by Tom Stoppard

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

---

Blending the past and the present, he sets the past of this play in the late eighteenth century, at the nexus of the aesthetic shift from the neoclassic preference for balance and grace to the nineteenth century romantic/gothic taste for chaos, disorder, and primitivism. He creates fictional characters who inhabit both the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, linking them by historical figures including the mathematician/astronomer Sir Isaac Newton, the rebellious/romantic poet Byron, and the landscape gardener Capability Brown. In a play which is at once comic and tragic, Stoppard asks the audience to juggle the sensibilities of three centuries simultaneously while we also ponder deeply disturbing questions about the nature of the universe and the essence of human relationships. Not for the intellectual faint of heart (mind?), Stoppard challenges us to examine the very premises of our existence.

— J. Karen Ray Professor of English

Arcadia, the name of a real and picturesque region in Greece, is used in literature to connote an ideal land of rustic peace and contentment. It suggests rural withdrawal and simple happiness and is synonymous with the terms bucolic or pastoral. Tom Stoppard plays with the meaning of this term and a number of other even larger concepts—including history, literature, science, mathematics, and the development of modern thought—in his typically mind-bending play, Arcadia.

---

[ WU Home ] [ Directory & Information ] [ Emergency Contacts ] [ Site Map ] [ Contact WU ] [ Important Policies ]  [ Accessibility ]
© 2000-2009 Washburn University, 1700 SW College Ave, Topeka, Kansas 66621 (785) 670-1010
Contact webmaster@washburn.edu with questions or comments.