“The Real Thing” : Essays on Tom Stoppard in Celebration of his 75th Birthday [1 ed.] 9781443849029, 9781443847247

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“The Real Thing”

“The Real Thing”: Essays on Tom Stoppard in Celebration of his 75th Birthday

Edited by

William Baker and Amanda Smothers

“The Real Thing”: Essays on Tom Stoppard in Celebration of his 75th Birthday, Edited by William Baker and Amanda Smothers This book first published 2013 Cambridge Scholars Publishing 12 Back Chapman Street, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2XX, UK British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Copyright © 2013 by William Baker and contributors All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. ISBN (10): 1-4438-4724-0, ISBN (13): 978-1-4438-4724-7

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgements ................................................................................... vii Introduction ................................................................................................. 1 The Real Thing: Tom Stoppard Interview with Brian Firth ......................... 8 Introduced by William Baker Chekhov’s Stoppard .................................................................................. 17 Ira Nadel Tom Stoppard: A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man ........................... 36 John Fleming Stoppard’s Arcadia: “This is not Science; this is story-telling” .............. 103 John V. Knapp “The Illusion of Proprietorship”: Tom Stoppard’s Parade’s End ........... 121 Steven Price Reading (and Writing) the Ethics of Authorship: Shakespeare in Love as Postmodern Metanarrative .................................................................. 136 Todd F. Davis and Kenneth Womack Tom Stoppard, A.E. Housman, and the Classics ..................................... 150 Alistair Macaulay Stoppard’s Shakespeare: Collaboration and Revision ............................. 168 Michael Dean Insecurity, Frustration and Disgust in Tom Stoppard’s Fiction ............... 183 Tim Hendrickson The Inauthentic Translations in The Invention of Love ........................... 202 Melina Probst

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Table of Contents

Lost and Found: The Search for “Truth” in Arcadia ............................... 221 Amanda Smothers Who Rules the Empire? ........................................................................... 243 Scott Stalcup Confrontations with Mortality: Keats, Nightingales, and Prelapsarian Garden Symbols in Stoppard’s Arcadia .................................................. 262 John Sieker Select Bibliography ................................................................................. 278 Contributors ............................................................................................. 287 Index ........................................................................................................ 291

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First and foremost, thanks must go to Tom Stoppard whose life and work these essays celebrate. He has generously given permission for the reprinting of his interview with Brian Firth from Strawberry Fair, St. Mary’s College Literary Magazine, Autumn 1983:19 – 25. Thanks are also due to Brian Firth for his permission to draw upon this neglected interview and to Jacky Matthews, Tom Stoppard’s assistant, for help with this volume celebrating his 75th birthday. Both are also to be thanked for sending the editor pre-televised drafts of the script of Parade’s End and allowing subsequent post-screening publication of extracts. Tom Staley, the editor of the Library Chronicle of the University of Texas at Austin, granted permission for John Fleming to utilize material from his discussions of Stoppard holdings at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas at Austin, published in the Library Chronicle of the University of Texas at Austin, 26.3 (1996): [110]-161 and 27.2 (1996): 181-200. Mention too should be made of the help of Richard Fairman, Audio Manager, Publishing Office, the British Library; Donald Hawes; John V. Knapp; Ken Womack; and all of the contributors to this volume who responded so enthusiastically to the call to celebrate Tom Stoppard’s 75th birthday. The tributes’ publication would not have been possible without the encouragement of Carol Koulikourdi, Commissioning Editor, Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Several essays in this volume are the product of an English graduate seminar devoted to Tom Stoppard and directed by William Baker at the Department of English at Northern Illinois University. The participating students whose essays are included in this volume must be thanked for their enthusiasm and cooperation. Last, but by no means least, special thanks are due to Amanda Smothers: with common sense and word processing editorial dexterity, she molded the text into its appropriate publishing appearance. —William Baker February 2013

INTRODUCTION

Tom Stoppard turned 75 on 3 July 2012. World acclaimed as a dramatist and screenwriter, as well as being a fierce defender of individual freedom, to date he has authored thirty plays, at least thirty-one screenplays or adaptations of others’ work that became screenplays and plays for other media that he adapted for the cinema or television. This celebratory volume honouring his 75th birthday includes a discussion of his television drama based on Ford Madox Ford’s Parade’s End, broadcast in the autumn of 2012. This is the main subject of Steve Price’s assessment of Stoppard’s “return to the small screen after an interval of twenty-eight years.” Combined with film and TV scripts, Stoppard has so far created twelve adaptations and translations for the stage, two prose fictions, a collection of short stories, a novel, and many published letters to newspapers and magazines, mainly on political issues relating to censorship and issues of individual freedom. Not to be ignored are public talks such as his April 1980 lecture “Is It True What They Say about Shakespeare?” given to the International Shakespeare Association at their annual meeting in Hamburg. Stoppard is also the author of over three-hundred-and-twenty articles, many of which he produced as a young journalist living in the West Country and as a fledgling reporter for the Western Daily Press and the Bristol Evening World. When he went to London to find fame and fortune, he wrote for the short-lived arts magazine Scene in 1962-1963. In addition to all this, Stoppard has given over three hundred newspaper and magazine interviews, as well as innumerable radio and television interviews and broadcasts. There are also unpublished materials and, of course, the radio plays. Four of his major radio plays, Albert’s Bridge, Artist Descending a Staircase, The Dog It Was That Died and In the Native State, were issued during the summer of 2012 as a British library BBC CD in honour of the author’s 75th birthday. The present collection had its genesis in a graduate English seminar on Tom Stoppard, directed by this collection’s editor, at the Department of English at Northern Illinois University in the spring of 2011. The focus of the graduate seminar was not on Stoppard’s most well-known work, such as Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, but rather on his relatively neglected

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Introduction

work, such as his prose fiction, film adaptations, and two magnificent, relatively late plays: Arcadia and The Invention of Love. The essays that emerged from the seminar formed the basis for presentations in a special session devoted to Tom Stoppard at the Midwest Modern Language Association (M/MLA) conference in St. Louis, Missouri in the autumn of 2011. Carol Koulikourdi, the enterprising commissioning editor of Cambridge Scholars Publishing, expressed an interest in these papers, and this volume was born. The revised graduate student papers have been supplemented in this 75th birthday tribute to a great creative genius by essays produced by eminent literary critics and journalists who have written notably on various aspects of Stoppard’s work. Without giving the game away— hopefully this volume will be something of a surprise to its recipient Tom Stoppard—his longest-serving assistant Jacky Matthews proved to be extremely helpful in obtaining Tom’s Stoppard permission to reprint his 1983 observations in an interview with Brian Firth on his play The Real Thing. The stage production opened shortly before Stoppard’s comments, which are not confined to the play but range widely over his dramatic work up to the interview date with an emphasis on Jumpers, were documented. They appeared in the student magazine Strawberry Faire, emanating from what was then a teachers’ training college in South London, and, until their re-incarnation in this volume, had been largely forgotten. The majority of Stoppard’s manuscripts and other materials are held at his archive at the University of Texas’s Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center. An account of the material from Stoppard’s early career housed at the Ransom Center appeared in John Fleming’s “Tom Stoppard: His Life and Career Before ‘Rosencrantz and Guildenstern’” published in The Library Chronicle of the University of Texas at Austin, 26:3 (1996). Stoppard has added to this archive on a regular, annual basis. John Fleming’s essay in this collection updates and expands on his account of the Ransom Center Stoppard holdings. The author of Stoppard’s Theatre: Finding Order amid Chaos (2001), Fleming pays special attention to materials relating to his subject’s early career and journalism. Ira Nadel, Stoppard’s biographer, author of the over-six-hundred-page tome Tom Stoppard: A Life (2002), in his intriguingly titled “Chekhov’s Stoppard.” places The Coast of Utopia in its context. Demonstrating the importance of Stoppard’s long association, interest, and attachment to Chekhov, Nadel justifiably writes that “Stoppard has shaped Chekhov. His wit, lightness, comic sense and belief that underneath the misery of disappointment there could be some hope re-defines his Chekhov for our

“The Real Thing”: Essays on Tom Stoppard in Celebration of his 75th Birthday 3

time.” Nadel adds that “in three major plays—Ivanov, The Seagull and The Cherry Orchard—Stoppard has re-made Chekhov into a contemporary, interpreting rather than directly translating the works into his own style.” A different tradition to which Stoppard is indebted is the subject of Alastair Macaulay’s exploration of The Invention of Love. Macaulay brilliantly examines the main items of classical literature that occur in the play, some of them well-known, others more obscure. Macaulay also discusses selected aspects of textual criticism on those classical works and mentions some textual critics including A. E Housman himself, an actual character in a prominent role in The Invention of Love, as well as other aspects of classical scholarship. He also has very interesting things to say about Oscar Wilde, another real-life figure whom Stoppard’s genius transforms into a dramatic character in what Macaulay and other discerning critics regard as perhaps Stoppard’s finest dramatic achievement to date. A very different approach is found in another contribution to this volume celebrating genius. In their “Reading (and Writing) the Ethics of Authorship: Shakespeare in Love as Postmodern Metanarrative,” Todd Davis and Kenneth Womack are only too cognizant of the fact that Shakespeare in Love is a film screenplay jointly authored by Mark Norman and Tom Stoppard. Their concern is its “explicitly postmodern narrative design [that] undergirds” the screenplay. Womack and Davis pay particular attention to recent critical approaches to Stoppard and to the “numerous textual, cultural and historical aspects of Shakespeareana” that “continually remind” the film’s audience that they “are witnessing the construction of narrative.” Further, Womack and Davis argue that the “screenplay provide[s] subtle but profuse cultural and literary referents” ranging from films such as Laurence Olivier’s 1944 Henry V to Trevor Nunn’s 1996 Twelfth Night, amongst other cinematic productions. There are also “several verbal allusions to Shakespeare’s plays, including The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Love’s Labour’s Lost, Anthony and Cleopatra, and Titus Andronicus, among a host of others.” Still another direction is offered by Steven Price’s “‘The Illusion of Proprietorship’: Tom Stoppard’s Parade’s End.” Price examines the craft of screenwriting and Stoppard’s working methods with singular reference to his return to television in his five-part adaptation of Ford Madox Ford’s tetralogy. Price considers the business of authorship and writing the screenplay, especially the multi-authored television script “albeit with Stoppard retaining a sense of ownership,” drawing upon the Ford text as published by Faber towards the end of 2012. He also consults previous textual incarnations generously made available by Tom Stoppard to the

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Introduction

editor of this volume prior to the actual television broadcast. Consequently, Price reveals much about “the nature of Stoppard’s screenwriting.” Price significantly draws attention to Stoppard’s remarks in an interview with John Preston recently published in the Daily Telegraph that he doesn’t “write in pure cinematic language the way a screenwriter probably aspires to. [He writes] scenes—often quite long scenes—mainly because [he] still get[s] seduced into writing six lines where one and a half will do … Parade’s End is closer to writing a play than anything [he’s] ever written for the screen” (“Tom Stoppard Interview for Parade’s End and Anna Karenina,” 24 October 2012). A signal of Stoppard’s greatness lies in the diversity of approaches that may be applied to his work. In “Stoppard’s Arcadia: ‘This is not Science; this is story-telling,’” John V. Knapp, having witnessed one of its very first performances, returns to the text of Arcadia and reexamines his own reactions to and memories of the play first performed in London in April 1993. Knapp employs the ideas of the cognitive psychologist/economist/logician and all-around polymath, Daniel Kahneman in his Thinking, Fast and Slow (2011), as well as others. Knapp notes the substantial changes in the “science” alluded to in the play, whether scientific concepts such as “chaos theory,” or Newton’s second law of thermodynamics, or even Mandelbrot’s fractals. Knapp also wonders how a play of witty exchanges and verbal jousting had such a powerful emotional hold on him during its last few minutes. Kahneman’s explanation seemed most satisfying: from his perspective, human beings live at the mercy of the “remembered self” contrasted to the “experiencing self.” Kahneman notes: “Memories are all we get to keep from our experience of living, and the only perspective that we can adopt as we think about our lives is therefore that of the remembered self” (381). Consequently, whether speaking of Verdi’s La Traviata or Stoppard’s Arcadia, Kahneman thinks that the theatrical experience is about “significant events and memorable moments, not about time passing” (387). Requiring us to watch Thomasina and Septimus’s poignantly circular but terminal waltz, Stoppard pulls off a sleight-of-hand with our remembered and final emotions. The waltz is indeed the musical cue triggering the tyranny of the remembering self. Arcadia also engages papers emerging from the NIU graduate seminar. In an interview with Sarah Lyall that appeared in the New York Times, 13 December 1998, Stoppard comments: “I have a special take on historical accuracy, which is that all supposed post historical truths are temporary, meaning they’re always there to be modified in the light of subsequent discoveries.” Such an observation provides the foundations for the search

“The Real Thing”: Essays on Tom Stoppard in Celebration of his 75th Birthday 5

for historical “truth” in Arcadia. For Amanda Smothers, this search provides a central theme that permeates Stoppard’s play. Both the earlynineteenth-century characters and their late-twentieth-century counterparts attempt to discover and recover historical “truths” in addition to “truths” and proofs in both science and love. Yet, as Smothers perceptively observes, the “truths” that they uncover are incomplete, particularly the information that the twentieth-century characters discover about the earlier occupants of the house. For Smothers, the search for historical information in the play reveals that it is not possible to obtain complete veracity because different planes/perspectives are dependent on the limited vision of each character and the always shifting constitution of “truth.” Arcadia is also the subject of another graduate contribution. John Sieker’s “Confrontations with Mortality: Keats’s Nightingales, and Prelapsarian Symbols in Stoppard’s Arcadia” points to Stoppard’s poetry, revealed even in his discussions of the mathematical and scientific aspects of nature. The character of Septimus Hodge in his hermitage in Arcadia needs to repair the destruction of his world resulting from the loss of his love. Septimus tries to do so through his desperate attempts to use his elegant mathematical ability to find the iterated equation that will undo past events, time and tragedy. Such an effort is represented by his attempt to reorder his world and to re-create what was becoming his idyllic garden at Sidley Park. Through his love of Thomasina, Septimus attempts to reject the plight of human mortality. It provides a striking parallel to John Keats’s speaker in his Ode to a Nightingale. Keats’s speaker is able to wrench himself from the beautiful world that he, being human, cannot ever truly occupy. Septimus is doomed, however, to continually search through mathematical equations to re-create his garden in a way that he deems to be ideal. In such an exploration and in his comparison between Keats and Stoppard’s Arcadia, Sieker elucidates the tragic pathos underlying the play. The work emerging from the graduate seminar yet again illustrates the eclectic nature of approaches to Stoppard afforded by his rich texts. The essays also draw attention to relatively critically neglected areas of his diverse, prolific output. Scott Stalcup’s “Who Rules the Empire?” is an examination of J.G. Ballard’s semi-autobiographical novel Empire of the Sun (1984). Subjects engaging Stalcup include contrasts between the novel and the film, contrasts and similarities between the lives of Stoppard and Ballard, and an explanation of Stoppard’s attraction to Empire of the Sun. The film has a complicated production history. Changes in the production team led to a curtailment of Stoppard’s involvement and there was additional interference from outside writers that complicate the nature

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Introduction

of the screen adaptation’s authorship. Additionally, critical reactions to both the film and novel are addressed, as is the problem of to whom authorial credit should be given. Should it be conferred on Stoppard or equally to the film’s director, Steven Spielberg? As Stalcup points out, it may not even be possible to decide definitively who rules the Empire. Timothy Hendrickson’s “Insecurity and Frustration and Disgust in Tom Stoppard’s Fiction” indicates correctly that very little critical attention if any has been paid to Stoppard’s fiction. Further, most of the work on his fiction is largely concerned with establishing patterns of understanding from which his subsequent drama may be understood. There is a vacuum: critics seldom discuss the fiction without referring to the drama. The reason for this may well be that critics find Stoppard’s fiction of lesser quality than his drama. Hendrickson argues that Stoppard’s fictional characters are a more honest and less academic reflection of their author’s personal insecurities and concerns. During the mid-1960’s, the period of his fiction to date, he felt less averse to sharing them than he became subsequently. For Hendrickson, given Stoppard’s international reputation, his framed and assumed persona subsequently afforded him a degree of secrecy and privacy. This was not always so, however, and his fiction presents Stoppard at what may be perceived as his most accessible, particularly in its representations of insecurity, frustration, and disgust. Consequently, there is considerable value in approaching the fiction for its own sake and not merely as a basis for discussing the drama. In “The Inauthentic Translations in The Invention of Love,” Melina Probst argues that the drama’s intricate scenes contain characters that have the appearance of authenticity and that this prompts audiences to investigate Stoppard’s art more closely as well. Characters who are actual people become figments of another actual person’s imagination, to which audiences can never have complete access. Several characters in Stoppard’s drama are based on historical figures. Five of these, found only in the initial act, interact with one another. These five—Mark Pattison, Walter Pater, John Ruskin, Benjamin Jowett, and classical scholar Robinson Ellis—are personalities of relatively different importance in Victorian art and scholarship. In other words, they interact in his character AE Housman’s, or “AEH’s,” imagination. Housman’s crucial decision to devote his energies to his scholarly career, rather than to produce poetry, transforms him into “AEH,” the elder, far less virile incarnation of himself reflecting on his seemingly conflicting impulses. The actual people who become figments of “AEH’s” imagination are also characters in the mind of the dramatist. Stoppard’s act of writing the play mirrors his character

“The Real Thing”: Essays on Tom Stoppard in Celebration of his 75th Birthday 7

“AEH’s” exploration of his own past. Central to The Invention of Love is the idea of the artist or scholar who, dependent on the past, reconstructs it for his own purposes, for his craft: the peripheral characters of the first act become central to this Stoppardian theme. Much has been written on Stoppard’s early and important creation Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead and his subsequent engagement with Shakespeare represented by the collaborative screenplay for Shakespeare in Love. Michael Dean’s “Stoppard’s Shakespeare: Collaboration and Revision” examines Stoppard’s fascination with his great dramatic predecessor through the lens of Stoppard’s neglected lecture “Is it true what they say about Shakespeare?” In this 1980 lecture, Stoppard describes his philosophy of interpretation and offers valuable insight into what he perceives makes Shakespeare powerful. Stoppard illustrates the interpretive range of Shakespeare’s drama and pays tribute to the importance of creative wordplay. Dean explores the manner in which the great twentieth-century dramatist has borrowed and then transformed his great predecessor’s work into fresh territory by grasping the key elements of the old and integrating them into what may be perceived as a Stoppardian vision of life and expression of faith. —William Baker

THE REAL THING: TOM STOPPARD INTERVIEW WITH BRIAN FIRTH INTRODUCED BY WILLIAM BAKER

Introduction The Real Thing was first performed at the Strand Theatre London on 16 November 1982. It was directed by Peter Wood. Roger Rees played Henry, and Felicity Kendall was Annie. Some of its many concerns are the nature of love, fidelity, infidelity, and commitment. In Ira Nadel’s words, “music is an important register of change and morality in the play.” The play “is [also] about counterfeit politics as much as real emotions.” However, The Real Thing is also remembered for Henry’s speech celebrating the wonders of the cricket bat, “confirming for many not only Stoppard’s obsession with cricket but his obsession with words.”1 Shortly after the initial performance of the play, Stoppard was interviewed by Brian Firth, a lecturer in English at St Mary’s Teacher Training College, and spoke about the drama, its inception and meaning, and of course other matters! The interview was published in the literary magazine Strawberry Fare produced by the English Department at St. Mary’s College Strawberry Hill, Twickenham Middlesex. Strawberry Fare, during its short run, published fascinating interviews with leading literary figures, including Peter Porter, David Lodge, Seamus Heaney, Beryl Bainbridge, D.J. Enright, Michael Holroyd, and others. Today, copies of the journal are extremely scarce. It ran from autumn 1984 to autumn 1989, and the only complete runs appear to be in the British Library under the call mark ZK.9.a.41, or in the archives of the College. Its duplicate copies were generously sent to the present writer by the College.2 Tom Stoppard and Brian Firth have generously allowed this interview to be re-published in this volume of essays celebrating Tom Stoppard’s 75th birthday.

