Quote: "In composing the Odyssey he did not include all the adventures of Odysseus....", this instructs us to make a choice what's interesting and worth telling as every character has many dimensions and many stories to tell, but, not every story is interesting. I think Aristotle means with one action the plot. The oneness of the plot exists when every action leads back to the plot. So, every unneccessary event must be cut out. It's like a spider weaving its web, he's in control of his art work, and every thread leads back to the center no matter where you step in.

As usual, quite a lot of ink and paper have been expended to explain what Aristotle meant by unity of action. We can glean some insight by looking at the 2 works he singles out for praise, Homer’s ‘Iliad’ and ‘The Odyssey’, but I'm not sure we come away with a consistent definition. The unity of action in ‘The Odyssey’ is clear cut and proactive: the protagonist, Ulysses, struggles to get home to Ithaca after the Trojan War. There are many adventures along the way, many colorful characters, but all the incidents arise or are directly related to the protagonist’s struggle for a singular purpose, his unity of action: get home. ‘The Iliad’ is different. The entire epic is framed by the wrath of Achilles, the causes and devastating consequences for the Greek alliance. “Rage-–Goddess, sing the rage of Peleus’ son Achilles, murderous, doomed, that cost the Achaeans countless lives”. Achilles refuses to fight because he’s been dissed — his honor and dignity have been betrayed by Agamemmnon. The unity of action for the first 2/3 of the epic (by my page count) is…is… is… Achilles’ sitting out the Trojan War in high dudgeon! The Iliad has many set pieces, a cast of thousands, super-heroes in abundance (Odysseus, Ajax, Hector), a beautiful casus belli (Helen) and all the Greek gods meddling from Mt. Olympus. And all of that is framed by the pique of Achilles and how it plays out for the fortunes of the adversaries. This is unity of action? Only after the death of his beloved friend Patroclus does Achilles reverse his position (literally and figuratively) and resume fighting. And then he goes on a murderous rampage, utterly beserk — war rage! What we can say is there is a unifying issue in the 'Iliad' that frames the story from first to last: the anger management problem of the legendary Greek super-hero, Achilles.

Whatever Aristotle meant by "unity of action", for me it's what gets encapsulated in a good logline.

Still, for me, Idea delivers unity of action. Also logline :) As for great epic “The Illiad”, I’m not an expert though, I read somewhere ancient gods dealt with mortals’ Pride – the trait that distantly equate to strongest of sins. As far as I know, ancient Greeks didn’t have our common scale of good\bad deeds. The Unity may be some kind of complex sentence, for what I know. Even maybe so, we never get to the finished phrase of it, but it’s still there. So I decided to quote this piece from one of books I studied in the past, I think author followed Aristotle in very close step (if somehow it was possible, lol). Gustav Freytag TECHNIQUE OF THE DRAMA, from Part I “Idea": “In the soul of the poet, the drama gradually takes shape out of the crude material furnished by the account of some striking event. First appear single movements; internal conflicts and personal resolution, a deed fraught with consequence, the collision of two characters, the opposition of a hero to his surroundings, rise so prominently above their connection with other incidents, that they become the occasion for the transformation of other material. This transformation goes on to such an extent that the main element, vividly perceived, and comprehended in its entrancing, soul-stirring or terrifying significance, is separated from all that casually accompanies it, and with single supplementary, invented elements, is brought into a unifying relation of cause and effect. The new unit which thus arises is the Idea of the Drama. This is the center toward which further independent inventions are directed, like rays. This idea works with a power similar to the secret power of crystallization. Through this are unity of action, significance of characters, and at last, the whole structure of the drama produced.” And there’s one last paragraph from same chapter: "To transform material artistically, according to a unifying idea, means to idealize it. The characters of the poet, in contrast with the images from reality used as material, and according to a convenient craftsman's expression, are called ideals." In the middle were couple examples how it works. I like the part "new unit .. arises", as if it goes by itself. As if it always is meant to be.

Doesn't it seem as if he may be saying the unity of action must serve the illusion of the inevitability of the given story's outcome? The first example that popped into my head was the ram caught in the thicket in the Biblical story of Abraham and Isaac, revealed to Abraham just after God tested his willingness to sacrifice his son Isaac. I remember sitting in Sunday School feeling awfully sorry for that ram (and, feral child that I was, secretly disappointed that Isaac didn't get sacrificed after all) - but the poor beast must be there, entangled and ready to die. Someone's robe tangled in the bush, or a mouse caught in the brambles, wouldn't do - they would be mere distractions, rather than serving the story. Then I thought of the movie "Caught" (written by Edward Pomerantz), where the fishmonger's wife and a young drifter they've taken in move along through the unspooling story as if making individual choices, while the net draws ever tighter around them. And also Franco Zeffirelli's films, not only "Romeo and Juliet" but also the operas he filmed, "Pagliacci," "La Traviata," "Tosca," "Carmen" (poor deluded rebellious bird) - I think these operas appealed to his sensibilities as a filmmaker with their story lines that make the characters' fates feel inevitable by the end. And one odd analogy - with regard to the film making process and having to get a whole team to agree on unity of action and plot - seems a bit like a basketball tournament, where you begin with all the seeded teams; during the course of the games, one team's best guard pulls a hamstring, another has a shooter whose hand goes hot (or cold); the games go on until only one team is left standing - yet this seemingly inevitable outcome, whether an expected team's victory or an upset, now to be preserved in the sports annals, actually is the result of many choices made by many players throughout the duration of the event. . .a different outcome may have been possible at the beginning, but by the end, this outcome, and only this one, is inevitable.

‘Fate’ is recurring THEME in Hellenic writings. It looks like in your particular examples UNITY may be expressed with that theme, with that particular side of life, which is inevitable. In other words, this is something author intentionally puts in the narration, in this case fate is part of his story.

>>>I want some clarity on precisely what Aristotle means by “action”. Is it the inciting incident? The entire plot? Or does it describe something else? I think the general consensus among scholars is that Aristotle is referring to the plot as a whole. However, I read one interesting contrary opinion where the author argues that "unity of action" refers to the one decisive moment that the story builds to, the pivotal, climactic, emotionally laded scene where the protagonist must make the most difficult choice, faces the most difficult challenge (and/or where there is the biggest reveal) that determines his final fate.

Aristotle's 'action' sounds to me like what Terry Rossio describes as 'the task' of the main character: http://www.wordplayer.com/columns/wp30.The.Task.html

The idea of the task in relation to the goal is very interesting - thanks for sharing, Sven!