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  • Arcadia by Tom Stoppard book cover
  • Arcadia by Tom Stoppard book cover
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Arcadia

by Tom Stoppard

Two centuries in one country house

$17.92 USD
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AlbakiReads Editorial

Two centuries in one country house

Set in a Derbyshire estate, Arcadia moves between 1809 and a later investigation into the house’s past. The earlier strand centers on Lady Thomasina Coverly and her tutor, Septimus Hodge; in the later one, garden historian Hannah Jarvis and researcher Bernard Nightingale pursue a rumored scandal involving Lord Byron. The play’s paired timelines bring questions of time and truth into conversation with changing ideas about landscape and the contrast between Classical and Romantic sensibilities. Its subject matter also includes desire and the ways it can complicate human relationships.

Good fit for readers who enjoy

  • Readers interested in plays that connect different historical periods through a shared setting.
  • Those drawn to themes of time, truth, landscape, and the Classical-Romantic divide.
  • Readers interested in historical inquiry and the interpretation of rumors about the past.

Themes

Time and truthClassical and Romantic sensibilitiesLandscape and changing tastesDesire and human relationshipsHistorical interpretation

Based on publisher information and book metadata.

Book overview

"It is a defect of God's humor that he directs our hearts everywhere but to those who have a right to them."--Tom Stoppard, Arcadia

In a large country house in Derbyshire in April 1809 sits Lady Thomasina Coverly, aged thirteen, and her tutor, Septimus Hodge. Through the window may be seen some of the "five hundred acres inclusive of lake" where Capability Brown's idealized landscape is about to give way to the Gothic style: "everything but vampires," as the garden historian Hannah Jarvis remarks to Bernard Nightingale when they stand in the same room 180 years later. Bernard has arrived to uncover the scandal which is said to have taken place when Lord Byron stayed at Sidley Park. Tom Stoppard's masterful play takes us back and forth between the centuries and explores the nature of truth and time, the difference between the Classical and the Romantic temperament, and the disruptive influence of sex on our orbits in life--"the attraction," as Hannah says, "which Newton left out."

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