Introduced by William Baker

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Interview BF [Brian Firth]: The general emphasis of interviews with you and articles about you has, it seems to me, tended to be on lines like theatricality, irony, detachment … and I wanted to take a different line because The Real Thing shows a thematic seriousness that is quite risky—as the play says, “loving and being loved is unliterary.” Did you have a sense of doing something difficult in this way? TS [Tom Stoppard]: In fact the origins of the play weren’t particularly close to that aspect of the play. To begin with, I was interested in this remark, which appears in the play in a slightly different form, a remark that public attitudes are the displacement of private derangement, the displacement of something private into a public arena. And at the same time, I quite separately wanted to write something about a situation which would play with the audience’s expectations, so that the opening situation would later be found to be a play written by one of the characters. So really, I began with something that wasn’t to do with any particular subject like love or marriage; it was much more to do with something more mechanical; it was to do with having a play with a first scene which was written by a character in the second scene, and then whatever that scene happens to be about, in some way it would be echoed by a subsequent event of that character’s life and so on. Because of this, I was stuck with the person being a playwright, because he has to be responsible for Scene 1, and that rather put me off writing the play for quite a while because I didn’t really want to write about a playwright; I thought it might indicate that one had run out of everything, if one started to write plays about people who write plays. However, after thinking about trying to deal with a novelist or a filmmaker, I decided that that was not practical, so I ended up with a first scene which is part of a play, and thus with a character who wrote plays; and then it came to what the thing was actually about, another quite separate earlier feeling that I would like to write something about love, which was a subject that I started trying to write about in Night and Day which only went half-way along the road. So all these things came together like that. That’s how I find things happening. If you start writing plays, when notions about two or three plays turn out to be notions about the same play, it’s always a good starting point. BF: I suppose what impressed me about the theme of The Real Thing, as in other plays, was its faith in certain simple good things, its belief in simple pleasures and in certain fundamental decencies.

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The Real Thing: Tom Stoppard Interview with Brian Firth

TS: Well, it’s not a policy or principle or philosophy which I in a deliberate way propagate through plays. I have a very conservative temperament. What sophistication I pretend to usually takes the form of resolving various complex versions of the world and arriving at a really simple view of the world, which I take to be a fairly sophisticated end… something like that. BF: You provide almost a parody of that in what you have said about Henry—an ironist on the surface... TS: …and a prig in private, yes. There’s a lot of stuff in the play which inevitably bounces off the wall and back at me, in a way which is more central to me than a lot of lines in Night and Day. I mean, Night and Day is full of statements about the subject of journalism which are absolutely myself speaking, as much as anything in The Real Thing. But The Real Thing comes over as much more personal, perhaps because of the subject. BF: If you write about love, you are bound to be personally exposed. TS: Yes, that’s right. I’m told that all middle-aged married playwrights end up with their marriage play. BF: What struck me as important in your concept of love was—I don’t know if the word would be responsibility. “What else could I do, he was my recruit,” Annie says; and she asks Henry at the end, “look after me”; and earlier, there is ironic use of the term “caring society.” TS: Yes; you’ve reminded me of something—this is a bit of a tangent— but the line about Henry drawing his knees up into his chest when he hears a phrase like “the caring society,” you’ve reminded me that that line is no longer in the play, which opens up a whole new subject matter of how one compromises a text when one gets into a theatre, and I am heartless about doing that sort of thing. I had forgotten all about that line until you mentioned it just now. One of the slightly alarming things about writing plays is that you spend a long time thinking about what ought to be said, months and months go into that, and then in four weeks with actors in rehearsal and for empirical reasons, like the dragginess of a scene, you just chop these things out and never think about them again. It’s really rather sad, and that thing about the caring society, which is a sort of joke but it meant something to the character, that was in the play when we had our first audience, but it was in a scene which was evidently five minutes too long. You have these ruthless conclusions about whether the length of a scene is being justified by its dynamics, and when it’s not, you have to change the equation. You either have to make it more dynamic or make it shorter—and I usually end up by making it shorter.

Introduced by William Baker

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BF: And the scene with Debbie … TS: For the first few performances, we performed the daughter scene and the ex-wife scene as separate scenes, as they are in the printed text. The second edition brings the text into line with what we are now performing. And what I did was I made those separate scenes into one scene and for similar reasons. In some peculiar way, there was one scene too many in the second half, one scene-change too many, a kind of stop and start thing about the second half; it had over-extended itself. And finally, that’s what I did about it without the slightest regret. I think it’s very much better the way it is now. That’s the difference between the theatre and the novel. BF: Could I draw a comparison between George in Jumpers and Henry here? In the sense that George is in a similar position—he has a similar call of responsibility for Dottie, which he can’t fulfil, but Henry does for Annie? TS: I hadn’t thought of it. Quite honestly, I could turn what you said around, and say that it would be quite impossible for someone to write two plays with a protagonist in each, in which the two protagonists didn’t in some way remind you of each other. BF: I raised that example because I wanted to come back to this question of responsibility, which seems a concern of your work in different ways. It’s obviously something, the responsibility of the writer, which concerns you. TS: Yes it does. It comes up in most of the plays, doesn’t it? In fact, it comes up in most of the things I have written in one form or another: it’s an interesting and powerful thing to write about. BF: I suppose that for a dramatist, who has a recognised capacity for manipulating words—and an audience come to that—it’s natural to be concerned. And you give alternative responses of course—in Travesties: “And what did you do in the Great War?” “I wrote Ulysses” TS: Yes it’s one of those preoccupations which revel themselves to the author in the moment that he’s writing. It’s much more to do with finding out what you’re preoccupied with in the process of writing plays than with knowing what your important concerns are and determining to write plays about those. There’s very little of that in me. Occasionally one does, I mean a play like Professional Foul was written to order practically—I said I would write a play for Prisoner of Conscience Year before I had the slightest idea or notion of a play to write and had to find something appropriate. That was an exception. Everything you write comes out of yourself; it’s going to be in some ways an expression of yourself, however many sieves it may have

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The Real Thing: Tom Stoppard Interview with Brian Firth

gone through. So it’s going to have that kind of internal consistency. If you have been in some way misidentified by other people, you’ve heard that you are a certain kind of writer, or ought to be, and if you decide to be that person and write as that person would write, I think it would be difficult to do anything half-way decent because that’s not how good writing happens. There is a kind of craftsmanship, facility, in writing which might help you to get away with quite a lot, but I think writers know which things they can stand behind and which things they can’t. BF: Of course some writers appear deliberately to cut themselves off from discussing their work—respond to enquiries very gnomically and so on. TS: I envy them, actually. Although I enjoy talking to people because it’s a very pleasant occupation, I have absolutely no urge of any kind to discuss my work; whenever I do it, it’s entirely out of courtesy to somebody—it just seems finally priggish to say no I am not actually interested by my plays in any academic way. I am extremely [interested] in my plays, but I am not remotely interested in assessing them, finding relationships between them; in short, I am not interested in any sense [in] studying them, and I don’t think that’s much of an admission to make; I don’t see why writers should be because, of course, I am interested in that way in the work of other people. BF: If I could then ask a question on a more technical level. You are obviously taken with what Yeats called “the fascination of what’s difficult.” The Real Thing takes technical risks in the way it introduces and drops a generous sequence of characters—Max, Billy, Brodie, the daughter—it stops and starts again if you like. Was this because you were so concerned with the central pair? TS: I think that you could write that play without the daughter, if it were to be a play just about Henry and Annie. But what the daughter says I wanted to be in the play; there was no one else to say what she says, and it was one of the things in the end that I wanted the play to say. But the question is on a false premise. There is something wrong with your question—it assumes that one’s interest is in this relationship. But actually that is only part of it. One’s interest is also in pulling the rug out from under audiences and having fun with the form of theatre. I am liable to get more excited by the idea of four people having a drink and two people leaving the room, and the other two revealing themselves to be in love with each other, for which you have got to have four people. As a theatrical moment, that actually gives me more juice to write than something more abstract, like love and marriage, friendship.

Introduced by William Baker

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BF: The need for the sequence is for one to take the place of the other— Billie is Brodie and so on, Max is Henry. TS: That’s right. I couldn’t write the play I wanted to write with any fewer characters. And at the same time, I should point out to you that it says a lot for the day and age and the economics we live in that you think seven actors a lot of people. It’s really just a modestly average play. BF: Yes, I was thinking from the position of the actor who comes in in Act I, let’s say, Max. TS: And you never see him again. That’s the one thing that I would have liked to do, to bring back Max in Act II. I had a sense of the architecture of the play, and even while we were rehearsing, I kept saying to the actor, I’m going to get you back in here. And I said to Peter Wood at one point, we’ll have Max in when Annie is rehearsing the play on the train, in the T.V. studio, put Max there—he can be dressed up as Henry V or something. Because it seems to me a defect of the play that Max never shows up again. But I never solved it. I mean, I had no reason for putting Max in the second act, so in the end I didn’t do it. It would have been architecturally neat, and I like symmetry. You do have a scene with the husband and his ex-wife and a complementary scene between the wife and her ex-husband would have been perfectly acceptable and desirable, but I couldn’t think what they had to say. BF: Could I ask you again about the Debbie scene—it’s one you obviously took trouble over and thought important, changing it around to get it right. TS: Yes. Funnily enough, I originally thought the daughter would come and visit him and we would have the scene there. Peter Wood thought that the daughter ought to be in the squat she’s talking about, and I rather agreed with that. I mean, I was just trying to simplify life for whoever had to put the play on, so I was rather pleased when he disagreed, and I put the daughter into that scene as you read it. Then the second Act became unwieldy, and we kept wanting to get back to the couple and that digression was just one digression too many. But as to why I wanted the daughter there at all, which was really what you were asking, it was mostly to do with what she said about sex, that there are a couple of speeches in that scene; the daughter says things which are supposed to be pertinent, instructive vis-à-vis Henry’s situation. And there is no other person who can say those things in the play. More than one person said before the play went on, “Well, you know, the daughter could go,” and I was fighting for the daughter.

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The Real Thing: Tom Stoppard Interview with Brian Firth

BF: Could one make a comparison again, between the Jumpers situation and Henry’s as in the scene with his daughter? In each case, you have got a man confronted with the relativity of values; with George the terms are theological, here they are sexual, but you have a man in each case unable to live without standards, needing to find a ground for responsibility that he can’t rationally justify but knows. TS: Well, I’m a great one for intuitive morality. BF: She represents the gulf into which he can’t go. TS: That’s absolutely right, yes. It’s funny that you talk quite a lot about Jumpers and I can see why because there are tensions in each play between a painful, intuitive ethic, and a cheerful nihilism, really, or determination not to get things out of proportion, just to look at things rationally, and in Jumpers it’s carried to a farcical extreme. But it’s the same tension that’s perpetrated between the father and the daughter, and indeed between Henry and his ex-wife. I do tend to have people in my plays who are irrationally hanging on to some un-demonstrable truth. I would not disclaim that. BF: The Last Romantic. TS: The Last Romantic indeed, yes. BF: You described yourself earlier as conservative. Do you think that comic writing tends to be conservative? That it reconciles us with what’s there? TS: I am tempted to say that’s too deep for me. Comic writing is supposed to be subversive. Mine isn’t, I don’t feel that. I mean, Lenny Bruce— subversive—Morecambe and Wise—conservative—I would have thought you couldn’t make general statements about comic writing; I think what’s truer is that there are conservative comedians, radical comedians. It reminds me obscurely of a remark made by an American painter whose name escapes me; he was with a lot of other painters who were arguing as to whether it was conceited or the opposite to leave canvases unsigned, and this chap said, “If you’re conceited, it’s conceited to sign them, if you’re not conceited, it’s not conceited to sign them…” I think that if you are conservative, your humour is conservative, and if your politics are radical, your humour is radical as well. BF: You clearly take a line in your work which is aware of the arrogance of “them” of totalitarian dangers, and also of the arrogance of the individual, defining the world for himself; this seems to relate to the importance of respect for language on which you have clearly strong personal feelings.

Introduced by William Baker

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TS: Yes, I have. I don’t know how important it really is, but it seems important to me. It upsets me if I find the language skidding away and people using it like plasticine. BF: Perhaps the thing about language is it’s social, but I don’t own it and they don’t own it either, we show respect to each other through it. TS: I think it’s a question [of] whether language describes the world or whether language is the toy of the world, whether it’s simply there to be used by the world. I prefer to think that there is a defined world which exists independently of human beings and that language is structured in order to describe that world, and therefore, you have to use that language accurately. There’s no problem as long as there’s a consensus that black means that and beige means that—it wouldn’t make any difference to me if the labels changed, it’s only when they start crossing that it becomes important. BF: If I could ask one last question. You seem very fond of what I might call the quiet ending, the anti-climactic ending. You vary your endings in so many different ways—the facing of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern; Free Man ends with weak gestures towards “I’ll go round tomorrow,” “tide me over.” In Night and Day, you’ve got a kind of aftermath last scene with Wagner and the wife … are you conscious of this? I mean you are operating on an audience here. TS: I’m not that conscious of it, but obviously, for one reason or another, I have a predilection for that sort of conclusion. I’ve no idea why, but you’re quite right: that’s quite consistent of me; and furthermore, if I see something by somebody else that ends with a bang, I think, “Surely there’s something else.” When I went to see Don Giovanni, or Samson and Delilah where the pillars fell over and the thing finished, I felt, where’s the rest of it, what happens next, here’s the coda? BF: This is a common element in modern writing—perhaps a sense of the impossibility of imposing a final meaning on a work—one conclusive experience that will sum it all up. TS: I think it’s back to the theatre again. You’ve got this room full of people and you hope you’ve trapped them and carried them along, and perhaps one doesn’t feel like just like that—flinging the doors open and throwing them into the street. You want them to sort of wind down and get used to the idea that they have to look for their other selves. BF: And go on arguing as it were? Even in Jumpers you have a set of parallel speeches to end, George, Archie . . . TS: Yes, but that all closes down slowly onto one image, doesn’t it, and it’s the same feeling. BF: All those endings are so different; no two are the same…

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The Real Thing: Tom Stoppard Interview with Brian Firth

TS: And yet they have the same feeling about them, don’t they? I did find for myself the effect was to leave me with the play to resolve, so that I went out to argue about it… Perhaps it is appropriate to end on that note of suspension.

Notes 1

Ira Nadel, Tom Stoppard: A Life. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002: pp. 324, 329-330. 2 For further details of Strawberry Fare, see David Miller and Richard Price, British Poetry and Magazines 1914-2000: A History and Bibliography of ‘Little Magazines.’ London and New Castle, Delaware, 2006, item 795, p.327.

Works Cited Miller, David, and Richard Price. British Poetry and Magazines 19142000: A History and Bibliography of ‘Little Magazines.’ London and New Castle, DE: Oak Knoll, 2006. Nadel, Ira. Tom Stoppard: A Life. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002.

CHEKHOV’S STOPPARD IRA NADEL

How many people in Russia exist without knowing why? —Lopakhin in The Cherry Orchard

i Lopakhin’s question at the end of Tom Stoppard’s version of The Cherry Orchard is one that has long fascinated the playwright, introduced to Russian society and culture through Chekhov’s enigmatic work. Absorbed by the way nothing seemed to be occurring in his plays, “and yet it’s all intensely interesting and dramatic,” Stoppard found Chekhov intriguing from his early days as a journalist in Bristol where he attended productions at the Bristol Old Vic. In the Russian’s drama, he later explained, there are large “subterranean movements going on in relationships between characters, but they are conveyed as though they were clues which you have to pick up. That really attracted me.” How Chekhov achieved this has always interested Stoppard, who echoed a similar sense of disarming intensity when he declared in a lecture for the London Library that “I have a practice but I have no theory, let alone a thesis—my only expertise is in theatre, which is a much more pragmatic business than is often thought.”1 The attitude is Chekhovian and suggests ways Chekhov shaped Stoppard’s work. In turn, Stoppard has shaped Chekhov. His wit, lightness, comic sense, and belief that underneath the misery of disappointment there could be some hope re-defines his Chekhov for our time. In three major plays— Ivanov, The Seagull and The Cherry Orchard—Stoppard has re-made Chekhov into a contemporary, interpreting rather than directly translating the works into his own style. Just prior to the opening of his mammoth Russian trilogy, The Coast of Utopia, Stoppard admitted that everyone wants to write a Chekhov play. Failing that, a playwright turns to adaptation. Stoppard has done both.2 In each treatment of Chekhov, Stoppard makes the text his own, while at the same time maintaining its Chekhovian core. He does not translate

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Chekhov’s Stoppard

these works in any sense but begins with someone else’s literal translation of the text which he then alters, modernizes, or revises. Actress and Russian expert Helen Rappaport, for example, provided a word-for-word translation of The Cherry Orchard, while also suggesting alternate language, as well as topical and historical references, and allusions. This was Stoppard’s initial text.3 In a 2007 essay, Rappaport herself addresses this practice, noting first the wide range and preponderance of contemporary productions of Chekhov. The source for this rebirth, she explains, is the shift from actorvehicle to playwright-vehicle productions which suddenly became the fashion. Replacing the old-guard of reverential literary translators such as Constance Garnett was a new generation of “non-Russian speaking playwrights working from literal translations whose major preoccupation would be the accessibility of new ‘acting versions’ of Chekhov’s texts.” The rationale for this is that the academic practitioners were “deemed unable to translate for stage performance” (Rappaport 68). They lacked the stagecraft and experience of working with actors. Stoppard’s practice is the opposite: he clearly understands that the purpose of the playwright’s craft is to serve the actors, working for the event at the possible sacrifice of linguistic authenticity.4 Stoppard quickly realized that Chekhov was also an entry to understanding Russian life explored most intensely in The Coast of Utopia. Exposure to the manners, ideas, and visions of Russia experienced in Chekhov encouraged Stoppard to attempt a big Russian work, hastened by his viewing a production of Gorky’s Summerfolk in 1999 at the National Theatre, two years after his version of The Seagull. Chekhov, one might say, guided Stoppard from the beginning of his career as a dramatist. The premiere of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead at the National Theatre in 1967 found him, in fact, sandwiched between Strindberg and Chekhov. The season began with The Dance of Death, followed by Rosencrantz, and then The Three Sisters directed by Olivier (Nadel 575 nt 36). With Beckett, Chekhov became the most influential dramatist for Stoppard, the appeal being one of character as much as language and structure. In “Chekhov—An Impartial Witness,” Stoppard elaborates Chekhov’s “idea of moral neutrality” arguing that this is his great contribution to theatre. After narrating his rocky start with Ivanov and Chekhov’s efforts to rewrite it, Stoppard contradicts Chekhov’s belief that he should have waited further before revising, that waiting would not have helped—“because it was Chekhov that the Russian theatre was waiting for.”

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Chekhov’s ability not to offer judgments on his characters brought something new to the Russian drama, Stoppard believes. There was not a “single villain or angel” in Ivanov, he told his brother. The artist must be, in a now famous phrase, “an impartial witness.” The artist must have the confidence to admit that he understands nothing of what he sees. Like the early Stoppard who claimed he constantly contradicted himself and stood for nothing with no clear cut political or social views, Chekhov explained to an early admirer, writer Dmitri Grigorovich, that he lacked “a political, religious and philosophical world view—it keeps changing every month, so I’ll have to limit myself to the description of how my characters love, marry, give birth, die and how they speak” (Stoppard, “Chekhov”). The sense of simultaneity—of domestic action hiding or obscuring another less obvious story often of displaced values—provides both a technique and a theme for Stoppard’s work. The dual story and time shifts of Arcadia, for example, more hidden in the alternate story of Indian Ink, expose the duality Stoppard perceives at the centre of Chekhov offering structural possibilities for his own work.

ii My bones are stiff with boredom. I have to stretch them. —Babakina, Ivanov

The immediate Stoppard/Chekhov relationship began with Stoppard working on Chekhov’s second play, The Seagull, in 1997, looped back to his first, Ivanov, prepared for the stage in 2008, and ended with his last, The Cherry Orchard, which premiered in 2009. Only Uncle Vanya and The Three Sisters remain untreated. But the three Stoppard does “translate” stand at three major stages in Chekhov’s development and share a similar theme of return and departure elaborated on by Stoppard. In The Seagull, Arkadina and Trigorin come back to Sorin’s estate, in Ivanov it is Ivanov constantly returning to the Lebedevs, and in The Cherry Orchard, Ranevskaya returns at the opening after five years in France—Trofimov had come back to the estate two days earlier. Arrival is also the motif of Stoppard’s major plays, from Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead and Arcadia to Indian Ink and The Coast of Utopia, both writers generating a sense of expectation and an unstable atmosphere with the re-entry of characters, most evident, perhaps, when Charlotte slams the door, destroying Max’s house of cards at the opening of The Real Thing.

