Poetika’da Zaman ve Mekân

Zaman/ Mekân Sempozyumu, İstanbul, Türkiye, 5 - 06 Mayıs 2016, ss.12

Time and Place in Poetics.

The “three unities” rule refers to the single action, single place and 24 hours plot

duration for a play. It is commonly held in drama literatüre that Aristotle suggested

this rule for tragedies in his Poetics. However, Aristotle does not talk about “unity of

location” in Poetics, and it is not possible to arrive a clear conclusion about time from

his statements. In 1449b, Aristotle uses the word “meko?' when he compares the

genres of Epos and tragedy in terms of duration. The exact meaning of this word is

“length”, “height” or “distance”. Aristotle States that Epos does not have a time

limitation but tragedies should be limited with “one period of the sun”. However, the

statements are not clear: does “one period of the sun” refer to the duration of the play

on the stage or to the time of action in the plot? In the second passage Aristotle

mentions this issue (1451a), it becomes clear that he means the duration of time

covered in the plot. Yet this time he replaces the criterion of “one period of the sun”

with “perceptibility” by the audience.

In my presentation, I will argue that Aristotle did not put forward the rule of three

unities, and we cannot talk about any rule concerning the parameters of time and

place.