Arcadia

By Tom Stoppard
Directed by Jeffrey Parker
November 13th 15th 20th-22nd at 7:30pm
November 23rd at 2:30pm, 2014
MSU Denver Studio Theatre, King Center

A Pocket Study Guide to Arcadia

Compiled by Annabella Schmoker
Disclaimer: It is not necessary to have studied early nineteenth-century history or understand the
scientific theories discussed, in order to appreciate or enjoy this play!
BUT, here are some helpful notes that might be useful to you.

TOM STOPPARD

Tom Stoppards incredible dexterity for the

English language and the dazzling intellectual
acrobatics of his plays has always been
something that has captivated and puzzled
audiences over the late half century with
infamous plays such as Rosencrantz and
Guildenstern are Dead, Jumper, Travesties,
The Real Thing, Indian
Ink, The Invention of
Love, and of course
Arcadia. Even those
not familiar with his as
a playwright would
recognize his work as
the screenwriter for
the 1998 film
Shakespeare in Love.
None-the-less, even
more fascinating is that Stoppard was not

born a native English Speaker. Born Tom

Straussler in Zlin, Czechoslovakia in the year
1937, Tom and his family were forced to
move due to the German threat in Europe
during WWII. During this time Stoppards
father was killed and some time after his
mother remarried Kenneth Stoppard; thus
moving back to England in 1946. Jumping
ahead to 1954, Stoppard began his career as
a journalist. He worked for several papers
and magazines such as the Western Daily
Press, the Bristol Evening World, and as a
theater reviewer for Scene Magazine. Here
he found an interest in writing for the stage
and in 1960 he became a free-lance
journalist. In 1967 Stoppard became an over
night success with the opening of
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead at
the National Theater in London.

Regency Era
The Regency Era is a period in which a Regent rules in place of a King or Queen unable by
reason of health or age to rule (specifically, the period 1811-1820 during which George, the
Prince of Wales, ruled for his father, George III). More often than not the term is often used in
reference more extensively to the period between 1795 and 1837 as it has been characterized
in history and British culture by distinct trends in areas such as architecture, literature, fashion,
and politics. Two distinct cultural movements strongly influenced this era. First came the Age of
Reason, also known as the Enlightenment, which was strongly influenced by Classicism, the
ideas and styles of ancient Greece and Rome. These ideas and styles translate an aesthetic
notion of simplicity, harmony, restraint, proportion and reason. This aesthetic also brought
about an intellectual movement with foundations in rational human understanding. Essentially
believing that science could reveal nature as it truly is and how it could be controlled and
manipulated. In direct contrast was the Romanticism; an artistic and intellectual movement
coined so by its emphasis on the force of profound avid emotion as the most genuine source in
developing an aesthetic experience. The romantic movement was strongly influenced by a
revival of medieval appreciation, rejection of industrialization, and an emphasis on man
reconnecting with nature and therefore with his humanity.

British Landscape Gardening & Architecture

At the end of the Napoleonic wars, a new

social class had emerged, the middle class.
These middle class property owners by no
means had the land to generate elaborate
gardens; as became the custom in previous
years. Arcadia traces the historical
development
from
classicism to
romance
through the
changing
styles of
English
landscape
architecture.
In British
culture and
society of the
19th century,
in order to
rethink ones
position in the
world one
would redesign ones garden. The obsession
with landscape defines an individuals role as
a British aristocrat, and therefore change to
that threatens social order. A favorite and
leader to British Landscape Architecture was

Capability Brown (1716-1783). Nicknamed for

his habit of stating a clients acres as having
capabilities, or in other words possibility
for improvement. Characteristics of his works
were symmetrically classical patterns and
idealized states of nature. Humphrey Repton
(1752-1818),
took over as
leader of the
profession
after Browns
death in 1783.
He is best
known for his
red book,
used to depict
proposed to
improvement
by sketching
the after
product and
having it over
lap on top of a
before
sketch (who Noakes is in fact based). The
picturesque style of course stood in contrast
to the styles of Brown and Repton. Based on
the paintings and etchings of the Italian
painter and poet Salvator Rosa (1615-1675).

Byron
The historical Byron was reportedly in residence at his Newstead Abbey estate in April 1809,
and there is no evidence of his whereabouts between April 10 th and 12th, when the theatrical
Byron visits Stoppards nearby Sidley Park. Byron did leave England suddenly and secretively
from the Levant some time between April and July of that year (as he does in the play), and
scholars have been speculating about the reason ever since. Nobody really knows why Byron
left England so mysteriously.
People have been obsessed with the details of Lord Byrons life for centuries because its a
particularly fascinating life. This being because Byron consciously created a life mirroring his
poetry; deliberately creating a brooding, melancholy, Gothic-novel type that we have come to
associate in literature as the Byronic Hero.