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Chekhov’s Stoppard

Departure is another persistent theme for both playwrights: at the end of The Seagull, Nina leaves for a new, sober life as an actress, and Arkadina heads back with Trigorin to the enticing city. In Ivanov, Ivanov tries to call off his forthcoming marriage to Sasha—ending this “provincial performance of a hand-me-down Hamlet and his awestruck disciple” (75) and his life by shooting himself. In The Cherry Orchard, Ranevskay is off again to Paris, Lopakhin will travel to Kharkov, and Varya leaves to be with the Raulins, while Anya and Trofimov depart for somewhere. Only the aged servant Firs remains. In Stoppard, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern depart for England, while The Invention of Love is entirely about departure, that of Housman’s lover and Houseman (“I really do have to go” is his and the play’s penultimate sentence [InvL 106]). The end of Rock ‘n’ Roll focuses on the departing Nigel and Candida, Jan and Esme. The accelerated perplexity and confusion found in Stoppard’s early plays further confirms Chekhov’s shaping of Stoppard’s work, extending the situation of many of Chekhov’s characters—Konstantin in The Seagull, for example, admitting at the end that “I’m still adrift in a chaos of dreams and images . . . and no idea where I’m going or what I’m for” (Seagull 69), or Lebedev in Ivanov telling Ivanov, when he announces near the play’s end that he wants to call off the wedding to Sasha, that the suitor has turned his “life into a sort of modern art gallery—I look at things and don’t know what to make of them” (Iv 78). The Chekhovian situation finds parallels in the constant confusion of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern or in the former aristocrat Ogarev, the cuckolded poet and co-editor of The Bell, now dependent on a crass mistress in a West End London slum in Salvage from The Coast of Utopia. “It’s just like life,” he mutters, “waking up in your own bed and not knowing how you got there” (Salvage 55). George in Jumpers offers an intellectual summary of the situation when he remarks that “there are many things I know which are not verifiable but nobody can tell me I don’t know them” (J 78). Appealing most strongly to Stoppard was Chekhov’s designation of The Seagull and The Cherry Orchard as “comedies.” Indeed, it is the comic Chekhov that captivated Stoppard the most. And although Chekhov labelled Ivanov a “drama,” Stoppard liberally added comedy. The repeated puzzle, however, is what is Chekhovian comedy? Richard Gilman offers a workable definition: “it has everything to do with an opening toward time to come,” which the dramas do not (Gilman 200). For Stoppard, it is Henry and Annie at the end of The Real Thing or the dance that blends time at the end of Arcadia or even Housman standing at the shore at the end of The Invention of Love anticipating a life to come once he crosses

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the Styx, remarking “how lucky to find myself standing on this empty shore . . .” (InL 106). The comedies of high seriousness that Chekhov and Stoppard create satisfy their characters as well as audiences.

iii In Chekhov, everything blends into its opposite, just fractionally, and this is sort of unsettling. —Tom Stoppard, 6 February 2009

Stoppard’s experience with Chekhov originated in Bristol with early productions of The Cherry Orchard and Uncle Vanya at the Bristol Old Vic during his years as journalist in the city.5 What likely appealed to him was the way real life seemed to be out of reach for the characters, something he might have experienced himself as he sought a move to London, his quest loosely parallel to that of the three sisters seeking to go to Moscow (Stoppard relocated in 1962). Life and death with laughter may have been his early understanding of the Bristol Old Vic productions, learning gradually that meaning in a Chekhov play originated not in what was said but in what happened in between words. As his own playwriting started, Stoppard began to incorporate the Russian’s strategies in his work, something of a departure from the fireworks of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern or Jumpers. Indeed, it is possible to think of Chekhov’s influence as toning down Stoppard’s verbal exuberance as he realized what could be gained from Chekhovian atmosphere, language, and action. And as early as Travesties (1974), Stoppard began to acknowledge Chekhov in his work. Lenin’s wife Nadya remarks that Lenin favoured Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya over The Lower Depths, although he recognized Gorky’s politics as acceptable and Chekhov’s as not (Tr 88-9). The less said, the more meaning. The Real Thing (1982) might be the first of Stoppard’s major plays to exhibit this shift. In the Native State, the 1991 radio play which became Indian Ink, expands this Chekhovian dimension in that secrets suggested widen the importance of the characters’ relationships. Just as Chekhov’s plays create space and time around the action, providing a rich Russian social background for his leisured gentry with sudden jabs of sadness, Stoppard fashions a sense of the decline of the British Raj and the post-war independence of the subcontinent for Flora Crewe. An amused view of human weaknesses, characteristically Chekhovian, began to appear often in Stoppard’s writing from Jumpers to Hapgood and beyond.

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Chekhov’s Stoppard

Stoppard’s 1997 adaptation of Chekhov’s The Seagull extended his interest in things Russian—mixed with Shakespeare. He had long admired Chekhov’s use of micro-narratives to engage the audience, which allowed the macro-narrative to operate. In 2000, advising a production of The Seagull at San Diego’s Old Globe, he agreed with the director’s vision of the play as “a Russian version of Hay Fever, the characters drunk on theatre.” He worked with the cast to remove any “Englishisms” from the script and expressed admiration for Chekhov’s compression. How was it possible, he wondered, for the playwright to move from this moment to that in four lines; “it would have taken me four pages,” he declared. Theatre is threatening, he added, because every text is capable of producing a dull evening (Welsh). The 1997 production of The Seagull, starring Felicity Kendal and directed by Peter Hall, was a success, with Stoppard declaring that working on Chekhov was “magical.” He wrote at the instigation of Peter Hall at the Old Vic, seizing the opportunity to engage with Chekhov. “There’s more on the stage than you think there’s going to be when you read the page. I keep reading Chekhov and wondering how he does it” (qtd. in Welsh). As Stoppard explained in a program note, “You can’t have too many English Seagulls” (“English” 6). But the practical side always dominates: “In the theatre, the question ‘What is translation?’ is replaced by ‘What is translation for?’ and the answer is that it is for the event”—and for the actor (“English” 6).6 His additions to the text include a series of running jokes based on Shakespearean quotations, premised on Chekhov’s own allusions to Hamlet. “Having no backbone, he was able to bend both ways,” a comment about Trigorin’s tendency for sexual sharing, is typical as Stoppard adhered to Chekhov’s own comment about the play: “a comedy with much talk about literature and five tons of love” (Seagull 58; Seagull Program 13). While The Seagull and Chekhov were initial inspirations for The Coast of Utopia, another dramatic source for staging the play was Maxim Gorky’s Summerfolk (1904), which Stoppard saw in Trevor Nunn’s energetic production at the National Theatre in September 1999 in a new version by Nick Dear based on a literal translation by Vera Liber.7 The naturalist play presents a scathing portrait of the Russian professional class at leisure. Returning yearly to a set of neighbouring country dachas, they question their lives against a backdrop of amateur theatricals, selfconscious relationships, and dismal futures, despite their being writers, doctors, engineers, lawyers, and government officials. Some are frightened of change, while others despondently yearn for a new life. The doctor, Dudakov, complains that his life “seems composed of trivialities,” while

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the cynical writer, Shalimov, laments that he can’t write because he doesn’t understand what’s going on: “everything seems to be changing shape . . . slipping and sliding . . . nothing has any solidity” (Gorky 29, 43)! Nevertheless, the characters, like those in The Coast of Utopia, debate metaphysical, political, and moral questions against a backdrop of disillusionment: “we’re all obsessed with our own misfortunes,” the selfpitying Olga remarks (Gorky 16). Summerfolk pursues the nature of social action through debate, discussion, and talk, despite its mechanical plot and character. The didacticism of the characters also detracts from its drama; although, in Nunn’s vibrant production with Nick Dear’s idiomatic language, the play becomes absorbing, even if many of the pronouncements sound more like slogans rather than thoughts. Ryumin, for example, anticipating Belinsky in Stoppard’s trilogy, exclaims that he opposes the “foolish attempts to rip away the poetry with which we adorn life’s saggy old body. Life must be dressed in miracles. . . . Prepare a new suit of wonders, before you strip it bare” (Gorky 24). Herzen, Belinsky, or Bakunin in Stoppard’s drama find similar declarations irresistible: “Freedom is a state of mind . . . . Act first! The ideas will follow, and if not—well it’s progress,” Bakunin shouts, while Herzen later offers that “passions are facts. Making cages for them is the vanity of utopians . . .” (Shipwreck 36-7, 65). Summerfolk parallels The Coast of Utopia in many ways. Political discussions, literary reflections, and disillusionment of the educated bourgeoisie anticipate the attitudes Stoppard’s characters project whether commenting on politics, love, or culture. Maria Lvovna, an idealistic doctor in Summerfolk, is Gorky’s main political voice, parallel to Herzen in The Coast of Utopia. Her tirade in the final act is similar to many declamatory speeches in Stoppard’s play, although there is a signal difference. Whereas Stoppard’s figures are historical and of their time forming the new “intelligentsia,” Gorky’s are not. Varvara, wife of the unscrupulous lawyer Bassov, rebuffs Zamislov, her husband’s assistant, late in the play when she declares that no one in their group is of the intelligentsia! We’re just the summer folk. We just pass through. We don’t belong here, we don’t belong anywhere. We drift about looking for a pleasant place to sit . . . . we pollute the air with clever language, to disguise our spiritual desolation! (Gorky 115)

By contrast, Stoppard’s characters revel in the discovery that they have been labelled the “intelligentsia” (Shipwreck 16-17). The trilogy ironically answers Varvara’s challenge, proving that there were those who

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Chekhov’s Stoppard

experienced life as a tragedy and who did more than talk. Historically predating Gorky’s figures, Stoppard’s play concentrates on the radicals that through their provocations made many of the reforms of 1904 possible, reforms instituted by Alexander II. Stoppard duplicates not only the political debates but the naturalist manner of Summerfolk; even the energetic staging of both plays is similar. Trevor Nunn, who directed both, sends each play into constant motion. The sets for the two plays embody a spontaneity of action, although The Coast of Utopia relies more on a revolve stage suggesting cyclical time while computerized video projections visualize the constant swirl of historical and physical events. Underscoring the continuity of the two productions is the opening scene of Voyage, a large family supper which replicates the opening of Act Four of Summerfolk when a large table is arranged for a supper gathering on the outdoor terrace of the Bassov dacha. More explicitly political than Gorky and with more external drama, the two plays are, nonetheless, closely knit, even to the inclusion of shootings near the end—the accidental shooting of Ryumin at the end of Summerfolk, anticipating Turgenev’s description of his hunting and longing for his new shotgun, while reporting on his meeting the man who killed Pushkin in a duel (Salvage 62-3). Furthermore, Stoppard actually uses the name Varvara from Summerfolk in his play. The first Varvara is the lawyer Bassov’s wife and a central political voice in the play; Varvara in the trilogy is the wife of Alexander Bakunin, twenty-three years younger than her husband and outspoken, in her own way. Many moments in The Coast of Utopia, from disillusionment to romantic betrayal, echo Gorky. Stoppard’s absorption with Russia—its politics, writers and ideals— culminates in The Coast of Utopia, which intensifies his habit of relying extensively on sources.8 Historicizing his work provides both the political validity and dramatic authenticity necessary to convince the audience to believe in the illusion (and romance) of the social actions represented on stage. Whether it is the surveillance tactics of the Russian police, the Paris uprising of 1848, or the growing influence of Marx, by rooting his drama in the historically valid, Stoppard ensures that the audience will find the stage an appropriate site of Russian life and European exile. History, dramatized authentically (although not always accurately), meets their expectations. To do so, Stoppard not only draws in detail from his sources but balances a panoramic, Brechtian view of Russia with a Chekhovian focus on domestic drama.

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Pre-occupied with Chekhov’s dramas, Stoppard concluded that his project was about scale, explaining that Chekhov always offset the domestic with the cosmic. This was also Stoppard’s goal: to somehow construct a work that would, if not simultaneously then alternately, tell a domestic story on a grand scale at the same time it would do the reverse. The scheme is neatly expressed in a comic Stoppardian formulation when Olga, Herzen’s daughter, comments on Natalie Ogarev’s behaviour in Salvage. Comically echoing her father, Olga introduces a malapropism when she says, “I like her sometimes, when she’s not historical. When she gets historical the only thing that calms her down is intimate relations” (Salvage 60-1, 84). The trilogy itself precisely alternates between the historical and the domestically intimate bordering on the historical/hysterical. It is precisely this double action Stoppard sought with The Coast of Utopia, the trilogy opening with a family drama at the Bakunin estate overlaid by the larger issues of political philosophy, ideology, and possible revolution. The tension of love on a personal level parallels the tension of love of country on a national level. Curiously, it was neither Bakunin nor Herzen who initially interested Stoppard when he first thought of the play but the outspoken literary critic Vissarion Belinsky and his decision to return to repressive Russia in 1847 rather than remain in free Paris. The reason? Suppression intensified his need to write, while generating more respect for writers. Belinsky, in fact, returned to Russia but died a year later. This decision by a writer that young radicals acknowledged as “‘the conscience’ of the Russian intelligentsia” absorbed Stoppard who, in an effort to understand this action, began to explore its dramatic possibilities (Berlin150; Shipwreck 56-9). His characterization of Belinsky in the trilogy as a “perplexed idealist,” naive and overly-enthusiastic, draws from a tradition of such figures in Russian writing, which includes the tutor Basistov in Turgenev’s novel Rudin, Bezukov in Tolstoy’s War and Peace, Krutsifersky in Herzen’s novel Who is to blame?, and Trofimov in Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard (Berlin 151). Incapable of any falseness, Belinsky is, nevertheless, often confused and blundering and yet is morally incorruptible and courageous. Intensity and crises define the rhythm of his life, highlighted in a virtuoso speech he delivers on Russian literature and life (Voyage 39-40). The decision to return to Russia, plus Belinsky’s tempestuous relationship with Bakunin, engrossed Stoppard (Shipwreck, 30-2). Stoppard’s engagement with Chekhov did not end with The Coast of Utopia. Ivanov appeared in 2008 starring Kenneth Branagh, a Donmar Warehouse production at the Wyndham Theatre in London directed by

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Chekhov’s Stoppard

Michael Grandage, and in 2009, The Cherry Orchard, directed by Sam Mendes premiered at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. The recurrent hold of Chekhov on his theatrical imagination seems inescapable as, indeed, Chekhov has entrapped Michael Frayn or even David Mamet. In a 2008 interview before the opening of Ivanov—Chekhov’s first finished play—Stoppard explained that he had at last understood the perennial question—are Chekhov’s plays comedies or tragedies?—long a debate even during Chekhov’s lifetime. “‘It suddenly became perfectly clear to me,’ he explained, ‘that you could answer with another question. “Is life?” So it stops being a puzzle.’” He added, “Chekhov liked laughter through unshed tears.” Stoppard also chose not to situate Ivanov at the precipice of revolution, since Chekhov wrote the play before the 1905 revolution and rejected the view that all his plays are about “parasitic aristocrats with nothing to do except be victims of history. It doesn’t stand up: they work hard.” For Stoppard, comedy reigns: “Chekhov kept begging actors not to emote tragically—to keep things light and fast. He was trying to get actors to act against the emotion. So confusions have been inherited as to whether it was meant to be funny” (Stoppard in Jaggi). One issue in the play, however, is Ivanov’s wife, a Jewess who converts to marry Ivanov. He calls her at one point “a silly yid,” a reflection of the casual snit-Semitism of this period in Russia, intensely discomforting Stoppard remarks: Chekhov was capable of casually tossing off deplorable comments in his letters, combined with a very modern anger against anti-Semitism. It’s as though the culture was in some kind of transition. (Stoppard in Jaggi)

The situation is ironic since Stoppard acknowledged his own Judaism in 1999, something he was unaware of until 1994. In Ivanov, Stoppard took liberties, actually killing a character that Chekhov unaccountably failed to kill off. Stoppard gives Count Shabelsky a heart attack—he “clutches his heart, staggers, collapses; unnoticed” reads the stage directions (“unnoticed” is a Stoppardian touch)—while Sasha, daughter of the wealthy Lebedevs and supposedly in love with Ivanov, continues with a lengthy monologue accusing Lvov of dishonesty (Ivanov 82). She repeats herself but Stoppard didn’t want to cut her lines, so he gave the secondary character a heart attack while she, oblivious to the action, speaks. Two events occur at the same time with Chekhov having the last laugh, since no one even noticed, all characters disregarding Shabelsky until he dies (Stoppard in Remnick).

