It is, if I may so phrase it, a double-barrelled illusion. _Getting
Married_ has not the unity of the Greek drama, and the Greek drama has
not the unity of _Getting Married_. Whatever "unity" is predicable of
either form of art is a wholly different thing from whatever "unity" is
predicable of the other. Mr. Shaw, in fact, is, consciously or
unconsciously, playing with words, very much as Lamb did when he said to
the sportsman, "Is that your own hare or a wig?" There are, roughly
speaking, three sorts of unity: the unity of a plum-pudding, the unity
of a string or chain, and, the unity of the Parthenon. Let us call them,
respectively, unity of concoction, unity of concatenation, and
structural or organic unity. The second form of unity is that of most
novels and some plays. They present a series of events, more or less
closely intertwined or interlinked with one another, but not built up
into any symmetrical interdependence. This unity of longitudinal
extension does not here concern us, for it is not that of either Shaw or
Sophocles.
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