Poetika’da Zaman ve Mekân

Abstract

Time and Place in Poetics.The “three unities” rule refers to the single action, single place and 24 hours plotduration for a play. It is commonly held in drama literatüre that Aristotle suggestedthis rule for tragedies in his Poetics. However, Aristotle does not talk about “unity oflocation” in Poetics, and it is not possible to arrive a clear conclusion about time fromhis statements. In 1449b, Aristotle uses the word “meko?' when he compares thegenres 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 timelimitation but tragedies should be limited with “one period of the sun”. However, thestatements are not clear: does “one period of the sun” refer to the duration of the playon the stage or to the time of action in the plot? In the second passage Aristotlementions this issue (1451a), it becomes clear that he means the duration of timecovered 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 threeunities, and we cannot talk about any rule concerning the parameters of time andplace.