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Another Stoppard liberty is the insertion of comments in what was originally a lugubrious speech. Stoppard peppers a self-pitying and potentially histrionic speech from Ivanov, delivered in a deliberate monotone by Branagh, with comic interjections from Lebedev (Ivanov 53-6). Throughout, Stoppard’s language is alive, as in the scene where Anna, Ivanov’s Jewish wife, who has abandoned her faith and family to be with him, recounts their romance. In Lawrence Senelick’s translation, Anna exclaims: One glimpse of him and I was caught in the mousetrap, snap! He said: let’s go . . . . I cut myself off from everything, you know, the way people snip off withered leaves with a scissors, and I went . . . . (Ivanov, tr. Senelick 343)

Stoppard’s energetic re-creation of the same moment is more direct: I took one look and—snap!—I was caught. He said, “Let’s run off . . . let’s go!” I stripped my life away just like you’d strip the dead leaves off a stem, and I went. (Ivanov 19)

Stoppard’s version cuts through the wordiness to better extract the tone; character and spontaneity inform his sense of how people speak. Anna, caught in the throes of memory, breaks through to the language of immediacy: she is less precise, perhaps, but her words, in their repetition, have the feeling of one stumbling without forethought into metaphor. This will also occur in The Cherry Orchard. The clerk Yepikhodov, eager to advertise his intellect to a collection of hapless servants who could not be less interested, muses, “Abroad has been going on for ages, it’s arrived at a certain state of arrival” (CO 29; Senelick gives this more formally and drily: “Abroad everything long ago attained its complete complexification” [Senelick 1002]). Stoppard’s Chekhov has zip, energy, and snap. The stock view is that Ivanov, written when Chekhov was only twentyseven and unfinished, is a comic Russian Hamlet. The moody selfloathing of the title character, a landowner with immense debt, and on the wrong side of forty in Stoppard’s “translation,” is alternately heroic and tragic. The style, however, is colloquial, fluid, and clear. Chekhov is also very difficult to perform because the histrionic emotionalism of his characters tempts actors to simply play big, and because his plays walk a fine line—and often cross back and forth—between tragedy and comedy. But Ivanov is clearly a comedy with a tragic character or maybe two at its centre. Out of love with his tubercular wife, Ivanov escapes nightly to the Lebedevs, to whom he owes money, but the flight only increases his guilt when their twenty-year-old daughter throws herself at

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him. His wife discovers them together and she accuses him of being an adulterer, an accusation with none of benefits of the charge. His wife’s doctor accuses him of being a fortune-hunter, but his own despair leads to his tragic end. Stoppard’s script and Michael Grandage’s production allow the incipient, dual perspective of Chekhov to emerge, permitting Ivanov to be both ridiculous and tragic simultaneously. Kenneth Branagh, playing Ivanov, is alert to his own absurdity, at one point telling Sasha, the twenty year old who admires him, that he has become “a hangdog parody of a literary cliché, the superfluous man” (Ivanov 38). But he also conveys a powerful sense of shame. At one point, displaying Stoppard’s absorption of Chekhovian time and space, when Lebedev offers Ivanov eleven hundred rubles which he can use to pay off part of his loan to Lebedev’s wife, Ivanov simply stares at the money in a lengthy theatrical silence. But rather than take the money, he slides to the floor in a dishevelled heap—an action in the production but not the text (Ivanov 53). His friend’s pity is his undoing. Stoppard’s script and Grandage’s staging allow the comic and tragic to co-exist, avoiding farce and/or melodrama. Chekhovian contradictions affect every character, neatly expressed when Lvov asks Ivanov, “Will you listen to me?” and Ivanov replies, “I listen to you every day, and so far I haven’t understood a thing” (Ivanov 57). It is here that Stoppard’s Chekhovian inheritance shows through most clearly: both playwrights push their characters to the brink of satire without losing a sense of them as people. (One thinks of Bakunin, the slapdash anarchist in Stoppard’s Utopia plays, joking that he “ran out of revolutions” [Shipwreck 101].) Bakunin, as Stoppard envisions him in The Coast of Utopia, is a perfect Chekhovian prototype, indefatigable in the face of a world that he doesn’t quite realize is working against him. Chekhov’s wit, however, stops shy of cruelty, and Stoppard follows suit. Chekhov, it would seem, cares more for his characters than they do for each other. Stoppard’s Cherry Orchard, premiering at the Brooklyn Academic of Music as part of the collaborative Bridge Project on 3 January 2009, is his reworking of Chekhov’s first play translated into English (1908).9 A work that polarized interpretations—between naturalism and poetry, social complaint and social prophecy, comedy and tragedy—the play, for Stoppard, unquestionably falls into the category of comedy, Chekhov’s own designation. Stanislavsky’s emphasis on the tragic, however, upset the gravely ill Chekhov at the play’s premiere at the Moscow Art Theatre in January 1904. “I am describing life, ordinary life and not blank despondency,” Chekhov decried.10

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Stoppard, post-The Coast of Utopia, alters the focus of The Cherry Orchard. In the words of the critic Terry Teachout: “The Cherry Orchard” is a structurally faithful but verbally free adaptation in which Mr Stoppard has turned Chekhov’s best-loved play into a pendant to “The Coast of Utopia” . . . . Mr Stoppard has discreetly sharpened the politics of “The Cherry Orchard,” making it less a lyrical meditation on unfulfilled lives and more a tough-minded portrait of Russia’s uppermiddle class on the eve of the arrival of modernity.11

Links to The Coast of Utopia begin with Stoppard’s emphasis on social action and social change. The director, Sam Mendes, emphatically stressed the political aspect, the second half of the production full of expressionistic gestures that clearly suggest a coming revolution. One scene is a tableau that suggests the masses on the verge of revolution, a scene that simultaneously spells out but diminishes a set of implicit themes. Trofimov’s rejection of Lopakhin’s offer of money at the end of the play makes this clear: he won’t take it, preferring to be a free man. The stuff that rich men and beggars hold in such high regard hasn’t the slightest power over me . . . . Mankind is moving on to a higher truth, towards the greatest possible happiness, and I’m in the front rank. (CO 67)

“Will you get there?” Lopakhin asks. “I will,” Trofimov answers. “‘I’ll get there or show the way to those behind.’ An axe can be heard striking at a tree in the distance” (CO 68). The statement, undercut by the sound of the action, is Chekhovian in that we understand without witnessing, underscoring the tension between money and beliefs which Stoppard accentuates throughout the later part of the play. Stoppard was clear that his conception of the play extended the concerns of The Coast of Utopia. That play ended in 1860 and there is a generation between it and The Cherry Orchard, but the traditions cross that gap. In an interview, he noted the character he calls “the Passer-by” in The Cherry Orchard, a kind of radical and semi-threatening vagabond, a potential revolutionary (see Act Two: 41-42). His presence shows Chekhov’s awareness of the radical history of the past hundred years; it would be impossible for him to discount history in a social play, Stoppard added. Having done the work needed for The Coast of Utopia, Stoppard felt ready for The Cherry Orchard: “it’s not a political play in the simple direct sense, but I was very well prepared for translating in a certain

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historical and social context.”12 This is clear in Trofimov’s articulate response to Anya’s complaint that she has stopped feeling nostalgic for the cherry orchard. “The whole of Russia is our orchard,” he exclaims as he exposes the politics of the orchard: The dead are looking at you and whispering to you from every tree in the cherry orchard, from every leaf and every branch. The ownership of human beings! You’re all of you corrupted by it, Anya, don’t you see? . . . This country is two hundred years behind and falling back, because we haven’t come to terms with our history, we just philosophise on, or complain we’re bored, or get drunk. But it’s so clear that to live in the present we have to redeem our past . . . and it has to hurt, there’s no easy way … (CO 43)

The passage echoes Arkadina in The Seagull: Oh, what can be more weary than the sweet weariness of life in the country . . . no one feels like doing anything—it’s very pleasant . . . listening to one’s friends disputing away. (Seagull 26)

Stoppard went on in this 2008 interview to stress the micro- and macronarratives in a Chekhov work where there is always something under the surface. Stoppard notes that his own plays are more in the nature of an argument between ideas or between people who have different views concerning an abstract question. This is less prevalent in Chekhov. Yet, Stoppard realizes that he writes comedy, not Shavian polemics. Even The Coast of Utopia has laughter which he terms recreational, implying new thoughts. The first half of The Cherry Orchard is wholly faithful to the complex spirit of Chekhov—successfully balancing comedy and elegy. Contrasting feelings seem to cohabit so that Ranevskaya is both hopeless and hopeful as characters constantly misspeak to one another, unaware of their displacement, pretending they are perfectly at home. Stoppard’s lively language contributes to the comedy, from the comment of Gaev’s about a woman “of loose morals. You only have to look at the way she moves” to Pishchik expressing amazement at Charlotta’s magic tricks and exclaiming, “You’re an amazing girl . . . I think I’m in love.” She answers, “[I]t takes more than that. You may have the instrument but can you play the music?” (CO 24, 48). Stoppard’s comic writing properly includes allusions: “To be or to shoot myself, that is the question,” one character asks (CO 29). Explicit staging, however, detracts from the emotional intensity: pratfalls and physical comedy

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interrupt every intense moment. A major turning point occurs during a fight between Ranevskaya and Trofimov—only to be followed within seconds by the sound of Trofimov falling down the stairs offstage and Anya rushing in to announce that “it’s only a flesh wound.” The characters don’t slow down long enough in the production to feel their pain; Mendes contradicts subtly with screwball comedy. The production actually had several holdovers from the Lincoln Center production of The Coast of Utopia: actors Richard Easton and Ethan Hawke, costume designer Catherine Zuber, and composer Mark Bennett. Such interpretative freedom, at least on the stage, raises the question of translation, addressed by Stoppard in November 2008. Asked why bother with yet another version of The Cherry Orchard, he explained that no single translation can account for the play. And that every translation has a built-in obsolescence. They seem date stamped. Also, directors like to work from new texts because the text is unsettled, a condition that changes only when the play is performed and script published. The task of translation is always opened-ended. Stoppard again stressed duality: “A great deal of internal things are going on while a character speaks two lines and takes a drink,” the centre of Chekhov for him. This ability to present a placid surface but a turbulent undercurrent was revolutionary. What was also revolutionary was the seeming moral neutrality of his characters, although underneath they were seething. The issue is tone, and it bothered Chekhov, who was seeing tonal problems in his plays, complaining that the actors were always too emotive with his words and startled by his labelling The Cherry Orchard a comedy. But his refusal to judge people is part of his definition of what a comedy is, Stoppard emphasizes, citing a line from his translation of Ivanov where a character says, “I don’t understand you, you don’t understand me, and neither of us understands ourselves.” Chekhov offers no judgment on how we behave, resisting easy categories of “credit and blame.”13 Indirect action is the key and most revealing element of the drama. The manner in which things are left unsaid matters. The Mendes production, as noted earlier, overstated effects, adding onstage musicians, elaborate magic tricks, an unexpected tableau vivant of bedraggled peasants and a masked-dance number that opened the production’s second half. He also gave the arriviste merchant Lopakhin, who bought the estate, a speech that curdled into rage as he knocked over every chair in the room. Squares of light helped to structure the scenes and propel the action forward. Contemporary British and American playwrights other than Stoppard have put Russia on the stage, largely through adaptations ranging from

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Michael Frayn’s versions of Uncle Vanya (1986) and, earlier, The Cherry Orchard (1978), to Nick Dear’s reworking of Gorky’s Summerfolk. David Mamet’s version of The Cherry Orchard appeared in 1985, Uncle Vanya in 1988, and The Three Sisters in 1990, directed by William H. Macy. Brian Friel is no exception: his work Afterplay (2002) imagines the afterlife of two Chekhov characters who meet by chance in a Moscow café: Sonya Serebryakova from Uncle Vanya and Andrey Prozorov, the brother of Olga, Masha, and Irina of The Three Sisters. Friel allows his characters to bring the audience up-to-date on events since the conclusion of each play, while each lies to the other to hide the reality of their disappointing lives. Dan Rebellato’s Chekhov in Hell (2011) deals with Chekhov’s death in 1904 at age forty-four. But Stoppard’s engagement with Chekhov has been more constant, acknowledging that the Russian gave him license to experiment not only with double or triple levels of inconsistency concerning character and plot (The Real Inspector Hound, Hapgood, Arcadia, The Coast of Utopia), but with themes that appear to be domestic which are actually political as well as universal. Chekhov also taught him that moral neutrality is a virtue. And Stoppard’s relationship with the playwright continues: with Chekhovian restraint, he recently admitted that “it’s so great in the theatre when everyone catches up on the truth,” a line easily attributable to Ivanov, The Seagull, or The Cherry Orchard.14

Notes 1

Stoppard in Jonathan Croall, “The Russians are Coming,” News 04, National Theatre, Summer 2002 [1]. Stoppard, London Library 29 October 1997 in Nadel, Double Act: A Life of Tom Stoppard (2002: London: Methuen, 2004). 514. 2 Stoppard, “Chekhov – An Impartial Witness,” Donmar Warehouse program, Ivanov, 12 September - 29 November 2008. www.donmarwarehouse.com/pl85.html.ivanov2-1pdf. Stoppard in Helen Rappaport, “Chekhov in the Theatre: The Role of the Translator in New Versions,” Voices in Translation, ed. Gunilla Anderman (Clevedon: Multilingual Matters, 2007) 66. 3 Tom Stoppard in David Remnick, “A Likely Story,” Interview, Brooklyn Academy of Music, 12 November 2008. http://matthewslikelystory.blogspot.ca/2008/11/remnickstoppard-part-1.html. Also listed as “Artist Talk: Tom Stoppard on Chekhov” on the BAM website. The event occurred on 11 November 2008. The event preceded the opening of Stoppard’s The Cherry Orchard at the Brooklyn Academy of Music on 3 January 2009.

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Rappaport provided literal translations of The Cherry Orchard and, before that, Ivanov for Stoppard. Joanna Wright did a literal translation of The Seagull for Stoppard in 1997. 4 See Stoppard’s introduction to The Seagull (London: Faber and Faber, 1997) vxii. 5 The Cherry Orchard was produced during the 1953-54 Old Vic season, Uncle Vanya during the 1955-56 season. 6 For further comments on translation and The Seagull, see Stoppard, “Introduction,” Chekhov, The Seagull, A New Version by Tom Stoppard (London: Faber and Faber, 1997) v-xii. 7 The historical source for The Coast of Utopia, according to Stoppard, was a paragraph in Isaiah Berlin’s Russian Thinkers (1978) about the Russian writer Vissarion Belinsky. Allowed to go to Paris, Belinsky felt compelled to return home, despite the pleas of friends to stay in the West. But Belinsky hated Paris precisely because there was no censorship. He loved Russia precisely because there was censorship. In a country where nothing is allowed, everything matters; in the West, where everything is allowed, nothing matters. Stoppard in David Remnick, “A Likely Story,” BAM 12 November 2008. 8 In writing a trilogy, Stoppard joins his contemporaries Alan Ayckbourn and David Hare. Ayckbourn’s The Norman Conquests (1973) dealt with modern marital and social strife, while Hare’s three works–Racing Demon, Murmuring Judges and The Absence of War (1990-93)–focus on religion, law and politics. And despite Stoppard’s claim that the three plays of The Coast of Utopia can be seen individually, the linked, sequential plays gain momentum and power when viewed consecutively. 9 The Bridge Project was a collaboration between the Brooklyn Academic of Music, the Old Vic and Neal Street Productions; Gilman 202. 10 Chekhov in David Margarshack, Chekhov the Dramatist (New York: Hill and Wang, 1960) 14. The first production that emphasized the comic element of the play was Eve Le Gallienne’s staging at the Civic Repertory Theatre in New York in October 1928. 11 Terry Teachout, “Chekhov’s Fingerprints,” Wall Street Journal. Review of Cherry Orchard, NYC. 16 January 2009. “Seriously comic” was Ben Brantley’s designation in the New York Times Review. Brantley, “All Alone in a Crowded Country Home,” New York Times 16 January 2009. 12 Stoppard in conversation with James Mustich, Barnes & Noble Review, 10 December 2008. 13 Stoppard in David Remnick, “A Likely Story,” Interview, Brooklyn Academy of Music, 12 November 2008. http://matthewslikelystory.blogspot.ca/2008/11/remnickstoppard-part-1.html. Also listed as “Artist Talk: Tom Stoppard on Chekhov” on the BAM website. The event occurred on 11 November 2008. Stoppard actually misremembers his line. In Act 3 of the play, Ivanov remarks, “I don’t understand what’s going on inside you; you don’t understand me, and neither of us understands himself” (Ivanov, 58).

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14

Stoppard in David Colman, “A Little Suspense Travels a Long Way,” New York Times, 27 January 2008. The article features Stoppard’s treasured traveling bookcase, a rare item manufactured by T. Anthony of New York. Richard Gilman makes a telling point in his study when he writes that “beginning with The Seagull things said in Chekhov’s theatre constitute most of the drama” (Gilman 96). Occurrences only act as springboards for speech, which for the dramatist is action.

Works Cited Berlin, Isaiah. Russian Thinkers, 1978; ed. Henry Hardy and Aileen Kelly. London: Penguin, 1994. Chekhov, Anton. “The Cherry Orchard,” Complete Plays of Anton Chekhov, tr., ed., annotated by Laurence Senelick. New York: W.W. Norton, 2006. 979-1043. —. The Cherry Orchard, in a new English version by Tom Stoppard. London: Faber and Faber, 2009. —. “Ivanov,” Complete Plays of Anton Chekhov, tr., ed. annotated by Laurence Senelick. New York: W.W. Norton, 2006. 327-403. —. Ivanov. In a new English Version by Tom Stoppard based on a literal translation by Helen Rappaport. London: Faber and Faber, 2008. —. The Seagull. A new Version by Tom Stoppard. London: Faber and Faber, 1997. Gilman, Richard. Chekhov’s Plays, An Opening into Eternity. New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1995. Gorky, Maxim. Summerfolk, A new Version by Nick Dear. London: Faber and Faber, 1999. Jaggi, Maya. “’You can’t help being what you write,’” Guardian, 6 September 2008. Mustich, James. “Stoppard in Conversation,” Barnes & Noble Review, 10 December 2008. Nadel, Ira. Double Act, a Life of Tom Stoppard. 2002; London: Methuen, 2004. Rappaport, Helen. “Chekhov in the Theatre: The Role of the Translator in New Versions,” Voices in Translation, Bridging Cultural Divides. Ed. Gunilla Anderman (Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters Ltd., 2007) 66-77. Senelick, Laurence, “Introduction,” The Complete Plays [of] Anton Chekhov, tr., ed., annotated by Laurence Senelick. New York: W.W. Norton, 2006. xlvii-lx.

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Stoppard, Tom. “Chekhov – An Impartial Witness,” Ivanov, Donmar Warehouse Program, Sept. 2008. http://Donmarwarehouse.com/pl85.html.Ivanov2-1pdf. —. “An English Seagull,” The Seagull, Program. Old Vic Theatre, London, 1997.6-7. —. The Invention of Love. London: Faber and Faber, 1997. —. Jumpers. New York: Grove Press, 1972. —. Rock ‘n’ Roll. London: Faber and Faber, 2006. —. Salvage, The Coast of Utopia Part III. London: Faber and Faber, 2002. —. Shipwreck, The Coast of Utopia, Part II. London: Faber and Faber, 2002. —. Travesties. New York: Grove Press, 1975. —. Voyage, The Coast of Utopia Part I. London: Faber and Faber, 2002. Welsh, Anne Marie. “Stoppard in Love,” San Diego Union-Tribune, 6 February 2000. E11.

TOM STOPPARD: A PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG MAN JOHN FLEMING

Author’s Note: The majority of this chapter was previously published in The Library Chronicle 26.3 (1996) as “Tom Stoppard: His Life and Career Before ‘Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.’” The following is an updated, amended, slightly re-ordered and expanded version of that article. The additional 5500 words draw on material from the Gordon Dickerson Collection at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, Ira Nadel’s biography on Stoppard, as well as some of Stoppard’s early journalistic writings; in the process, it provides a fuller understanding of the pre-success phase of Stoppard’s career and the way in which this period informs his later work.

When the rave reviews came in during the opening night party for the 1967 Broadway production of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, Tom Stoppard turned to his wife and carried out a mock interview with himself: “Question: Mr Stoppard, what is your play about? Answer: It’s about to make me rich.”1 Indeed, the success of the play in many of the major theatre centres of the Western world not only changed Stoppard’s financial fortunes but also his literary reputation, as he went from a onetime writer of propagandistic radio soap operas to being hailed as one of the “finest English-speaking writers of our stage.”2 Though Stoppard had written about a dozen scripts for radio, television, and the stage, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead was his first stage play to be professionally produced in English, and so he is sometimes seen as an “overnight” success story; however, Stoppard’s meteoric rise to the upper echelon of the theatrical world was actually many years in the making. The archives at the University of Texas’s Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center hold copies of most of Stoppard’s pre-success work, including unpublished scripts of I Can’t Give You Anything but Love, Baby; The Gamblers; Funny Man; This Way Out with Samuel Boot; How Sir Dudley Lost the Empire; Higg and Cogg; A Paragraph for Mr Blake

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(a.k.a. The Explorers); Doctor Masopust, I Presume; and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Meet King Lear. By examining these works, his early journalistic writings, and his extensive correspondence with Anthony C. H. Smith, this chapter documents Stoppard’s life and career from his decision to turn to playwriting in 1960 up to his breakthrough success in 1967. This information helps paint a portrait of the artist and of Tom Stoppard the man during the seven years of struggle that preceded the fame and fortune which he has enjoyed ever since Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead.

