Role Of Romanticism In Arcadia

Arcadia, written by Tom Stoppard, is a play that has two settings. These settings take place from the nineteenth and late twentieth century. The play itself “explores the nature of Nature, classical and Romantic theories of landscape gardening, literary history and historians, truth and time” (Norton 2879). Throughout the play, it consists of transistioning from the past and present. Each character of the story is“engaged in the quest for knowledge” (Norton 2879), which eventually both the Romantic age and the postmodern periods collide together in the end of the last scene. In reference to the play, Tom Stoppard uses oppositions through the shift between Romanticism and Classicism. In Arcadia, Romanticism played a roll in the emotion and

Of course it was much more than just flirting. Septimus replies: “You are mistaken. I made love to your wife in the gazebo. She asked me to meet her there, I have her note somewhere, I dare say I could find it for you, and if someone is putting it about that I did not turn up, by God, sir, it is a slander” (Stoppard 2885). The Romantic era was more of a "free will" era and opinions of how others went felt towards another's actions went unnoticed or ignored . Although, the author expresses this type of argument to explain how love is still involved around this world. Romanticism literature is not as popular nowadays, Stoppard shows that, regardless, history is still within us. Later on in the play, the present scene comes and Hannah says: “The whole Romantic sham, Bernard! It's what happened to the Enlightenment, isn't it? A century of intellectual rigour turned in on itself. A mind in chaos suspected of genius. In a setting of cheap thrills and false emotion. The history of the garden says it all, beautifully. There's an engraving of Sidley Park in 1730 that makes you want to weep. Paradise in the age of reason. By 1760 everything had gone – the topiary, pools and terraces, fountains, an avenue of limes – the

Science played a big role in this situation in the play. Valentine says: “When your Thomasina was doing maths it had been the same maths for a couple of thousand years. Classical. And for a century after Thomasina. Then maths left the real world behind, just like modern art, really. Nature was classical, maths was suddenly Picassos. But now nature is having the last laugh. The freaky stuff is turning out to be the mathematics of the natural world” (Stoppard 2911). Valentine explains how over time science and art changes when the world is still moving forward in time. People begin to see things and learn things differently when time keeps suppressing. With this, Tom Stoppard could be analyzing that as if when time changes, any curriculum will change over time so that people could learn more fundamental subjects. Also Bernard says: “Oh, you’re going to zap me with penicillin and pesticides. Spare me that and I’ll spare you the bomb and aerosols. But don’t confuse progress with perfectibility. A great poet is always timely. A great philosopher is an urgent need. There’s no rush for Isaac Newton. We were quite happy with Aristotle’s cosmos. Personally, I preferred it. Fifty-five crystal spheres geared to God’s crankshaft is my idea of a satisfying universe. I can’t think of anything more trivial than the speed of light. Quarks, quasars—big bangs, black holes—who [cares]? How did you people con us out of all that status?