internet, a play which restricts itself to the unities uses home action, home time and home place. If a play is set within the same domestic interior for the first four scenes but in scene 5 the action is within a wood, then there is {distance} from the action of the first four scenes. Similarly, if in the first four scenes action is continuous and present-day but in scene five the action shifts to a period ten years before, then there is the introduction of {distance} of time.