From Journalist to Playwright Though Stoppard is one of the most intellectual playwrights, he never went to university, having left school at the age of seventeen after completing his O-levels.3 From 1954-1960 he lived in Bristol, working as a newspaper reporter. In the late 1950s, Bristol was percolating with young artistic talent. John Arden, already a success at the Royal Court, was playwright-in-residence at the Bristol University Drama Department, where Geoffrey Reeves (future assistant to Peter Brook and director of Stoppard’s After Magritte (1970)) was a postgraduate student. Though not exactly friends, Stoppard also moved in the same Bristol social and artistic circles as Peter Nichols (A Day in the Death of Joe Egg (1967) and The National Health (1969)) and Charles Wood (the screenplay for the Beetles’ Help! (1965)).4 In the 1950s, Stoppard worked for the Western Daily Press (1954-58) and then for the Bristol Evening World (1959-60). For the latter, one of his assignments was to write regularly, both reviews and articles, about theatre and film. While with the Bristol Evening World, Stoppard actually reviewed more films than theatre, as he wrote about a wide-range of filmmakers, including Richard Attenborough, Andrej Wajda, Joseph Losey, Sergei Eisenstein, and Elia Kazan. At the same time, living in Bristol, Stoppard saw a wide variety of theatre, taking in the works of Shakespeare, Shaw, Max Frisch, Erwin Piscator’s production of War and Peace, as well as the new voices of Samuel Beckett, Harold Pinter, and the Angry Young Men that followed John Osborne’s success at the Royal Court. Being a reporter for the Western Daily Press also provided Stoppard with one of his rare acting experiences. For an article, he played “the seventh Arab” in a production of Shaw’s Captain Brassbound’s Conversion, and his task was to stab actor Emrys James. Wearing a “skirt, blouse, kimono, [hooded cloak], and beard” and with his face, hands, and feet “a healthy Moorish brown,” Stoppard executed his assignment, but only after he had blanked

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out and was saved by James who had the great presence of mind to run towards the bewildered walk-on.5 In the process of reviewing the arts, Stoppard became friends with members of the Bristol Old Vic, among the most prestigious of Britain’s regional repertory companies. One of those new friends was the then relatively unknown Peter O’Toole, who in the 1957-58 season turned in stellar performances as the leads in both Hamlet and Look Back in Anger. As Stoppard has frequently noted, in the late 1950s, theatre became the most exciting, dynamic medium for young writers. Stoppard has cited Osborne’s Look Back in Anger (1956) and the other vibrant new voices at the Royal Court, as well as Beckett’s Godot, Peter Hall’s directorial work, and Kenneth Tynan’s writings in the Observer, as factors that fuelled his passion for playwriting.6 Indeed, Stoppard started a play in 1958 for a competition sponsored by the London newspaper the Observer, “but that one petered out after a dozen pages that were not unlike Look Back in Anger.”7 While the historical moment played a role in Stoppard becoming a playwright as opposed to a novelist, he retrospectively realized other factors. In particular, Stoppard discovered his aptitude for the medium, that he was better at writing dialogue than plot, and “that writing for the stage appealed to me, the situation appealed to me on some quite important level and I didn’t want to do anything else.”8 Stoppard views the staging of plays as a dynamic, unstable activity, which “owing to the chemistry of the performers and the entire situation is much more exciting than anything that you could do simply in publishing prose …. Theatre satisfies my capacity for that balance between safety and risk.”9 Finding a balance between safety and risk would also be crucial as he made the leap from journalism to playwriting. Tom Stoppard’s career as an artist began in July of 1960 when, on holiday in Capri for his twenty-third birthday, he decided to abandon his first love, journalism, and turn his energies toward playwriting. When he returned to Bristol, he quit his salaried position at the Bristol Evening World, but contracted to write two columns per week for the Western Daily Press to support himself while he wrote plays. Stoppard’s subsequent freelance work for them included a satirical column under the pseudonym “Brennus” and articles for the new weekly Arts Page. About this life-changing decision, he wrote to his girlfriend Isabel Dunjohn: “I figure I can get by on £5 a week at a pinch, but £7 for safety (the main snag is that I CANNOT write without cigarettes!). It would give me what I most lack now—time.”10

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Stoppard turned to playwriting with a sense of urgency, feeling that he already should have accomplished much more in life and in writing. In three months, he wrote his first full-length play, A Walk on the Water, a work so heavily influenced by Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman and Robert Bolt’s Flowering Cherry that Stoppard would years later jokingly nickname it Flowering Death of a Salesman. Stoppard used his contacts at the Bristol Old Vic and sent them his play for an assessment. In the intervening months, he wrote what was then a one-act play entitled The Gamblers. (Probably after writing The Gamblers, Stoppard wrote a rough draft of a play called The Critics, the un-Real Inspector Hound, but he abandoned it before submitting it to anyone.11) While neither A Walk on the Water nor The Gamblers has done much for Stoppard’s reputation, they both were crucial to the progress of his career. Via his contacts at the Bristol Old Vic, Stoppard became acquainted with Kenneth Ewing, an agent on the literary side of Fraser and Dunlop. He sent Ewing The Gamblers, but the agent wanted to see more work, and so “with misgivings and deprecating noises, I sent him A Walk on the Water, explaining that it was, of course, rather passé compared to the oneacter.”12 Ewing responded favourably, with Stoppard learning of his new agent’s acceptance via “one of those Hollywood-style telegrams that change struggling young artists’ lives.”13 The ten-pound advance, the largest lump sum Stoppard had ever earned, within two weeks became one hundred pounds when one of Britain’s most prestigious producing agencies, H.M. Tennent, optioned A Walk on the Water. While noteworthy actors were discussed for the play, ultimately its year-long option expired and was not renewed. However, the play would resurface in the ensuing years and again aid his career at a time when he needed it. In addition, Ewing would be Stoppard’s agent until Ewing’s death in 2008. While beginning his writing career, Stoppard remained in Bristol from July 1960 through August 1962. During this time, Stoppard befriended Anthony C. H. Smith, the editor of the new Arts Page at Western Daily Press. Smith, a would-be novelist, became the man on whom Stoppard relied as a close friend and mentor during the years of uncertainty and poverty which preceded the success of Rosencrantz. During those years of struggle, Smith served as a steadying influence, a man whose critical opinion Stoppard sought, and a friend who provided emotional support as well as small loans that helped keep the writer afloat during times of pecuniary need. Together they nurtured each other’s literary aspirations as they also immersed themselves in the artistic explosion of the early 1960s. Stoppard’s work for the Arts Page reveals some of the foundations of his own artistic preoccupations as a mature artist. In a 13 November 1961

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Tom Stoppard: A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

article on the first Bristol production of Brecht’s Mother Courage, Stoppard noted that great art is often filled with borrowings from other artists: “Lines, characters and whole plots reappear all the time to remind us that evolution is a matter of reproduction.”14 Thornton Wilder, Moliere, Shakespeare, Brecht, and T.S. Eliot are all cited as literary larcenists, but they are not condemned for it. Indeed, the reliance on other works of art would be pivotal to Stoppard’s early successes with Rosencrantz, Jumpers, and Travesties. One of the thematic preoccupations of Travesties, the issue of political art versus art-for-art’s sake, is also evident in Stoppard’s journalistic writings. Just prior to the Brecht article, Stoppard penned a piece critical of Arnold Wesker’s Centre 42 (a project designed to disseminate the arts through the trade unions). Stoppard argued: “Society is not by nature homogeneous. It finds various cultural (and social and economic) levels,” and so if the working class, as well as the upper class, prefer football, films, television, and gardening instead of theatre and the fine arts, then that is their prerogative.15 Arguing that “art is not withheld from anyone,” Stoppard objected to Wesker trying “to impose his own values on the ‘underprivileged,’” and for the Centre 42 movement finding “it impossible to separate culture from politics.”16 Against the tide of didactic, political theatre, Stoppard argued: “Art is necessary, for itself, whoever needs it or whoever brings it.”17 Likewise, in an article on the recently deceased James Thurber, Stoppard opined that Thurber and P.G. Wodehouse will continue to be read “not because they are funnier than [S.J.] Perelman but because they write better. Or rather, they are funnier because they write better.”18 Then in words that could be used to describe Stoppard’s own After Magritte, he wrote: “[Thurber’s mind] was tuned to pick up the idiocies and surrealism masquerading as normality. This, if anything, was Thurber’s specialty—the fantasy with the logical explanation.”19 In other writings for the Arts Page, Stoppard showed his balance between tradition and innovation. In a June 1961 article focusing on Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman, Stoppard displayed both his research and analytical skills, summing up Miller’s obsession as a writer: It is the conflict between the individual aware of his own “specialness,” and the society intent on reducing him to an integer, weightless, anonymous, speechless, a dot without dimension in the great pattern of highly industrialized civilization, and at the same time without any perceptible connection with that society in the way it works and moves.20

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While Stoppard admired traditional playwrights such as Miller and O’Neill, he also urged Bristol theatre (and regional theatres in general) to be more adventurous. In a January 1962 article, Stoppard criticized the Bristol Old Vic for not producing Arnold Wesker’s Chips with Everything when they had the opportunity to stage the play within a few days of its London opening at the Royal Court. While recognizing the financial challenges and limited audiences for unproven works, Stoppard expressed his frustration that “few theatres will put on a new risky play unless there is a London tie-in.”21 Citing the new model of the partnership between the Cambridge Arts Theatre and the Royal Court (where each would stage a premiere and then transfer to the other), Stoppard hoped that regional theatres would take the lead in fostering new work; at the same time, he quoted a producer who noted “people will only go to plays which have been successful in London,” and so as much as Stoppard desired risktaking he also recognized that ultimately “we are talking about money.”22 While Stoppard disliked the way in which regional theatres and provincial audiences looked to London for guidance on what was considered good, he was gradually realizing that to make his mark in theatre and get steady work as a writer, he himself would have to be in London.

Working His Way up the Food Chain Philosophical concerns not only permeate Stoppard’s plays but also his private life and his letters. In May of 1962, while vacationing in Scotland and indulging in his then-passion for trout fishing, Stoppard writes of catching an 11-ounce trout, but I had to beat the thing over the head to prove my superiority, but decided finally, “oh well, that’s how it is.” That’s how it is. Life. Insect eats microbe, fish eats insect, I eat fish. Somebody, sooner or later, will bring the process to its logical conclusion by eating me, but what or who? Obviously a microbe. Life, baby.23

This concern for working events out to their logical conclusion would eventually pervade his plays. Even though Stoppard has eschewed linear cause-to-effect realism, he has repeatedly stressed the logic which undergirds the structure of his highly imaginative and theatrical plays: “I would think it a personal failure to write a play which is not consistent in every way …. They’ve got to make absolutely logical sense to me.”24 Similarly, the logical progression for an aspiring playwright was to move to London, which is what Stoppard did in August of 1962.

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While Stoppard made the move to London, Smith remained his main confidante in matters of art and life. Stoppard’s correspondence with Smith offers another view of Stoppard, a more personal, private look at the man as opposed to the public persona of his interviews where Stoppard comes across as coolly self-confident and a seemingly endless source of epigrammatic wit—indeed he once told an interviewer: “It seems pointless to be quoted if one isn’t going to be quotable . . . It’s better to be quotable than honest.”25 While the quotable public persona is part of Stoppard’s personality, the letters offer a less guarded presentation of his thoughts, feelings, and views, but even then Stoppard adopts a posture, as he is still a stylist who seeks to entertain and impress as he informs. In London, Stoppard found a job as the drama critic/theatre editor of the new arts magazine Scene, a publication which was only to survive seven months, folding in April of 1963. The prestige and challenges of being editor of the theatre page were both thrilling and frightening to the young Stoppard. Though he was sceptical of the potential quality of the publication (and promised to save his best work for the Arts Page which Smith edited), he realized that the job at Scene allowed him to make the move to London and its theatre world on relatively firm footing: the position paid him a weekly wage of £20, provided tickets to all the major plays, and allowed him enough time to pursue his own writing, which by now also included short stories. During his seven months at Scene, Stoppard reviewed approximately one hundred and thirty-two shows, but was frustrated by the space and time limitations that prevented him from criticizing and writing as well as he would have liked. He wrote to Isabel Dunjohn: “it is a bit pop, and I keep having to write down, which is a disappointment. Much lower standards than the arts page.”26 He was at a point where he was pursuing a writing career, while still taking a great deal of pride in journalistic writing and in wanting to cover the arts as well as possible; he felt Scene could make it if they let him take more control. The magazine was understaffed, and Stoppard himself was prolific, telling Dunjohn that for the first issue he contributed “one review, two fake reviews, one feature, two news stories, some gossip pars and a fake letter to the editor; not bad for a drama critic.”27 In addition to the theatre reviews, Stoppard also wrote articles and features, often using the pseudonym William Boot, a name taken from the protagonist of Evelyn Waugh’s novel Scoop. Stoppard liked the character because he was “a journalist who brought a kind of innocent incompetence and contempt to what he was doing. . . . I used it, and got quite fond of Boot as a name.”28 Indeed, Stoppard frequently populated his early TV and radio plays with characters named Boot.29

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The work with Scene ensured that Stoppard remained current with what has happening in London theatre. His first major review was of the Royal Court’s production of Brecht on Brecht. Stoppard praised Brecht’s ability to “merge art and doctrine into a theatre of genius.” At the same time, he argued that Brecht’s efforts to distance his audience were unsuccessful.30 He concluded that Brecht’s success was not in his doctrine, but in his humanness. In another article, Stoppard compared New York’s off-Broadway theatre to its London counterpart; in New York he saw a geographic concentration and a higher quality. In London, the “off-Shaftesbury” equivalents to off-Broadway were largely limited to the Royal Court and the New Arts; as for the smaller, non-professional theatres, Stoppard viewed them mostly in a mixed light due to their poor quality. In contrast, he championed Charles Marowitz’s In-Stage as “London’s only truly professional (unpaid) and truly experimental theatre.”31 Five other noteworthy small theatres were featured, with praise offered to the Questors for their new-play festivals. Notably, Marowitz would later recommend Stoppard for a Ford Foundation fellowship, while the Questors would do a reading of an early version of Rosencrantz. Stoppard’s deepest foray into contemporary British theatre, including the practical business side of it, came via a moderated discussion in a 23 March 1963 article. Stoppard was joined by director William Gaskill, producer Michael Codron, and playwright James Saunders as they articulated the factors that led to the relative success of the West End productions of Pinter’s The Caretaker, Brecht’s Baal (with Peter O’Toole), and Saunders’s Next Time I’ll Sing to You. Stoppard biographer Ira Nadel refers to this round-table discussion as “a seminar for the aspiring dramatist” in which he gained further insight into “the differences between those plays written for non-commercial and those for commercial venues and the compromises playwrights must make in order to have their works performed.”32 In addition, each participant would later have an impact on Stoppard’s career. Saunders would join Stoppard in Berlin on the Ford Foundation fellowship, and his play Next Time I Sing to You was admired by Stoppard and influenced Stoppard’s writing of Rosencrantz. 33 Codron would become the producer for Stoppard’s plays that originated on the West End, from The Real Inspector Hound in 1968 through Indian Ink in 1995. In contrast, in 2006 when the Royal Court decided to premiere Stoppard’s Rock ‘n’ Roll as part of their 50th anniversary season, Gaskill, as former Artistic Director of the company, registered his protest by withdrawing his promised participation: he believed that the mainstream, conservative Stoppard was the antithesis of what the Royal Court embodied.

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Overall, the time at Scene provided the young Stoppard with an education and entryway to the London theatre world. Summarizing his critical writings for Scene, Katherine Kelly notes: “Tight construction and maximum density of language—two of mature Stoppard’s criteria for well-crafted plays—were already conscious markers of quality.”34 She adds: “In addition to his appreciation of wit, Stoppard clearly preferred plays dense with literary allusion and orchestrated with an ear to rhythmic variation,” traits which would be characteristic of his own playwriting. 35 Likewise, in his review of James Saunders’s Next Time I’ll Sing To You, Stoppard laid out three fundamental artistic principles: 1) everything should count; nothing should be arbitrary, 2) plays should have artistic unity, with no unnecessary digressions, and 3) plays should have a point; too many random bits or presenting everything as having the same significance only diminishes the play’s intended impact. For the most part, Stoppard’s plays have adhered to these principles. While working at Scene, Stoppard continued to write occasionally for the Arts Page. Known as a meticulous playwright who labours over every line, Stoppard the journalist was also “extremely conscientious, a perfectionist to an extraordinary degree.”36 When Smith asked him to write a feature article on Norman Mailer, Stoppard read all of Mailer’s work in two weeks only to discover: I over-researched on Mailer. Instead of knowing enough to write 1000 words, and writing 1200, I know enough to write 10,000 words and laboured mainly at compression, précis, discrimination, etc. to write 2000. Cut at will.37

This tendency towards extensive research and precise writing carried over into his playwriting career. Fellow writer Derek Marlowe described Stoppard’s writing process, particularly as it applied to Jumpers: “For Tom, writing a play is like sitting for an examination. He spends ages on research, does all the necessary cramming, reads all the relevant books, and then gestates the results.”38 While Stoppard was employed at Scene, he continued with his creative writing. Via Smith’s urging, Stoppard penned some short stories that were to be submitted for a Faber anthology. The editor, Frank Pike, selected three of Stoppard’s works: “Reunion”; “Life, Times: Fragments”; and “The Story.” 39 While “Reunion” concerns a meeting between former lovers, it also reflects Stoppard’s respect for the power of words; the other two stories have their roots in Stoppard’s experiences as a journalist. While the short stories form little more than a footnote in Stoppard’s

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canon, the lasting impact would be that Pike became Stoppard’s editor until his retirement thirty-seven years later. Meanwhile, his play A Walk on the Water was circulating through London theatre circles (during the Tennent option year), with Stoppard telling Smith: Ralph Richardson has expressed interest in Walk and has sent script to Peter Brook who may be described as God in the world of which Peter Hall is Mammon. But, Richardson had comments, chief of which was he was worried about the play’s shortness. So I am frantically trying to add half an hour without merely padding, and I’ve now got a way to do it, by developing Linda’s relationship to the family re[garding] her boyfriend, who in the present script is mentioned quite fortuitously. But it’s a lot of work (which I am for a change enjoying, and have written some good speeches).40

Though this project did not work out, from the beginning Stoppard’s work was being considered by some of the top people in British theatre.

