The Comical Scene: Perspective and Civility on the Renaissance Stage

Neo-Aristotelian "unity" is often represented as a set of rules in restraint of theatrical invention. In Serlio's drawing of the "comical scene," we can see the stage the rules imply, and so imagine "unity," not just as a negation of diversity, but as a positive theatrical form, with its own logic, energy, and politics. This in turn suggests what is at stake when Ben Jonson refuses the "Shakespearean" fluidity of the English theater.