Sidney's view on three unities expressed in "An Apology for Poetry".

Sir Philip Sidney is a strong advocate of three dramatic unities, of time, place and action. These three unities must be a true copy of life. Sidney in his literary critique, "An Apology for Poetry" regretted that none of the English plays except "Gorboduc", to some extent, observed the unities.

    According to Sidney, Unity of time requires that the plot should not exceed the limit of one natural day of twenty four hours. If the action exceeds the limit, the play would appear to be highly unnatural. Sidney means to say that if the play contains the incidents of two days, then the drama should be staged for two days, then it may be convenient.

    Again Sidney says that the unity of place requires that the action of the play  should not shift frequently from one distant place to another. But the English dramatists used the same stage as a garden, as a shipwreck, as a cave, or as a 'pitched field'. This is straining the imagination of the spectator to a breaking point. This is highly illogical, according to Sidney. So it must be avoided.

    And finally he says of the unity of action. It should be no admixture of the comic and tragic scenes in the most absurd way. A comedy should be a comedy and a tragedy should be a tragedy from the very beginning till the end. The king and the clown should not be mixed up on the stage.