“Mainly Self-Unemployed” In London, Stoppard lived in a bedsit (a small one-room apartment with shared bathroom in the hall) in Notting Hill Gate, a dingy west suburb. In the same run-down house lived Derek Marlowe, who commented on the early Stoppard: Tom wrote short stories, and smoked to excess, and always worked at night. Every evening he would lay out a row of matches and say, “Tonight I shall write twelve matches”—meaning as much as he could churn out on twelve cigarettes.41

By April of 1963, Scene was in dire financial straits and unable to pay its writers. While Stoppard waited to get paid, he went fly-fishing in Scotland and borrowed money from friends. It was a pattern that would persist during the ensuing four years—financial need, short-term loans, but rarely refraining from going on holiday or taking taxis instead of public transportation. His agent Kenneth Ewing comments on Stoppard’s early tendency to live beyond his means: When I first met [Tom], he had just given up his regular work as a journalist in Bristol, and he was broke. But I noticed that even then he always travelled by taxi, never by bus. It was as if he knew that his time would come.42

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Stoppard has never denied his ambition for wealth, even equating having money with “winning in the game of life,”43 but his own perspective on his preference for taxis and wealth is: “I have always treated money as the stuff with which you purchase time.”44 Time is what Stoppard had on his hands after Scene folded in April 1963, for there followed four years which he has described as being “mainly self-unemployed.”45 Until the success of Rosencrantz, Stoppard did the occasional freelance review or article, while also starting to earn a minimal living from his writing, mostly for television and radio. During this four-year period, Stoppard produced a number of unpublished, unproduced scripts, most of which are now housed at the Ransom Center. His letters to Smith during these years contain references to various projects, but in some cases, it is difficult to determine which play and which draft he is discussing. Still, by piecing together the letters and their contextual clues, one can construct a fairly coherent narrative of this period of Stoppard’s life and writing career. By June of 1963, Stoppard’s short stories had been accepted for publication, but he had already moved his focus to writing scripts for radio, television, and the stage. In that month, he began rewriting The Gamblers and had plans to finish revising The Critics, which he had first written in 1960 or 1961 while living in Bristol. Another Bristol connection, director John Boorman (later known for films such as Deliverance and The Emerald Forest) commissioned Stoppard and Smith to write for a series that would employ a new form of documentary. Stoppard was assigned surrealism, and the excerpt included in a June 1963 letter suggests that the documentary functioned by illustrating surrealism via examples rather than by talking about it. While the surrealist script was probably not filmed, in summer 1963 A Walk on the Water was bought for television. Stoppard wrote to Smith: “There are two alternatives; either it will be done on July 26, transmitted August 2; OR they will wait for Ralph Richardson to be free—Richardson is keen. Hope they wait. Apart from the attendant publicity which will go to my head, it will also stand excellent chance of re-sale to yanks.”46 But as would happen during the years of struggle, hoped-for breakthroughs did not occur. Filming was delayed until the fall, but without Richardson in the cast. Stoppard referred to the first rehearsal where the cast read the script as “a grisly experience” which resulted in a decision to cut the script further, making “it 42 minutes out in all. I’m thinking of calling it ‘Walk On The.’ or ‘Walk on the Wa’” with the only saving grace being that the “cast loves the play.”47 Things only got worse with Stoppard’s first production. The play was filmed in November and intended for a March

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broadcast. Instead, one morning in late November, Stoppard was informed by the producers that his play would air that evening in place of a John Whiting work that was deemed inappropriate so soon after the assassination of President Kennedy. Stoppard viewed this last-minute change with mixed emotions: I lose all the publicity attached because there is of course no mention of it in the TV Times Section, which usually do a write up of Play of the Week authors; on the other hand, it may be that the fewer people who connect me with it, the better. This is not phony modesty; the production . . . depresses me. 48

Stoppard’s dissatisfaction stemmed from what he considered to be a large gap between his intention and its interpretation. In the summer of 1963, Stoppard was in good financial shape, for he had just earned £350 for Walk as well as $50 for a New York Post feature on his friend Peter O’Toole.49 But after a ten-week holiday in the Mediterranean with his girlfriend Isabel Dunjohn, Stoppard was soon back in dire financial straits, and by the fall of 1963 was in a fit of despair over his life and his writing. In October, after failing to get a journalism job with the Daily Express, he wrote to Smith: I’m still jobless and sinking …. in a slough of hopelessness, sorting out my despair like playing cards into suits: no money, debts, stuck on play, listless, cigless, starving, rent overdue, Mr and Mrs Smith depending on me for £14 (the first 14 is yours), and mainly the awful too-late feeling of having missed the bus somewhere, leaving me stranded in limbo with the ghosts of the unwritten books and plays to haunt me . . . very dramatic. In a word, I feel bloody low. The situation hasn’t changed, except that I’m past feeling low. I’m going to apply for a job on TV Times on Monday. Hack work. Too bad, who cares. Kenneth [Ewing, his agent] keeps on me about the play [unknown] which (I lie) I am progressing with. BBC man wants ideas from me with possible commission, and I haven’t had an idea in weeks …. I’ve decided that I don’t give a fuck about anything except to write a full length stage play and at least one TV this winter, but find myself incapable of thought until my grotesque finances are bolstered into at least an illusion of security.50

Amidst the depths of his despair and self-doubt, Stoppard maintained his desire to make it as a writer, which comes through in his correspondence, and his resiliency is evident in his follow-up letter, which also describes the difficulty he has always had with plots and providing synopses of proposed projects:

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Tom Stoppard: A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man I’m okay. After I wrote you, I thought up two play ideas, synopsized one and Ewing who likes it is trying to get TV co. to cough up commission on its strength. Small hope …. I’m not plot-headed about things as you know and found it difficult to provide a synopsis as required of me because I work on a basic idea and the plot “happens.” Ewing had badgered me for a synopsis of something and I was fixed solid. Explained that if I’d had to write a synopsis of Walk before I wrote it, it would have read: a middleaged failure grasps at illusion of self-esteem-success and finds it illusory. (GREAT! MAN! You mean, of course, there’s this inventor and his family—YEH! Here’s 200—get it down!).51

After this typical burst of sarcasm, Stoppard proceeds to discuss his two ideas: The first concerns a young man so given to maudlin self-dramatization that he establishes a rumour that he’s only got six months to live; and enjoys its effect, involving his boss, workmates, girl, etc., and it all snowballs and gets out of hand; at which point the falseness of the rumour is revealed to all, and in an extreme of embarrassment, anguish, he kills himself to preserve and justify the emotional structure he has erected. (I have a boney feeling that here lies the seed which might just possibly result in that long awaited first novel The Bedside Tom Stoppard); anyway the second idea was to write a play about a professional gagwriter going through a comedic crisis; just that; I won’t have to explain its appeal to me—the ironic potential in a joke-factory drowning in tears. Synopsis was difficult (“Gagwriter in crisis” would hardly get the commission rolling) so finally I worked out a PLOT, corny to read and I don’t expect I’ll keep to it in writing, but hope it does the trick.52

Whether or not the first idea was ever turned into a script is unknown; Stoppard himself thought it might work better as a novel. The second idea Stoppard developed into a 60-minute television play entitled Funny Man.

Funny Man Working from 6 p.m. to 7 a.m. Stoppard wrote the play in a week, using himself and Smith as models for the main characters: I think I’ve written about two jokes, not 100; the point being, of course, that as in the case of us two for example, one can be funny for minutes on end without making a single joke …. He just gags with people as we do in conversation, so in fact I merely played “your” part as well as “mine.”53

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At this point in time, Stoppard and Smith were not only the closest of friends, but Smith was also the writer whose critical opinion Stoppard valued most: All this presupposes your approval of the result—the opposite may be the case, but at the moment, not having retreated very far from it, I think it’s good. If you think so too it will bolster me up; if not then I expect you to say so with force, and by that time I would be gloomily agreeing with you.54

Buoyed by Smith’s approval, Stoppard was optimistic about Funny Man, and even did a second version after the first was rejected. A copy of Funny Man is at the Ransom Center, and while it is not clear whether this is the first or second version, the surviving text focuses more on love and fidelity in relationships—themes developed more fully in The Real Thing (1982)—than it does on a gagwriter in a comedic crisis. Funny Man revolves around the personal and professional problems of Martin Bush, a professional gagwriter, and his wife Angeline, an actress and would-be poet. The attractive, 30-ish couple struggles to pay their bills and is in the midst of marital strife. Martin is employed by Danny Diamond, a comedian and star of a hit TV show “Diamonds is Trumps,” to write “additional material,” which Martin explains: “The company spends a lot of money on scripts, and then Diamond has me around full time to put stuff in, take stuff out and fill in the gaps so that he can appear to be even funnier. He calls it watching his style.”55 Longing to be a novelist, Martin is unhappy as a gagwriter and also contemplates an affair with Frances Blake, a chorus girl in Diamond’s show and one of Diamond’s mistresses. Meanwhile, Angie is having an affair with her agent, Peregrine Preston, a man who later admits that her poetry is not very good: “I invested your poetry with some of your own beauty” (Sc. XI., p. 2). Angie is torn between the two men, and through her, Stoppard explores the themes of love and fidelity. Angie explains her feelings to Preston: PRESTON: Did you come because you wanted to, or because you were angry with him? ANGIE: I wanted to because I was angry with him. PRESTON: I should have known better. ANGIE: No, I wanted to. I d’know, I miss you quite a bit when I’m at home, and when I’m here I feel—I hate it. PRESTON: Do you?

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Tom Stoppard: A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man ANGIE: No, I don’t. Not being here. I like it. I was going to ask you what kind of wit you took to, and the answer is that it doesn’t matter—it’s relaxing after Jokesville [Martin]. I like being here. I just hate myself for liking it. (Sc. IV., p. 2)

The disenchantment within Angie and Martin’s marriage is developed in the next scene: MARTIN: I liked to think we were originals. I don’t know what I mean either. But we were originals then, there was nobody like us, and now we’re like everybody else. “The magic has gone out of my marriage, Mr Thurber!” I d’know. One of us has dodged behind a pane of glass. Is it me? ANGIE: The trouble is—when everything’s jokey, when joking is one’s business, then the things that should be just fun aren’t fun anymore because they’re the same as the rest of it, even though they aren’t. They get lost. Martin, everything we do becomes a joke, you know, except our jokes. I seem to have run out of fun—it’s all been devalued, the currency has been thumbed over and over. We hardly talk anymore, we just gag our giggly way towards the ultimate joke till plain ordinary dull jokeless living begins to look like a holiday. Do you know what I mean? (Sc. V., pp. 6-7)

But Martin does not yet understand, for he responds by making a joke of it and by starting to develop one of Angie’s ideas for a comic sketch. The scene ends with “Angie watching [Martin], pained but affectionate” (Sc. V., p. 7). As the play progresses, Angie is forced to make a decision and she explains her dilemma to Preston: PRESTON: Will you leave him? ANGIE: We’re more than husband and wife. We’re a double-act. We just got out of sync. PRESTON: I want to marry you, Angeline. ANGIE: That helps. Sometimes I want to marry you. PRESTON: Angeline— ANGIE: Not here. And not now. I’m sorry. There’s a lot more to it than simple preference, and I don’t even know what that is. But I’ve got to decide soon. I’m on borrowed time. PRESTON: There’s no hurry. ANGIE: Yes, there is. I don’t want to be caught cheating. If I go I want to go on the level, if you call that on the level. I want to tell him before he finds out …. [Martin’s] stripped to the nerves. That can be trying, but it’s also why I fell in love with him. I know I can have too much of that. What worries me is I’m not sure if I can be happy without any of it. (Sc. VIII., pp. 1-2)

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Angie has a heightened sense of self-awareness as she realizes how the advantages and disadvantages of the men she has to choose between will affect her own life. Her character is rather unique in that she is the most fully developed female figure from the early part of Stoppard’s career. Indeed, it would not be until Night and Day (1978) that Stoppard would again place a complex, emotionally developed female character at the centre of a play. While Angie agonizes over her situation, Martin, unaware of Angie’s affair, decides to accept Frances’s sexual advances. Ironically, Martin and Frances’s post-coital conversation focuses on how the two of them have been unfaithful to their employer, Danny Diamond. Martin closes the scene: “One of the big empty things about [Danny] is his lack of selfesteem as a lover. When his gagwriter tops him there, he won’t see the joke” (Sc. VII, p. 3). In contrast to Angie, Martin comes across as a shallow person, a man who cannot deal with the emotions of a relationship. As their affair approaches the point of having to make a decision, Frances tells Martin: “Come out from behind those gags, you coward. . . . Please start trusting me, Martin. You don’t give anything of yourself away, do you? Every time anything comes close your sirens go off and you skid away on gags” (Sc. X, p. 4). Indeed, whether by choice or lack of ability, Stoppard keeps Martin as a man who is emotionally underdeveloped. When Martin accidentally learns of Angie’s affair, “it’s as bad as he’s ever felt” (Sc. IX, p. 1), but he never vocalizes those emotions, nor does he ever acknowledge his own infidelity. Near the end, Martin is seen as a weak man with low self-esteem. Danny summons Martin to a meeting where two events occur: 1) Martin accepts a good-paying job writing for Danny’s New York appearance; and 2) Martin gives up Frances without a fight, for she is seen as being Danny’s girl. Martin proceeds to avoid answering Frances’s direct questions about whether or not Danny had asked about their relationship. Instead he replies: “Danny Diamond, the girls’ best friend! Accompanied by—Marty, the talking dog! Every time Marty passes a lamppost, he makes a JOKE! … Danny Diamond, a dog’s best friend, has instructed me to say, in my master’s voice, at the world record fee of one thousand dollars, to say—My People!” (Sc. XIV, p. 2). By now, Martin seems to have no will of his own; instead, it is up to Angie to save him. In a prior scene, Angie meets with Preston in order to give him the start of her novel and to end their relationship. She explains why she stayed with Martin:

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Tom Stoppard: A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man I’m sorry. I had the alternatives, but I never really had the choice. I don’t know why I didn’t see that. What it boils down to is that I know if I’d been married to you, or anyone, all this time, and I met him—I mean, if it was the other way round, I’d want something which I’ve already got now. (Sc. XI, p. 3)

Angie not only stays with Martin, but in the last scene she reveals that the novel which she submitted to Preston, which Preston thinks he can sell, is actually Martin’s novel, and so “the family honour is saved” (Sc. XV, p. 1). By the end, Martin knows that Angie has ended her affair and sold his novel, but even though the opportunity is there, he does not tell her about his own affair. An intriguing subtlety to the theme of fidelity is Stoppard’s uncharacteristic inclusion of a sub-text of class division. When Martin learns that Angie has not told her agent about Martin’s published, though poor-selling, novel, he asks her, “Whose side are you on nowadays, Angie?” (Sc. III, p.6). Martin later explains that he does not like Preston, that he thinks Preston is a phony, and that Preston “isn’t exactly our type” (Sc. V, p. 3). Ultimately, Angie agrees with this. In ending her relationship with the proper, gentlemanly Preston she explains: Going to bed isn’t the kind of infidelity I mean, and it’s not all hypocrisy. It’s a side-picking thing—there’s a big line-up of opposing factions— Them and Us, if you like—and everything that touches one goes to form a code of attitudes, and everyone chooses sides. You know who to count on. I can’t explain it and I don’t want to because you can talk these things away, and they’re important. But everyone has to make a show of allegiance to a collective coat of arms, and I’m on Martin’s side. He had to ask me to make sure, but I’m still there. If I left him, that wouldn’t be true anymore. (Sc. XI, pp. 3-4)

For its leftist sense of class-consciousness and solidarity and for its use of a complex female character who explores the emotional terrain of love and infidelity, Funny Man is unique among Stoppard’s pre-success writing. Though Stoppard viewed it as a comedy, it reads more as a drama. Though it is a very respectable script, Funny Man was rejected by both Arthur Rank (AR) and the BBC. A second draft done in early 1964 was again rejected by AR as well as by Associated Television.

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On the Radio During this period of being “mainly self-unemployed,” Stoppard’s struggling finances led to some bold, daring, and comical adventures. In the fall of 1963, he wrote to Smith: I pulled off a major triumph today by sidling into my bank . . . and rushed up in a false beard to the newest young clerk, whipped out self-cash cheque for ten quid. He caught it second bounce and I dashed out with the tenner, so am back in fags [cigarettes] again.56

Inspired by his success, Stoppard soon planned “another incognito raid on my bank” but this one went astray: Unfortunately I slept through alarm and woke up at 2:30 (from 8 a.m.); sailed out, waited for bus, in desperation hailed a taxi which arrived at the bank at 3:01 p.m., leaving me with a taxi and the aforementioned 1s 7d, with 2s 3d on the clock. There was a slight altercation, which ended with me giving him aforesaid 1s 7d and a promissory note. Walked back home on my ruined day, [. . .] and happily remembered 2s in the gas meter which was swiftly converted into Woodbines [a brand of cigarettes]. And here I am. Tomorrow I shall attempt the bank once more.57

Stoppard realized this personal misadventure had dramatic potential, and that evening he devised a scenario about “a man who takes a taxi, broke, to the bank, arriving at 3:01 p.m., and keeps on the taxi, going from place to place trying to borrow the money to pay the fare, and never quite catch[ing] up [with] the clock.”58 With minor alterations this became his fifteen-minute radio play The Dissolution of Dominic Boot, which was broadcast on February 20, 1964.59 The BBC inaugurated their fifteen-minute play series in January of 1964, and when Stoppard first learned of it the previous November, he viewed it as a potential windfall for himself and for Smith, whom he actively encouraged to submit work. Stoppard, always aware of his strengths and weaknesses as a writer, was drawn to the format because one can approach something as short as that in the spirit of attacking an article—there is no sense of a great project hanging over one’s head, a thing which I find is responsible for many things being left unwritten …. There is a huge demand [and] better still [the producer] tells me that if one is weak on plot and good on dialogue, then so much the better—which suits me, of course—I have tremendous difficulty in seizing a “plot” but am happy to tackle a “situation.”60

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Indeed, the Dominic Boot play is essentially an extended joke. It was bought by the BBC in November of 1963, and since demand was heavy, Stoppard quickly went to work on another. He recycled a rejected short story into M is for Moon among Other Things, a work that Stoppard has referred to as his Marilyn Monroe play.61 Again, Stoppard employs a situation rather than a plot, as it intersperses dialogue with internal monologues of a middle-aged, middle-class couple. While Constance, the wife, browses through her monthly instalment of the M-N volume of an encyclopaedia, her husband, Alfred, fantasizes about what he reads in the newspaper and hears on the radio—with the lead story being the death of Marilyn Monroe. Alfred’s fantasy of comforting the lonely and misunderstood Monroe is ironically counterpointed by the absence of love and true communication in his own marriage. The play was broadcast on April 6, 1964. Noteworthy about both plays is how Stoppard exploits the medium of radio to craft tightly constructed works that effectively use different character voices and sound effects that aurally enhance the experience in a way that distinguishes them from works for the stage.62

Television Projects While Stoppard wrote these radio plays, he was also working on a number of other projects. By late 1963, he had finished a 60-minute television play entitled I Can’t Give You Anything But Love, Baby. This unpublished, unproduced play concerns two brothers, Arthur (aged 32) and Jamie (aged 30), the latter mentally deficient and sheltered from society by his older brother who cares for him since both of their parents, including an abusive father, are dead. Jamie compulsively buys items on an instalment plan from door-to-door salesmen and newspaper advertisers. He knows that the items will eventually be repossessed, but he does not care because the objects are his temporarily, and they are new, rather than the hand-me-downs he has received from Arthur through the years. Arthur tries to tell Jamie that he is being stupid and wasting his money on objects that will be repossessed. Their confrontation moves from an intellectual plane to an emotional one and ends with the likeable simpleton Jamie passionately declaring: “You don’t need things—you got people!”63 Jamie’s desperate need for human contact is one of the most poignant moments in Stoppard’s early writing. Complicating the brothers’ relationship is the fact that Arthur is prepared to marry his fiancée Gwen, who clings to her virginity because of what she describes as an idealistic and romantic notion that the first

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time should be important. Arthur decides that he must introduce his fiancée to the brother who will be sharing their house, but Gwen is frightened by Jamie and wants him committed to a lunatic asylum. When next Arthur and Gwen meet, Arthur is drunk and rants about what constitutes sanity in this crazy world, while also questioning: “Who are you judging? And on what divine standard are you judging him?” (Sc. 5, p.6). In one of the somewhat forced and inconsistent moments in the play, Arthur delivers some of this speech after entering Jamie’s room of prized possessions and returning dressed in “One miner’s helmet, one pair of snow glasses. An Anorak jacket. A rucksack on his back. On one foot a flying boot. The other a ski. He carries an underwater harpoon gun. Binoculars are over his neck. And he is doing his best to ride the Tour de France bike” (Sc. 5, p. 4). While dressed in this bizarre and surrealistic fashion, the authorities arrive and assume he is Jamie; Arthur willingly goes, pretending to be Jamie, realizing that he can prove his sanity, and thus prevent Jamie from being taken away. The plot twist is that while Arthur is away saving his brother, Gwen is back home seducing Jamie; she does it both for herself and for Jamie: I’m new Jamie. I’m unused, I never belonged to anyone—not to Arthur, not to anybody—I’m new. So touch me, don’t touch me like a thing, because I’m your first people—and you’re mine—and I’m glad it’s you because I like you Jamie—I like the way you look—I like the way you’re new—so you touch me Jamie. You touch me so I stay touched. (Sc. 5, p. 11)

It is her way of socializing Jamie, of not treating him like a child, the way Arthur does. In the processs, she also makes her first sexual encounter meaningful to herself. When Arthur returns, he learns of the seduction and Gwen’s decision to break off their engagement. Despite the seduction, Arthur reaffirms that he would never let the authorities take Jamie away. Then when Gwen leaves, a salesman arrives, but now Jamie is changed and resists the salesman’s pitch. The final feeling of the play is of two brothers affirming their filial love and commitment to each other. While the play exhibits characteristic Stoppard devices such as mistaken identity and surrealistic images, it is unique not only in its use of an “idiot” character, but in its emphasis on the bonds between siblings. As with Funny Man, but to a lesser extent, there are flashes of emotional depth that Stoppard would not achieve until much later in his writing career, but the script’s fundamental flaw is that the characters’ inconsistent behaviour strains credulity.