Mathematics
3

Arcadia, among other things, is mainly about time and the questions we continue to ask in our
journey in this life to better understand our place in it. Philosophies about mathematics and
time have often been intertwined since BCE. Stoppard charts for us the many attempts made in
trying to answer these questions made in physics and mathematics over the last two hundred
years.
We begin the period of the 18th century as strongly influenced by the works of Aristotle and Sir
Isaac Newton. Newtonian physics of determinism essentially suggests that all natural forces are
predictable. With that, simple systems such as the swing of a pendulum could be described by
easily solvable linear equations; and unpredictable systems such as weather patterns and
animal populations were merely more complex and would require more complex equations in
order to be solved. Newtons laws essentially represented the means of finding order in the
chaos that is the our universe, it was not until the second law of Thermodynamics was explored
in 1811 by Baron Jean-Joseph Fourier that Newtons philosophies of determinism began to
crumble. The second law of thermodynamics states that in a natural phenomenon, there is an
increase in the sum of the entropies of the participating systems; Entropy suggests that the
dissipation of energy will lead to the inevitable end of the world; essentially the descent from
order into disorder. Enter Chaos Theory, which has only begun to be discovered in the last half
of this century with the introduction of computers. The theory looks at the behavior of
dynamical systems that are highly sensitive to initial conditionsa response popularly referred
to as the butterfly effect. Chaos Theory is used to model every day events such as weather
prediction, population dynamics, models of the heart and brain, the circulatory system of the
body, and fluid flow. Fractal Geometry is therefore the offspring of Chaos Theory. These are the
pictures or graphs of chaotic systems of equations, some times even seen in nature as
imperfect shapes.

What is Arcadia?
The term Arcadia comes from a region of Greece idealized by the Roman poet Virgil (70-19 B.C.)
as a serene garden paradise in which man lived in natural harmony with the elements and his
fellow creatures, an Eden, if you will. Virgils poem also influenced Nicolas Poussin to paint
Et in Arcadia ego (the literal Latin translation, And I am in Arcadia). The phrase originally
comes from the Latin poet Virgil. The painting represents a group of shepherds in Arcadia
discovering a tomb on which the inscription Et in Arcadia ego is carved.

Glossary
a prize essay of the scientific Academy in
Paris: Reference to Fouriers Heat Equation.
Jean Baptiste Joseph (Baron) Fourier French

Geometrician and physicist (1768-1830). The

equation is described and commented upon in

general terms by both Septimus and Thomasina

in the text.
Anchorite: A person who retires to a solitary
place for religious contemplation.

Claude Lorraine: (1600-1682) French landscape

painter. In the last ten years of his life painted six
works showing scenes from the adventures of
Aeneas, all scrupulously following the text of
Virgils epic poem, The Aeneid.

Archimedes: (287-212 BC) Greek mathematician.

Known for the Archimedian screw a device
for raising water in the shape of a corkscrew.

Cornhill Magazine: London, J. Murray. Published

from 1860-1975. A literary magazine that
published serialized stories and short stories.

Baron Gottfried Wilhelm Von Leibnitz: German

philosopher and mathematician (1646-1716).

Curlew: a large bird long legs and a long curved

bill.

Beau Brummel: George Bryan Brummel (17781840). Famous English society leader and beau,
i.e., a dandy.
Brideshead Revisited: A novel by Evelyn Waugh
about the pre World War I aristocracy.

Devonshire House: The London residence of the

Duke of Devonshire, a mansion built in the 18th
century by William Kent. Located at the corner of
Piccadilly and Berkeley Street, across from Green
Park.

Brighton and Hove Argus: Daily newspaper.

DNB: Dictionary of National Biography.

Brockett Hall: Caroline Lambs home.

Edinburgh: Scottish Periodical

Butts and Beaters: Beaters, of course, are

individuals who walk through a field beating the
brush to flush out game. Presumably butts are
what one beats with.

Edmund Spencer: (1522-1599) Poet, and author

of The Fairy Queen.

Cabalistic: A system of occult or theosophist

interpretations of scripture originated by Jewish
rabbis and passed into Christian tradition in the
Middle Ages.
Caro, Carnis: translated as Flesh, Flesh
(feminine).

English Bards and Scotch Reviewers: Byrons

satirical verse commentary on his
contemporaries.
Etonian: One who attended Eton, a Prestigious
English public school.
Euripides: (484-406 BC) Greek Playwright of
Medea, Hippolytus, The Bacchae.

The Castle of Otranto: An early Gothic novel by

Horace Walpole.

