Greek Tragedy Rules
There are three different rules that a drama should observe:
1 Unity of Time- This means that a drama must all happen within a set 24 hour time frame. Other events can only be told by narration or flashback.
2 Unity of Place- This means that all the play must remain in the same scene and other events can only be told by messengers or other characters.
3 Unity of Action- This means that the play can only have one main plot and no subplots.
The Masks used in Greek tradegdy
This post was contributed by Piers Ryan (5th year Classical Studies student).
Thanks for that post Piers!
These rules of unity are usually credited to the Greek philosopher, Aristotle. (Teacher of Alexander the Great!) He discussed them in his work, ‘Poetics’.
We can see these rules applied in Euripides’ “Medea” and in Sophocles’ “Oedipus Rex”.