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While I Can’t Give You Anything But Love, Baby was never published or produced, it was on the ride back from a meeting where the script was rejected that agent Kenneth Ewing planted the seed that Stoppard should write a play about Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, with Ewing’s idea being that when the two courtiers arrive in England they meet the mad King Lear.64 The idea was appealing to Stoppard, but while the play developed in his mind, he worked on other projects. He was commissioned by Arthur Rank to adapt his Faber short story “The Story” into a television play, which he did with “narrative tricksy, with their blessing.”65 He was also meeting with Collins Publishers to discuss “my well known first novel. [Mr Collins] somewhere gained the impression that I have a novel ‘up my sleeve,’ an impression I have done nothing to discourage. Indeed, I am arranging, when we shake hands, for a cataract of quarto sheets to fall from my soiled cuff.”66 With multiple projects in the works, Stoppard was looking for a breakthrough on any front, and so long as he was being productive as a writer, he remained upbeat. This positive attitude carried over into early 1964. Both 15-minute radio plays were going into production, and BBC Radio Four had commissioned him to write (as a trial run) five fifteen-minute episodes of the daily family serial The Dales, an assignment that he accepted for purely mercenary reasons.67 In January of 1964, while vacationing in Scotland and reading heavily (including Lear, Hamlet, and criticism such as Dover Wilson’s What Happens in Hamlet—all preparatory work for his Rosencrantz and Guildenstern play), he reported to Smith on his many prospects: At the moment my work schedule is: Armchair Theatre [probably a revision of Funny Man or I Can’t Give You Anything But Love, Baby] finished by end of February (deadline in contract), adapt WOTW [Walk] for radio, Dales dummy run between Jan 27 and Feb 3 (pace Boorman), Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, TELLY play for AR [“The Story” project], one or two more 15-min radios on request, maybe a novel for Blond or Faber, and let’s hope the stage play [unknown] which is my new year resolution (1965 maybe). And then in 1970 I’ll do. . . 68

As would become customary with Stoppard, commitments accumulated, and at this point in his career, he possessed a mixture of confidence and uncertainty. All these projects made him feel a “bag of nerves, contemplating jobs in hand. In my mind’s eye is the Mona Lisa, while in front of me is a block of marble and I keep daring myself to pick up the chisel.”69 Mixed metaphors aside, Stoppard always had his eyes on perfection, but he has sometimes suffered bouts of writer’s block.

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Throughout his career, Stoppard has always referred to the first page as the hardest page to write.70 One of the scripts that Stoppard had trouble starting was the unpublished, unproduced television play This Way Out with Samuel Boot, a work which was, in part, Stoppard’s attempt to salvage some of the ideas and situations from I Can’t Give You Anything But Love, Baby. The Samuel Boot play concerns two brothers, one (Samuel Boot) who preaches the total rejection of property, the other (Jonathan Boot) who compulsively buys objects on credit, only to have them repossessed for non-payment (similar to Jamie in ICGYABLB).71 Kenneth Tynan, the only previous Stoppard chronicler to have read the script, characterizes it as “patchily brilliant, an uneasy blend of absurdist comedy and radical melodrama.”72 While asserting that the play contains the leftist message that “property is theft,” Tynan’s interpretation is more indicative of his politics than Stoppard’s intent, for the character who preaches the evils of property is heavily satirized, and does not, I believe, represent Stoppard’s own point of view. The playwright’s own comments on the script are that it is “about man who buys things [and it has a] total lack of philosophical content.”73 As will be evident, Stoppard satirizes both the rejecter of property as well as the hoarder of property. The opening scenes of the play establish Jonathan as a collector of mail-order bargains and door-to-door salesmen offerings. In fact, when he “purchases” a third vacuum cleaner, it is clear that he has more objects than he needs. In contrast, Samuel is shown to be on a crusade against property and has finally gotten two followers, Agnes and Stripe. In the public park, Samuel preaches: Greed and envy, theft, bankruptcy, inflation, despair—yes, war itself, I tell you—the symptoms of moral and spiritual decline—And it’s to amass property, and then to protect what you have amassed, that’s what does it— whether you call it bombs or refrigerators—it’s property, it’s all property and we are in the power of property, chained by property, dictated by property—ladies and gentlemen, we have been brought low by property!74

Samuel has the energetic fervour of a proselytizer at Speaker’s Corner, and variations of the above speech will be heard throughout the play. In short, he is an ideologue, which makes him a Stoppardian anti-hero. When Samuel and his followers take up his customary winter lodgings at Jonathan’s house (which was both of theirs until Samuel gave his half to Jonathan), there is conflict over their respective views. When Jonathan

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buys an underwater harpoon gun, Samuel is angry at this unnecessary purchase: SAMUEL: (Banging table) Possibly you want to commit suicide in the bath! JONATHAN (Mildly) I like to have things. AGNES: You can’t have everything you like. JONATHAN: You can, you can have mostly anything you like. Sometimes for weeks and weeks. (p. 27)

Jonathan is someone who has beaten the system. When he was in the Air Force as an administrator, he bought a wooden leg and then manipulated the paperwork to get himself a disability discharge and a pension. Similarly, he manipulates the system of buying objects on credit. At one point a man comes to repossess his television: MAN: You only paid a very small deposit and even after repeated warnings you refused to pay even the first instalment—that’s not playing the game, you know …. Don’t you realize—the company loses money on this—it’s uneconomical. JONATHAN: I can’t afford instalments, you see. MAN: But didn’t you know that? JONATHAN: Oh yes—I’m not a fool. (p. 38)

Then in a comic coup that illustrates Jonathan’s cleverness, the man leaves with the repossessed television only to encounter another delivery man arriving with a new television. The brothers’ opposing philosophies eventually come to a crisis. As he would do in his later work, Stoppard uses a dialectical exchange to critique Samuel’s “Crusade” and its philosophy, in part because it lacks logic. Here, Jonathan seems to speak for Stoppard: JONATHAN: I don’t think you’re right in the head. SAMUEL: What? JONATHAN: I’d say you were a bit of a case. SAMUEL: Would you? JONATHAN: I don’t know what you’re giving me. You haven’t got any Crusade. SAMUEL: You don’t think so? JONATHAN: All I can see is a scruffy layabout telling everyone to give away every comfort and convenience they’ve worked for. Who are they supposed to give it to? SAMUEL: People.

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JONATHAN: Then they’ve got to give it away again. I don’t think I follow. SAMUEL: It’s a question of values. JONATHAN: It’s a question of where’s it going to end? You can’t have a human chain passing stuff along as if it was buckets of water. SAMUEL: You’ve got a literal mind, that’s your trouble. JONATHAN: One to another. Finally you reach your last man, standing with his back to the sea. I suppose he chucks it in. SAMUEL: It’s a matter of setting an example. JONATHAN: I should have thought your sincerity might be doubted. SAMUEL: No one doubts my sincerity. JONATHAN: It’s all right for him to get all righteous, they’ll say—what has he got to give away? SAMUEL: I’ve given mine already. I’ve got the clothes I stand up in. JONATHAN: That would be something. Do it properly or not at all. SAMUEL: I’ve had tracts printed. JONATHAN: Tracts. Some people give bungalows. You don’t give anybody anything worth anything and you want them to give away everything worth everything. I’d say you were swimming against the current. In fact I’d say you were a bit of a joke. (pp. 34-36)

At this point, Jonathan kicks Samuel and his followers out of his home. But Jonathan’s speech has struck a chord with Samuel. He returns to the park and proves the sincerity of his message by disrobing, an action that results in his arrest for indecent exposure and disturbing the peace. Stoppard ironically and satirically treats Samuel’s cause by having Samuel respond to his fine with great pleasure: “Official recognition—it gives the Crusade a kind of dignity” (p. 50). Instead of being a dignified idea, the play suggests that Samuel’s idealistic Crusade is a practical impossibility. When Samuel thinks he has found a way out of the commercial materialism of society, Jonathan responds: There’s no out. You’re in it, so you might as well fit. It’s the way it is. Economics. All this stuff I’ve got—that carpet—people have been paid to make it, drive it to the warehouse, advertise it, sell it to me, write to me about it, and take it away again. They get paid and some of them buy a carpet with the money. That’s the way of it and you’re in it. There’s no way out with Samuel Boot. (p. 53)

Though Samuel’s ideology may be impractical, there is still sympathy for him. Stripe defends Samuel: “Whatever sense he makes, he’s good. He don’t take nothing and you give nothing. His feelings are all right. He’s not like everybody and he’s got this idea, all right. But his feelings are

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good and you’ve got no feelings at all” (p. 55). As with later Stoppard work, characters can be respected for their integrity even when their ideas are not sound. After Jonathan refuses to pay Samuel’s fine and again kicks him out of the house, the play moves towards its climax. Jonathan has a large collection of trading stamps, which he hopes will win him a bungalow, but Stripe steals them and gives them to Samuel. In an ironic touch, Samuel plans to give away these valuable stamps to lure a crowd to hear him speak about the evils of property, but in the process Samuel is trampled to death by the eager mob. While Samuel’s give-it-all-away philosophy is shown to be impractical, Jonathan’s excessive materialism is also called into question. Jonathan’s cleverness and adherence to logic suggest that he may be the hero of the play, but sympathy for Jonathan is undercut when he is upset over losing his stamps, but indifferent to Samuel’s death. Stripe then returns to defend Samuel’s honour: STRIPE: He died of people. They trod on him. JONATHAN: That’s what it is about people. Turn round and they’ll tread on you. Or steal your property. .… STRIPE: You don’t know anything. You don’t know about him. He was a silly old man, and being dead doesn’t change that. But for a minute, getting his, on the bandstand, all bloody, for a minute his daft old crusade, like he said, it had a kind of dignity, for a minute. He knew about that and you don’t know nothing. You’ve got too much in the way. (pp. 68-69)

At which point, Stripe picks up Jonathan’s new vacuum cleaner. Defending his property, Jonathan kills him with the harpoon gun. Stoppard then closes the play with a dark-humoured satire on Jonathan’s excessive materialism, which comes at the expense of human decency: JONATHAN: (Chattering) He can’t do that. That’s no way to act. At all. No respect, he’s got no respect for real people’s property—Vandal, yes, oh yes, murderer, thief, deserter, vandal—oh, it’s a public service—they know that—commendation— AGNES: He’s not moving. (JONATHAN taut, breathing hard) JONATHAN: Oh yes, well, he wouldn’t, it’s a very reliable machine, this, very handy. I might write to the makers, I think they’d like to know— AGNES: (Crying drily) He was only young. And so bad already. JONATHAN: He was. Yes, he was. He can’t do that. It’s anti-social. I’ve got a lot of stuff in here. [Proceeds to list out many items.] I’ve got

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responsibilities. I’ve got commitments. Yes. Oh yes. He can’t do that. (pp. 69-70)

In the end, neither Samuel nor Jonathan is shown to be correct, but rather each of their faults and shortcomings are satirized as being incomplete in themselves. While Stoppard felt Samuel Boot was a good script, the head of Armchair Theatre wanted him to turn it into “an interesting comedy with an upbeat ending.”75 Stoppard withdrew the script and abandoned it. The fall of 1963 into the spring of 1964 also marked a change in Stoppard’s personal life. In November 1963, he was best man at Smith’s wedding, and by late 1963, he was romantically involved with Jose Ingle, a nurse who lived in the same house as Stoppard. 76 Early on, Stoppard sensed that his relationship with Jose might be serious, and the Smiths’ marriage added to Stoppard’s sense of maturing in the world. Stoppard has long been known as a family man, and in the spring of 1964, he expressed his inclinations for fatherhood: “On my way to the station I had tea with Mrs Wilders and the three super children …. Their children are such as to make one impatient for fatherhood/motherhood.”77 When the Smiths soon found themselves pregnant, Boorman made them the bases of a Bristol-based quasi-documentary series entitled The Newcomers. The six-episode series featured Smith and his new wife Alison in the months leading up to the birth of their twins.78 Stoppard appears throughout the first episode, with one of his memorable scenes being a moment when “he played with a violin bow the cords that suspended a bookcase.”79 Similar surrealist visual jokes would later appear in such plays as After Magritte and Jumpers. After the Smiths had twins in the summer of 1964, Stoppard again expressed his familial tendencies: “I must get myself a baby; I think I’m going to be attracted when I see yours.”80 Stoppard’s desire for a family was also accompanied by a sense of responsibility, as in a couple of letters to Smith he expressed his anger and disgust at a fellow writer who abandoned a pregnant girlfriend.

Berlin: Carpets on the Wall As his relationship with Jose developed, Stoppard found that his professional fortunes were taking a turn for the better. In the spring of 1964, he was contracted by the publisher Anthony Blond to write a novel. At the time, he had no idea what the novel would be about, and when he signed the contract, Stoppard listed the tentative title as Jose; this project eventually became Lord Malquist and Mr Moon. Also in the spring, on the recommendation of Charles Marowitz, he was awarded a Ford Foundation

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grant to spend five months in Berlin. The four British playwrights selected were Stoppard, Derek Marlowe, Piers Paul Read (son of Sir Herbert, an honoured poet and critic), and James Saunders, the elder statesman of the group and the author of Next Time I’ll Sing to You. From early-May to mid-September, these four were joined by three filmmakers and about a dozen German writers, all of whom were housed in a large, luxurious mansion where their hosts pampered the residents. The luxury and ease of the rambling mansion bedazzled Stoppard, and he was amused by the expectations of eccentric writers. In his punning, sarcastic style, he wrote to Smith: The resident Ford (a convertible two-tone named Hasenclever) told me that I was free to re-arrange my room and decorate it in any manner I saw fit because he wanted me to know that I was among people who understood writers and realized they were individuals who could not be expected to work in an atmosphere unsympathetic to them. I didn’t want to tell him I was just a middle class boy who wouldn’t get a job and liked the atmosphere fine. Perhaps I will roll up the carpet and hang it on the wall in case he thinks I am a fake.81

But instead of a carpet, Stoppard tacked onto the wall photos of those dear to him, namely the Smiths, “one of me and James Saunders, and a few more.”82 During his time in Berlin, Stoppard experienced the first staging of one of his plays. On 30 June 1964, A Walk on the Water in a German translation was performed by Hamburg’s Thalia Theatre. It was an appropriate touch that one of the premier comic playwrights should have his first production in a theatre named for the comic muse; it was also nicely ironic that the Czech-born writer known for his mastery of English should be first produced in German. Stoppard travelled to Hamburg to work on the script. Using the theatre company’s ideas and his own, Stoppard rewrote the play, cutting out a flashback, making it all chronological, with a new beginning, new first-act curtain, and a new title (which changed throughout the rehearsal period). The play was eventually produced as Der Spleen des George Riley.83 Still unsure of himself and the play, he was nervous and commented on his first production meeting: I was embarrassed by their enthusiasm, by the size of the theatre [1000 seats], by the earnest discussion of psychological motivation, by the excellent models of the set, by the paintings of the same, by the fame of the leading actor, by their kindness, by their respect …. —and me a frozen

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smile just behind my face, trying to melt myself onto the surface, thinking—you fools, the emperor is starkers.84

The production had a strange schedule as the plan was to rehearse the play until June 30, depart on holiday for six weeks, then come back for dress rehearsals before an August 16 open; but in late June, they revised the schedule so that the play officially opened on June 30, and then went on a six-week holiday. As his first stage production approached, Stoppard was dispirited and wrote, “I have little or no sense of pride or artistic responsibility or identity with the play,”85 and so his main hope was for good reviews which could lead to other German productions and boost his sagging finances. Walk, a work that Stoppard once described as being about a middleaged failure who grasps at the illusion of self-esteem and success only to find it illusory, received a mixed reaction in its German debut. The middle-class adults in the stalls applauded the work, while the students in the gallery hissed the conservative, conventional domestic drama. Tynan, with Felicia Londré following him, reports the apocryphal tale that during the curtain call Stoppard strode on stage “with a cigarette between his lips—perhaps in emulation of Oscar Wilde, who used the same method of showing his indifference to audience reaction.”86 This image of cool selfconfidence was probably not the case, as if there was a cigarette in Stoppard’s mouth it was out of nervous tension. Here is Stoppard’s account to Smith from that first production in Hamburg: I’m writing to you first, hollow and shell-shocked and in an exaggerative mood (e.g.) Hamburg was three parts purgatory and one part hell. In truth, I guess it was neither terrible nor marvellous, but I didn’t enjoy the experience one bit. The cast’s enthusiasm was commendable, and there were several excellent performances of characters I hadn’t written, e.g., a sailor ten years too old, and a Riley who fancied himself as a cross between Charlie Chaplin’s grandfather and Jesus Christ. However, buck passing is unfair, because it seemed to me, even in German, that the play was thin as gruel and repetitive. The audience stood it better than I did and were reasonably attentive, even laughing at frequent intervals. But any equanimity I possessed, which wasn’t much, was shattered at the end. I had resisted for the past weeks any efforts to get on to the stage, but in the interval I was gently told that the actors would be offended if I didn’t partake of the German tradition and show myself in the line-up. So indeed I was dragged on, clutching the hot clammy hands of my senile star and my director, whereupon the gallery erupted into a storm of gleeful abuse. Wow. It was a hell of a scene. The gallery booing like crazy and the rest of the audience counter attacking with bravos …. Anyway, boos and cheers. I

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During this period of Stoppard’s life, his twin sources of reassurance and support were Smith and Ewing, and Stoppard was grateful that the latter was there to offer comfort after this unpleasant, unnerving first production. Still, Stoppard took the blame because he realized that the script was not up to the high standards he sought. He concluded: I feel partly fed up and partly furious that I let WOTW, whatever its virtues, represent me as a writer first time out. Ewing thought it was a mistake to take out the flashback, i.e. reverse the scenes. But as far as I am concerned that’s an academic point now: I murmured in his ear that if he ever tried to get it put on in London I’d fire him on the spot. I intend never to revisit the play, and merely be thankful that a pre-sold and subsidized theatre should glean me some 600 quid during the autumn. If I ever really run short of cash I may sanction a production in Lima or Fiji; but otherwise may it only be performed after my death as a historical curiosity, assuming, of course, that I arouse any posthumous curiosity, which, the way I feel now, is a large assumption.88

Part of Stoppard’s dissatisfaction with himself and the play is that as he later realized, A Walk on the Water has a ring of falseness “because it’s a play written about other people’s characters.”89 Imitative of Robert Bolt and Arthur Miller, the play lacks a stamp of originality and individuality. That it was done subsequently in London in 1968 (under the revised title Enter A Free Man) was indeed due to financial need; Stoppard did not want the production to occur, but he had sold the option on it during a monetary crisis prior to the success of Rosencrantz.90 While Stoppard has occasionally appeared in works as himself, while in Berlin, he engaged in his only confirmed credit as an actor. Part of the Ford group was an international freelance film trio for whom Stoppard

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played a cowboy: “it’s an absurd film and I shall be an absurd cowboy.”91 He later reported: I, and Derek Marlowe and Piers Read have all been acting in the filmmaker’s film, doing crazy things. I’m sure it’s all crap. After working with Boorman I am sceptical (not to say contemptuous) of these way-out boys (nice as they are) who do “crazy” and “free” cinema, i.e., one-takeregardless, no script, no plot, all images, outlandish cuts and pretentious action. You might as well know that I, wearing black trousers, pink shirt, black cowboy hat, gunbelt, six-guns and spurs, did a high noon walk down the middle of the highway leading to the Brandenburg gate, for the cameras in glorious colour. I loved doing it—but is it art?92