Fractals: geometric shapes that represent the

mathematical expression of complex natural
phenomena. Discovered in the 1970s by

Chatsworth: The country home of the Duke of

Devonshire located four miles east of Blakewell
in Derbyshire. Landscaped by Capability Brown.

Florence Nightingale: (1820-1910) English

philanthropist and nurse.

King Charles II: King of England 1660-1685 (Born

1630). Restored to the throne in 1660 after 11
years in exile following the execution of his
father, Charles I (Charles Stuart) in 1649 by Oliver
Cromwell.

Gallic Wars: The wars through which the Romans

captured Gaul, roughly the area of contemporary
France. Recounted in Caesars Comentaries a
standard beginning Latin text. (Omnia Gallia in
tres partes divisa est: All Gaul is divided into
three parts. Or something like that.)

Christies: The London auction house.

5

George Spencer: 5th Duke of Marlborough (17761840), amateur dabbler in the arts, noted for his
musical compositions.
Guinea: An English gold coin worth 21 shillings.
Discontinued in 1813.
Ha-Ha: An unseen trench or ditch. A sunken
fence.
Harrow: Prestigious public school.
Headlong Hall: published in 1815. Thomas Love
Peacocks first novel. A farce. It contains a satire
of an actual controversy about landscape
gardening which had erupted in 1810 between
the famous landscape gardeners of the day to
the quality of Capability Browns style of gardens.

Lacte et Carne Vivunt: Translate they live on

milk and meat.
The Levant: The Middle East
Linnean Society: Presumably historical. Named
after the Swedish Naturalist Karl Von Linne
(1707-1778) who founded the system of
classifying plant life used by botanists.
Lord Jeffrey: Scottish Lawyer and Essayist (17731850) Editor of the Edinburgh Review, the most
influential magazine of the period. It was
devoted to the interests of the Whig party.
Lord Little: A fictional charater.

Sir Horace Walpole: Earl of Oxford, author of The

Castle of Otranto (1717-1797).

The Mysteries of Udolpho: a Two-volume

romance novel written by Ann Ward Radcliffe
(1764-1823). Although the action is set in 1584,
the heroine, Emily St. Aubert, is very much like a
young English lady of the early 19th Century. A
hugely popular work of fiction when it was
published in 1808.

Improved Newcomen Steam Pump: invented by

Thomas Newcomen (1663-1729). The steam
pump presumably used to pump water from one
place to another.

Newtonian: Follower of Sir Isaac Newton (16421727), proponent of a theory of gravitational

attraction and a theory of the universe resulting
therefrom.

Sir James Augustus Henry Murray: (1837-1915)

Scottish philologist and lexicographer, editor of
the Oxford English Dictionary.

Nicholas Poussin: French painter (1594-1665).

Henry Fuseli: (1742-1825) Johann Heinrich

Fuseli, Swiss painter in England.

Sir Joseph Banks: English naturalist (1743-1820).

Just William Books: a series of books aimed at
the adolescent audience. The American
equivalent to Nancy Drew or The Hardy Boys.
Kew: A Royal residence located at Richmond
upon Thames. The Royal Botanic Gardens were
created by George III in 1772 by the combination
of the Kew and Richmond Lodge Gardens which
were landscaped by Capability Brown. Brown
designed the famous Rhododendron Dell, the
lake and its setting of trees and the landscape
along by the river.

Obelisk: An upright, four sided pillar, gradually

tepering and resulting in a pyramid.
Opera Court, Pall Mall: A dignified street in
London, one block from St. James Square, named
after the game of pallemaille, a cross between
croquet and golf, which was played here in the
early 17th century. For more than 150 years, Pall
Mall has been the heart of Londons club land.
Here exclusive gentlemens clubs were formed to
provide members with a refuge from their
womenfolk.
Onan: The Biblical character who spilled his
seed.
Ovid: Roman poet. Metamorphoses (BC 43-AD
17).
6

Parterre: An ornamental and diversified grouping

of flowerbeds.

Sophocles: (496-405 BC) Greek Playwright of The

Odeipus Cycle.

Piccadilly Recreation: Subsequently defined as a

thrice weekly periodical.

Snipe: a bird related to the woodcock.

Pierre de Fermat: French Mathematician 16011665. Famous for developing two important
mathematical theorems.
Ptolemy: The dynastic line of Egyptian rulers, of
whom Cleopatra was the last
Q.E.D.: Quod Errat Demonstrandum, Translated
thus it was demonstrated.
Queen Elizabeth: Elizabeth I, Queen of England
1558-1603 (born 1533). Daughter of Henry VIII.
Known as The Virgin Queen.
Queen Dido: Mythological Carthaginian Queen
whose name represents a stereotype of both
feminine capriciousness and obsessive passion.
Henry Purcell wrote a famous opera, Dido and
Aeneas.
Robert Southey: English author and poet (17741843). Poet Laureate 1813-1843. Friend of
Wordsworth and Shelley. Butt of Byrons ridicule
in English Bards and Scotch Reviewers.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge: English metaphysician
and poet (1772-1834) Kubla Khan, The Rime of
the Ancient Mariner. Opium addict. Originator,
with Southey, of a scheme called Pantisocracy
a utopia to be built on the banks of the
Susquehanna River. Never realized.
Samuel Rogers: (1763-1855) English poet (The
Pleasure of Memory).

