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Mind Map of Arcadia

Arcadia is a drama-based play. Tom Stoppard's Arcadia, dubbed "the greatest play of our age" by The Independent, travels through the centuries, discussing time, truth, love, literature, heat, science, the differences between Classical and Romantic temperaments – and the disruptive influence of sex on everything else we know about life. Arcadia takes place in two time periods, one in the Regency period and the other in the present, in a single room on the Coverly estate. In 1809, an Arcadian English Garden landscape is uprooted to make way for exquisite Gothic gardens, replete with hermitage, in a household in transition. Meanwhile, Lady Thomasina, a brilliant thirteen-year-old, proposes a surprising scientific idea that is only now being unraveled more than 200 years later. Two opposing scholars are currently examining the world of the estate in the Regency Era. Bernard has notions about a deadly conflict of passion that took place on grounds, including Lord Byron, and Hannah is intrigued by the identity of the hermit who occupied the hermitage stipulated by the garden makeover. The result is a drama dubbed "the perfect blend of wits and emotion, wit and heartbreak" by the New York Times, in which everyone tries to figure out the meaning of the world, and each gets blindsided by the attraction that Newton left out of his equations.

Edited at 2022-08-23 08:10:32

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Mind Map of Arcadia

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Outline

Arcadia

Overview

Set at a British country estate, Arcadia explores the connections between literature, Newton's laws, sex, and algebra. As present-day characters use clues to reconstruct events from the early 19th century, scenes shift back and forth from past to present—revealing how the scientific law of disorder applies to both human interactions and the universe.

MAIN CHARACTERS

Past Puzzles, Future Equations

Septimus Hodge

Academic; becomes the hermit of Sidley Park

Thomasina Coverly

Young, curious genius

Ezra Chater

Mediocre poet ridiculed by Septimus; wife sleeps with Septimus

Hannah Jarvis

Intellectual; researches the hermit of Sidley Park

Bernard Nightingale

Erroneously believes Lord Byron shot Ezra

Valentine Coverly

Mathematician working with Hannah

Symbols

Garden

Symbolizes the transition from classical to romantic ideals

Tortois

Represents the theme of time as it appears in both the past (as Plautus) and present (as Lightning)

Heat

Recalls the second law of thermodynamics and the destruction of knowledge

Themes

Knowledge

Experiential, scientific, historical, and carnal knowledge all intersect.

Classical vs. Romantic Ideas

The orderly thinking of the Enlightenment is contrasted with the wild passion of the Romantic Era.

Time

The universe marches steadily toward "heat death"; those in the present continually look to the past.

Order & Disorder

The universal and social spheres move toward chaos, yet patterns emerge that reveal underlying order.

Numbering

100

Average years in the life span of a giant tortoise

1807

Year Lord Byron published his first volume of poetry, Hours of Idleness

1810

Year Ezra Chater dies from a monkey bite, a fact that ruins Bernard Nightingale's theory

Real person on which Thomasina was based—researcher and mathematician Ada Lovelace

Author

TOM STOPPARD BORN 1937

British playwright and screenwriter Sir Tom Stoppard is well known for his play Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead and his work on the screenplay of Shakespeare in Love. Like these works, Arcadia examines the untold or misunderstood stories behind life, love, and theater.