trilogy
please note:
- the text and code below is from The Pseudopedia
- it has been imported raw for GetWiki
{{Unreferenced|date=September 2009}}{{Otheruses|Trilogy (disambiguation)}}A
trilogy is a set of three works of art that are connected, and that can be seen either as a single work or as three individual works. They are most commonly found in
literature,
film, or
video games, less commonly in visual art or musical works.Most trilogies are works of
fiction involving the same characters or setting, such as
The Deptford Trilogy of
novels by
Robertson Davies or
The Godfather films of
Francis Ford Coppola. Others are connected only by theme: for example, each film of
Krzysztof Kieślowski's
Three Colors trilogy explores one of the political ideals of the
French Republic (
liberty, equality, fraternity) and each novel in
Paul Auster's
The New York Trilogy uses formats from
detective fiction to explore
existential questions. Trilogies can also be connected in less obvious ways, such as "
The Nova Trilogy" of novels by
William S. Burroughs, each written using
Brion Gysin’s
cut-up technique.Occasionally, the term is applied to music, such as the
Berlin Trilogy of
David Bowie, linked together by their musical sound and lyrical themes, and the fact that part of them was recorded in
Berlin,
Germany.It's not entirely clear why three works, rather than two or four or more, should be the iconic grouping.Trilogies — and series in general — are common in
science fiction and
fantasy because of the artistic importance of complex ideas and the commercial importance of brand names.A trilogy is different from a
triptych, which is three related or connected paintings that are created at one time and designed to be viewed only as a single work.
History
Ancient trilogies
Trilogies date back to ancient times. In the
Dionysia festivals of
ancient Greece, for example, trilogies of
plays were performed followed by a fourth
satyr play.
The Oresteia is the only surviving trilogy of these ancient Greek plays, originally performed at the festival in
Athens in
458 BC. The
three Theban plays, or
Oedipus cycle, by
Sophocles, originating in
5th century BC, is not a true example of a trilogy because the plays were written at separate times and with different themes/purposes.In
ancient India, an example of an early trilogy includes the
epic Mahabharata, which originally consisted of three portions.
Vyasa's original core portion of the epic was the
Jaya.
Vaisampayana's
Bharata expanded on the story, with Vyasa's
Jaya embedded within it. Ugrasrava eventually composed the
Mahabharata, with both Vyasa's
Jaya and Vaisampayana's
Bharata embedded within the epic.
Modern trilogies
Technical changes in printing and film in the mid to late 20th century made the creation of trilogies more feasible, while the development of mass media and modern global distribution networks has made them more likely to be lucrative.
Adding works to an existing trilogy
Creators of trilogies may later add more works. In such a case, the original three works may or may not keep the title "trilogy".
Richard Wagner's epic series of operas,
Der Ring des Nibelungen, is sometimes referred to as a trilogy even though it consists of four works:
Das Rheingold,
Die Walküre,
Siegfried, and
Götterdämmerung. The first work,
Das Rheingold, is more correctly considered a prelude despite the fact that it is longer than most operas. Performances of
The Ring are usually billed as three nights plus a prelude.By contrast,
The Foundation Series by
Isaac Asimov originally consisted of
Foundation, Foundation and Empire and
Second Foundation and was considered a trilogy. Asimov wrote several more Foundation books and
retroactively incorporated many of his other works into the
continuity of the series. Despite this, the first three books are still considered a trilogy because they contain a story that is self-contained. Further complicating the matter, the
Foundation series was originally eight short stories and novelettes written for science fiction magazines; its division into three books is more or less incidental.The first three novels in the
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series were dubbed a trilogy, and even after he extended the series, author
Douglas Adams continued to use the term for humorous effect - for example, calling
Mostly Harmless "the fifth book in the increasingly inaccurately named trilogy." The six
Star Wars films are generally separated into two trilogies; the "original trilogy" (the three films released between 1977 and 1983) and the "prequel trilogy" (the three films released between 1999 and 2005, which take place before the original three films).
Unofficial or mistaken trilogies
Sometimes a trio of works is known as a trilogy because of its creator. For example, before
Quentin Tarantino's
fourth film was released, his films
Reservoir Dogs,
Pulp Fiction, and
Jackie Brown were sometimes referred to as "the Quentin Tarantino trilogy", although the stories of the three films hardly interconnected.Three works with similar themes from a creator may later come to be known as a trilogy, especially if produced one after the other. The
Steven Spielberg films
(A.I. (film)|A.I.: Artificial Intelligence),
Minority Report, and
Catch Me If You Can are unofficially known as "the running man trilogy," because each featured a main character escaping a pursuer.
Terry Gilliam has dubbed his films
Time Bandits,
Brazil and
The Adventures of Baron Munchausen as "The Imagination Trilogy", in that each movie has to do with the imagination of humans in the three stages of life; child, man, elder man. Another example is the
Dollars Trilogy by
Sergio Leone; no continuity between the three movies was intended by Leone, but American marketers advertised the Clint Eastwood character in each film as being the same "
Man with No Name".One of the most popular "trilogies" of
fantasy books,
The Lord of the Rings by
J. R. R. Tolkien, is not a trilogy, though it is often referred to as such. Tolkien regarded it as a single work and divided it into a prologue, six books, and five appendices. Because of post-World War II paper shortages, it was originally published in three volumes. It is still most commonly sold as three volumes, but has also been published in one-volume and seven-volume editions (six books and the appendices).Occasionally, more than three works are planned but never finished. The
Gormenghast fantasy trilogy is a trilogy by default, as author
Mervyn Peake planned to write more novels set in that fictional world until his health failed.In contrast, some works that were originally intended to be trilogies have been reclassified due to subsequent additions.
Christopher Paolini changed the name of his "The Inheritance Trilogy" to
The Inheritance Cycle, having announced that he would be writing a fourth book.In some cases, a work is retroactively named a trilogy instead of having been designed as such by the authors, particularly if it is a
story arc of a continuously running series such a comic book or television show. This might be due to a vaguely recurring or coincidental theme in each installment. One example is issues 48, 49, and 50 of the original
Fantastic Four comic book which are notable for introducing the characters of
Galactus and
Silver Surfer. These are now commonly known as the Galactus Trilogy although the term wasn't used in the original issues.In the modern era of
home video, story arcs from a long-running television series might be packaged as a trilogy boxset even if they weren't presented as such in the original broadcast. The so-called E-Space Trilogy of
Doctor Who includes the stories
Full Circle, State of Decay, and
Warriors Gate. Other than being consecutive stories set in E-Space, the three stories are self contained.
Other numbered series
Although not to be found in any dictionary, words to describe sets of another number of works of art other than three are sometimes created by following the
Greek etymology of "trilogy". Using the Greek
numerical prefix, these would be as follows for series with between two and ten entries:{|class="wikitable"!Number in series!Word (Greek)!Word (variation)
|
|2|(No Greek equivalent)|Duology, and to a lesser extent dilogy (Greek) have been used in some pairs of sci-fi novels.