Theodolite: An instrument for measuring

horizontal and vertical angles, employing a small
telescope.
Thomas Hobbes: (1588-1679) English
philosopher and author of Leviathan.
Thomas Love Peacock: English poet and novelist.
(1785-1866) Author of Headlong Hall.
Thomas Moore: (1779-1852) Irish poet, Lalla
Rookh and Irish Melodies. Published letters and
journals of Lord Byron in 1830.
topped and tailed: British phrase used in
publishing to refer to the cropping of the top and
bottom of a manuscript.
Trainers and Flatties: Short for cross
trainers, or sneakers. Slang for a flat pair of
shoes.
Trinity College: Also known as Cambridge
University, Byrons alma mater.
Walter Scott: Later Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832),
Scottish author of Ivanhoe, also a poet.
William Makepeace Thackery: English Novelist
(1811-1863), author of Vanity Fair.
William Wordsworth: English poet (1770-1850).
Poet Laureate 1843-1850. Lake poet. Lyrical
Ballads (published 1798) established his
reputation.

Septimus: Latin for seventh; Signifying that

Septimus is the seventh child in his family.
Work Cited
Barrell, John. "Geometry and the Gardens." Words on Plays: Arcadia. N.p.: American Conservatory Theater, pag. 21-23.
Print.
Brodersen, Elizabeth. "An Interview with Carey Perloff: On Arcadia." Words on Plays: Arcadia. N.p.: American
Conservatory Theater, pag. 34-44. Print.

Brodersen, Elizabeth. "Chaos in Arcadia." Words on Plays: Arcadia. N.p.: American Conservatory Theater, pag. 10-14
Print.
Brodersen, Elizabeth. "Entering Arcadia." Words on Plays: Arcadia. N.p.: American Conservatory Theater, pag. 6-9
Print.
Byron: A Comprehensive Study Guide of HIs Life & Work . N.p., 1998. Web. 6 Nov. 2014. <http://
www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/9194/byron/bycover.html>.
Curran, Stuart. "Lord Byron: Arcadia tom stoppard: Notes on Byron contexts in Tom Stoppard's Arcadia." Background
Material for Students and Faculty Discussion Leaders. N.p.: Penn State University, 1995. Print.
DeTurck, Dennis. "Mathematics in Stoppard's Arcadia." Background Material for Students and Faculty Discussion
Leaders. N.p.: Penn State University, 1995. Print.
Hunt, John Dixon. "Tom Stoppard's Arcadia and Landscape Gardening." Background Material for Students and Faculty
Discussion Leaders. N.p.: Penn State University, 1995. Print.
Hurkadli, Anil. Arcadia. Eden Prairie High School, 1998. Web. 6 Nov. 2014.
<http:// www.edenpr.k12.mn.us/ephs/ArcadiaWeb>.
Kiger, Jennifer. "Chaos Theory in Arcadia." Arcadia Study Guide : 5-7. Print.
Lockyer, M. S. "Arcadia and the Physics." Background Material for Students and Faculty Discussion Leaders. N.p.: Penn
State University, 1995. Print.
Lockyer, N. S. "Arcadia and the Physics." Penn Reading Project Byron (Arcadia) (1995). Print.
"Lord Byron: The Unseen Character in Arcadia." Arcadia Study Guide : 2. Print.
Marley, Donovan. "Arcadia: Study Guide." Denver Center Theatre Company (1996). Print.
Morey, Charley, Tom Markus, and Linda Saver. "An Arcadia Gazetteer.". Print.
Morey, Charles, Tom Markus, and Linda Sarver. "An Arcadia Glossary." Arcadia Study Guide : 3-4. Print.
Piwkowski, Wlodzimierz. Arkadia: The Romantic Garden of Helena Radziwill. N.p.: Warszawa, 1995. N. pag. Z Voyagerem
prezez Polske. Print.
Solomon, Larry. "The Fractal Nature of Music." (1998). Web. 6 Nov. 2014.
<http:// www.community.cc.pima.edu/users/larry/fracmus.ht>.
Stone, John David. "Arcadia." (1997). Web. 6 Nov. 2014.
<http:// www.cs.grinnell.edu/~stone/events/Arcadia>.