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In the theatre

Classicism in the theatre was developed by 17th century French playwrights from what they judged to be the rules of Greek classical theatre, including the " Classical unities " of time, place and action, found in the Poetics of Aristotle.

Examples of classicist playwrights are Pierre Corneille, Jean Racine and Molière. In the period of Romanticism, Shakespeare, who conformed to none of the classical rules, became the focus of French argument over them, in which the Romantics eventually triumphed; Victor Hugo was among the first French playwrights to break these conventions.

The influence of these French rules on playwrights in other nations is debatable. In the English theatre, Restoration playwrights such as William Wycherley and William Congreve would have been familiar with them. William Shakespeare and his contemporaries did not follow this Classicist philosophy, in particular since they were not French and also because they wrote several decades prior to their establishment. Those of Shakespeare's plays that seem to display the unities, such as The Tempest, probably indicate a familiarity with actual models from classical antiquity.

Most famous 18th-century Italian playwright and libretist Carlo Goldoni created a hybrid style of playwriting (combining the model of Molière with the strengths of Commedia dell'arte and his own wit and sincerity).