While his appearance was enjoyable and suggestive of some of the absurd images of his own plays, Stoppard expresses his distrust of the seemingly non-intentional or unfocused avant-garde, an attitude he was to declare publicly in both Artist Descending a Staircase and Travesties. His stay in West Berlin also resulted in Stoppard having to face his Czech origins. While his three British companions eagerly made the trip to East Berlin to see Brecht’s Berliner Ensemble, Stoppard was hesitant to go. Tynan explains: “[Stoppard] had never set foot in Communist territory, and the prospect of crossing the border repelled him. Although his passport was British, it stated that he was born in Czechoslovakia, and this had planted in him a superstitious fear that, once in East Berlin, he might never be allowed to return.”93 However, near the end of his fellowship Stoppard did make the journey to East Berlin, and he even planned a post-fellowship trip through Eastern Europe with Piers Read, with his main trepidation being that by visiting Czechoslovakia, he might face the prospect of three years of military service. Ultimately, the trip was cancelled, and Stoppard did not visit his homeland until 1977, by which point he was beyond military age and had achieved an international reputation. The five months in Berlin caused some stress in his personal life, as Jose was opposed to his going. In contemplating his return, he was torn between living in London, where Jose wanted him to be, or Bristol, where he would get more writing done while living cheaply. He explained his dilemma to Smith: I need to write like a madman till April …. I don’t want to have to earn any money by doing something like a TV play until I have finished my book. In fact I hope I never have to do a TV play ever in my life …. Feeling rather desperate about the work/money situation and feeling rather

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Flippancy aside, Stoppard’s letters from this period suggest the doubts he had about his relationship with Jose, and so it is somewhat surprising that they were wed the following March. That they were eventually divorced is partly due to the show-business phenomenon of leaving the pre-success partner, but the sub-text of the letters also suggests that the seeds of dissolution were present from the beginning. Another way of looking at this period of Stoppard’s life is that writing was the most important aspect of his life. In May of 1967, Jose even stated: “The hardest thing I’ve had to accept is that if I died or disappeared he’d be upset, but in the end his life wouldn’t be all that different. Writing is the core of his existence”; a comment which Stoppard admitted was true: “Well, yes. I’ve been married to it for longer.”95 During his second marriage to Dr Miriam Stoppard, he would usually say that family came before work, while also frequently noting that he is only truly happy and fulfilled when his playwriting is going well.96

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Meet King Lear The lasting result of his stay in Berlin was that he began what would eventually evolve into Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead. His first version has traditionally been known by the title Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Meet King Lear, but the popular conception, perpetuated by Stoppard himself, that it was a one-act verse burlesque does not seem to be accurate. The text which survives at the Ransom Center is a one-act play, but it is neither in verse, nor is it a burlesque. In a 22 June 1964 letter to Smith, Stoppard describes the completed one-acter: The gist is that Ros, Guil, and Ham are joined on the boat by the Player from the play-in-Hamlet, i.e. “Lucianus nephew to the king” i.e. the Player who represents Hamlet-figure in the play-in-Hamlet and is therefore made up to look rather like Hamlet. So Hamlet and Player change identities on boat; the Player is captured by Pirates and goes off to fulfil Hamlet’s role in the rest of Shakespeare’s play. Hamlet goes on to England, witnesses the execution of Ros and Guil, returning to Elsinore just too late to take over, i.e. just in time for the final tableau of carnage; and so he is stuck in

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space, a man “caught out of the action.” Sounds a bit screwy but it could be fun and is written as fun.97

Stoppard’s description corresponds to the text that survives at the Ransom Center. This earliest version focused on the boat voyage to England (what was to become the third act of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead), and their contact with the mad King Lear is limited to four of the fortyfour pages.98 Based on hearsay or faulty memory, most descriptions of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Meet King Lear are inaccurate. While Stoppard has described this Lear draft as unspeakably bad, in fact, a number of passages in the first half of the play were later incorporated into Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead. By examining the similarities and differences, one can see which of Stoppard’s initial thematic concerns survived in his first major work. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Meet King Lear begins slowly as the first quarter of the play has the protagonists standing on the plain, waiting to board the boat that will take them and Hamlet to England. Interspersed with excerpts of Hamlet’s soliloquies and Fortinbras’s speech on the plain, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern provide exposition of the events of Hamlet while also bickering, in what will be a running joke, over how much each of them got paid by the king.99 As in the later full-length play, the protagonists incorrectly introduce themselves, and with the Captain’s prodding proceed to discuss the melancholy and madness of Hamlet which, in the later play, culminates in a declaration that Hamlet is “stark raving sane.”100 Soon the Player, wearing a mask that resembles Hamlet’s face, enters and explains that he is a fugitive.101 One of Stoppard’s key conceits is that the Player wears his mask throughout, and that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern associate him with his masked character, not as the person behind the mask. Upon further interrogation, the Player explains that he is fleeing for having performed in The Murder of Gonzago, at which point Rosencrantz finally catches on: ROS: He’s one of the Players. PLAYER: I told you. GUIL: Lucianus, nephew to the king. Well, well, well. (He laughs.) PLAYER: Only in my mask. ROS: Of course. As I said, I knew your mask. Lucianus, poisoner and lecher, nephew to the king. PLAYER: I just came as I was. They were all after us.102

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In Rosencrantz and Guildenstern’s eyes, the mask imparts identity, and throughout the play identity is perceived as mutable, as sometimes the protagonists consider him an actor, while at other times they view him as Lucianus. Indeed, Hamlet also addresses him as Lucianus, pointing out that they are both nephews to a king. The first scene closes with Guildenstern philosophically ruminating that they are free “To move, to speak, extemporize, and yet. We have not been cut loose” (p. 12).103 The complete speech survives nearly verbatim in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead. The second scene concerns the voyage to England. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern continue trying to trick each other into revealing how much money the other received. They also hope that the letter from the Danish king, concerning their delivery of Hamlet to the English king, will bring them even greater rewards. This leads to the comic confusion over who has the letter, the security of knowing that the letter’s instructions provide a temporary sense of control, and the hope that the letter will give them something to keep them going.104 Meanwhile they engage the Player, and to break the monotony they want “a show of oral initiative,” with Rosencrantz commenting: “Do a monologue, a set piece. Anything. For God’s sake, here we are with an actor to hand and we have to suffer a string of pregnant pauses each terminated by an abortion” (p. 20). This section concludes with Rosencrantz’s plea: “Incidents. All we get is incidents. Promise without fulfilment. Dear me, is it too much to ask for a little sustained action?” (p. 21).105 Thus, even in the first draft, Stoppard incorporated self-reflexive lines which not only fit the characters’ situation but which also acknowledge the hand of the author and the play’s constructedness. While a fair amount of the first half of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Meets King Lear was later incorporated into Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, the full-length play contains almost nothing from the second half of the one-act play. Whereas the full-length play focuses more fully on the existential situation of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, the one-act version centres more on the theme of role-playing (one of the Player’s thematic functions in the three-act version) and, by extension, mutable identities. The switch in emphasis necessitated the elimination of the significant plot points of the second half of the one-act play. In the Lear version, when Rosencrantz and Guildenstern fall asleep, Hamlet convinces the Player to switch roles, exchanging hats, boats, and cloaks, with the Player’s mask providing the facial resemblance. The plan is for the Player to impersonate Hamlet and go to England, where Hamlet assures him the English king will give him honour and safety, while

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Hamlet returns to Denmark to get his revenge. While everyone is sleeping, the Player checks the contents of the letter and is horrified to discover that it calls for Hamlet’s execution.106 The Player confronts Hamlet, informing him of the letter’s contents, and refusing to follow through with the role reversal. After Hamlet plants the letter ordering Rosencrantz and Guildenstern’s execution, he appeals to the Player once again to accept the planned role-reversal. In Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, it is Rosencrantz and Guildenstern who must consider the morality of not acting on the knowledge that the original letter calls for Hamlet’s death, but in this earlier draft Stoppard offers a consideration of the morality of Hamlet’s action: PLAYER: Why, this is no game, my lord; are they guilty men? Did they know the king’s intention to have you killed? HAMLET: Why, man, they are the king’s men. Is the king guilty? PLAYER: Yes, my lord. HAMLET: That will serve. They are bought and sold to trickery; let them die by it. Now, my Prince—Hamlet is safe again. PLAYER: I would stay a player. HAMLET: And an outcast? PLAYER: My lord? HAMLET: Be my other self. Give me your hat. (The Player demurs.) When a purge is made of the throne of Denmark, those loyal to me will stand much to gain. Those unloyal, they will play at corpses. How then? (The Player hands over his hat unwillingly.) (p. 31)

The Player’s moral qualms give way to self-interest, and, like the later play, there is no further discussion of the moral ramifications of any of the play’s events. Soon after the role-reversal is again agreed upon, the pirate attack occurs, and the main characters hide in the barrels until the battle is finished. Then, in another deviation from the full-length play, Rosencrantz, Guildenstern, and Hamlet emerge from the barrels, only now Hamlet is playing the role of the Player. The confusion over identity is further extended when, while mourning the loss of Hamlet, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern begin to treat the Player (i.e., Hamlet) as if he were the character represented by his mask. Realizing that both Hamlet and Lucianus are nephews to a king, they start to think that Lucianus may also be a prince, and so they begin to interrogate Hamlet (who they think to be the Player/Lucianus). This sometimes confusing section revolves around the notion that people are always acting, always playing roles in everyday

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life. They may not be able to be determine the exact identity of their traveling companion, but when the ship docks at Dover, Rosencrantz reassures himself that though the pirates have the prince, “we have the other [prince]” (p. 39). Arriving in Dover, Rosencrantz, Guildenstern, and Hamlet (taken to be the Player) are greeted by the sight of the mad King Lear, fantastically dressed in wild flowers and speaking his “When we are born” speech which concludes “kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill!” (King Lear, IV.vi.184189). The travellers comically comment: HAMLET: Why, who is that, so fantastically garlanded with flowers? GUIL: A madman. ROS: They are all mad here. It is well known in Denmark. HAMLET: That is why you were to bring the mad prince here? GUIL: He would not be noticed among such loons. (p. 40)

Lear announces he is king, but then emits a mad hunting cry and runs off. Continuing the theme that the world is a stage upon which humans act, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern respond: ROS: I say they are all mad. I have seen players more royal than that lunatic. GUIL: Come, we must find one who plays the king with more authority. For we have important business with him. (p. 40)

Lear’s running brings him down to the level of the travellers where Hamlet stops him, and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern laugh at him when he claims to be king: ROS: If he’s the King I’ll be Guildenstern. GUIL: And my name’s Rosencrantz. HAMLET: And I’ll be Hamlet if he’s the king. (p. 41)

Hamlet uses the confusion to revert to his “true” identity, and since Lear knew his father, Hamlet is greeted warmly. More importantly, Lear is given the letter, but since he cannot read, Guildenstern does it for him, and so they learn of the execution orders against them. When Lear orders their seizure, Rosencrantz draws his sword, Hamlet tells the guards to “Go to it,” and Lear utters his earlier cry: “Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill” (p.43). Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are stabbed, and there is a blackout. Unlike the full-length version, the emphasis here is not on the title characters, but rather on the theme of role-playing and identity, and thus

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from the blackout a spotlight rises on Hamlet as the voice of the English ambassador is heard. Hamlet is back at Elsinore amidst a tableau of corpses, but he is no longer recognized as Hamlet—the Player (taken to be Hamlet) had returned to Elsinore and played out the events that conclude Hamlet. After Horatio concludes his “So shall you hear speech” (which eventually became the closing speech of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead), Hamlet responds: “Horatio . . . And the King dead, my mother, Laertes, and—why, poor player, this was no stage for him. And I? What of me now? There is no end for a man caught out of the action. And Fortinbras returns from Poland to take my throne” (p.43). Though he is the “true” Hamlet, his role has been played out, his identity erased. Stoppard follows Hamlet’s line with Fortinbras’s closing speech, but instead of ordering the four captains to take Hamlet’s body to the stage, Stoppard amends the line to: “Bear Hamlet like a soldier from the stage” (p. 44, emphasis added), thereby underscoring the metaphor of the world as a stage upon which humans act out their roles. Then as the procession proceeds past Hamlet, Stoppard circles the play back to its opening—the play begins with Fortinbras’s speech on the plain of Denmark (Hamlet IV. iv.), and Hamlet’s first exchange with the Captain [“Good sir, whose powers are these?”107] is repeated, only this time it ends with the Captain asking Hamlet where he will go now. To this, Hamlet replies: “To walk the earth. To walk the earth. [. . .] I have time. The sun is going down. It will be night soon. Do you think so? I was just making conversation. I have a lot of time” (p. 44). He whistles softly and the ordnance shots that close Hamlet are heard to end the play. Hamlet’s character has been removed from the stage, with the death of his recognizable identity signified by the cannon blast. His remarks about the position of the sun echo three earlier exchanges between Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, only now Hamlet fills both Rosencrantz’s and Guildenstern’s roles, and caught out of the action, he can only walk the earth, like his dead father before him. At the end of the Ford Foundation fellowship period, Stoppard presented a twenty-five-minute excerpt of what he then projected to be a full-length play in progress. Under Stoppard’s direction, this text was presented in Berlin in September and then again (under the title Guildenstern and Rosencrantz) at The Questors Theatre (Ealing, England) on 4 October 1964. By this point, Stoppard knew the Lear angle was not right, but instead “had got interested in the characters as existential immortals. I scrapped the play and in October 1964 started Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, set not in England but within the framework

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of Hamlet.”108 Stoppard explains the resulting transformation as “a solution to a practical problem,” namely: [I]f you write a play about Rosencrantz and Guildenstern in England, you can’t count on people knowing who they are and how they got there. So one tended to get back into the end of Hamlet a bit. But the explanations were always partial and ambiguous, so one went back a bit further into the plot, and as soon as I started doing this I totally lost interest in England. The interesting thing was them at Elsinore.109

The ensuing, multiple revisions would overlap with numerous other projects as Stoppard sought the script that would provide the breakthrough to put this name on the literary map.

Back in London and The Gamblers When Stoppard returned to London, he roomed in a Westminster flat with his Ford fellows Derek Marlowe and Piers Read. Marlowe recalls: “At this period, his idol was Mick Jagger. He looked like him, he dressed like him, and he was thrilled when he found out that Jagger loved cricket as much as he did.”110 Unlike Jagger, Stoppard had not yet found success. His fellowship over, Stoppard was again in bleak financial straits, and simply longed to find a suitable desk, lamp, and typewriter as he turned The Gamblers into a full-length play, significantly rewrote and expanded Rosencrantz (in part trying to “prize loose [Guildenstern] from [Stoppard’s] own character”111), tried to get a TV sale, and fretted over the novel that was contractually due in May of 1965. That same month The Gamblers was staged at Bristol University. With major successes such as Jumpers and Travesties, Stoppard had previous, lesser-known works which engaged in similar thematic subject matter.112 Likewise, one might consider The Gamblers as a dry run for Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, for there are number of stylistic and thematic connections. Traditionally, The Gamblers is referred to as a one-act play, but in June 1965, students of the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School produced a twoact version. Though unpublished, the play survives in a typescript at the Ransom Center.113 Stoppard has dismissed this early effort as “Waiting for Godot in the death cell—prisoner and jailer.”114 However, Stoppard’s retrospective assessment is misleading. The Gamblers is set in a small-town jail cell at an indeterminate time in the past. The Prisoner, an intellectual and articulate man, has been sentenced to death as a leader of an unsuccessful revolution against the

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state. The Jailer, a slower-witted man, clings to romantic notions about death and martyrdom. Ironically, the prisoner was the former jailer who joined the revolution, not out of conviction, but out of the pragmatic belief that the revolution would succeed; conversely the Jailer supported the revolution but refrained from joining because he thought it would fail. Each rationalizes their choice by saying: “You have to be on the winning side to survive, that’s all.”115 Thus, though the conflict is ideological and political, the characters’ actions are based on pragmatics, not convictions. The Prisoner remarks: “If the revolution had succeeded, I would be a live hero, against my principles, and you would be a dead traitor, against yours. It could have gone either way.”116 The Prisoner also argues: “A traitor and a hero are the same thing. Only the circumstances change” (p. 59). As in other Stoppard works, recurring themes are the relativity of perspectives and the importance of context to determine meaning. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Meet King Lear, and to a lesser extent the full-length Rosencrantz, focus on issues of identity and the roles people play in life; similarly, these themes are fundamental to The Gamblers. Role reversal is integral to both the plot and the theme. The Prisoner was the local jailer until he joined the revolution, and thus the Jailer is simply filling the Prisoner’s original role. Furthermore, the Prisoner’s desire to avoid death is countered by the Jailer’s envy of the Prisoner’s coming martyrdom. The philosophic and social implications of the role of the martyr are debated: JAILER: The only heroes left are the leaders and the martyrs. Either way there’s glory, but a martyr’s lasts longer. PRISONER: His posterity does seem more secure. Once dead he is immortal. Well. It’s ironic at least …. The winners look to their leaders, the losers to their martyrs. In defeat he is a necessity. JAILER: An inspiration for the future! PRISONER: And spiritual comfort for the present. He symbolizes the ultimate righteousness of the cause and if the cause is supposed to be worth dying for it is as well to have someone die for it, simply to reassure the survivors. (pp. 17-18)

The Jailer’s idealistic view of martyrdom is consistently undercut by the Prisoner’s pragmatism. Though the Jailer glorifies martyrdom, he argues that he cannot be a martyr because: “One does not choose. One is chosen” (p. 18). This idea of fate and assigned roles is developed in the second act, when the Jailer says, “It’s my job, isn’t it? We’re all given a part and this happens to be mine. That’s all there is to say about it” (p. 52). But the Prisoner would

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like to opt out of his role of martyr, and argues that morally their roles should be reversed. Ultimately, the Prisoner does convince the Jailer to exchange roles. The men are cloaked in hoods that mask their identity as the Prisoner leads the Jailer, who is now shouting the empty phrases of the revolution, to his execution. Then the pragmatic Prisoner ironically tells the idealistic Jailer to “Keep your chin up” (p. 67), at which point he slips the noose around his neck. While the Jailer had expressed a belief in the inevitability of fate and assigned roles (themes more fully developed in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead), here the Prisoner takes decisive action to alter his situation, a point which differentiates this play from Rosencrantz, where the protagonists remain passive even after they read the letter ordering their execution. Stoppard was revising The Gamblers and writing Rosencrantz at the same time, and so understandably there are a number of similarities. Stylistically, both plays rely on a mixture of philosophical monologues and short, stichomythic word-play exchanges. For example: JAILER: For the people— PRISONER: By the people— JAILER: Only it’s two different lots of people. PRISONER: A mere quibble. JAILER: An evasion PRISONER: Revolutionary double-talk JAILER: Hair-splitting PRISONER: Political jargon JAILER: Reactionary propaganda PRISONER: There’s no quarrelling with the system. JAILER: It has resisted every— PRISONER: Resistance JAILER: It has been challenged. PRISONER: Tested. JAILER: Examined. PRISONER: Analysed. JAILER: Sccrrootinised! (p. 25)

Such exchanges abound in The Gamblers as they do in the full-length Rosencrantz. Thematically, both plays discuss ideas of fate, role-playing, identity, theological doubt, and the notion that life is a gamble. Besides the difference in an active versus a passive response to perceived notions of fate, The Gamblers differs from Rosencrantz as well as from its acknowledged progenitor, Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot, by having a social context as well as a political dimension. Stoppard stipulates that

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the setting be in a time of class division between peasants and despots. Likewise, as the Prisoner approaches his death, he ruminates on the life cycle of governments: I thought they were going to win and you’ve got to be on the winning side to survive, that’s all. There’s nothing else to choose between them, only that, one wins the other loses, it’s the only difference, so you make a blind choice. They’re two parts of the same wheel and the wheel spins. Do you know what I mean? I mean our beloved president who has just been so nearly deposed by one popular uprising achieved his position by a similar one seven years ago. That’s the life cycle of government, from the popular to the unpopular. The wheel goes slowly round until you get back to the starting point and it’s time for another— (a brief humourless laugh)— revolution. It just goes on repeating itself, round and round. You can’t break out of the circle, least of all by idealism. Ideals are impracticable without discipline and universal integrity. We have neither. Pity isn’t it? Nothing to do but ride along. The trick is to jump off and on again at the right moment. It’s only a matter of timing, and recognizing the false alarms. I never had enough practice, did I? What a tragic misjudgement that was. (p. 56)

The Prisoner’s pragmatic view suggests the political indifference that was seen as characteristic of the young Stoppard, who seemed to have little affinity for the idealism of the political left. However, the play also contains the seeds of Stoppard’s political views on the necessity of free expression: JAILER: Well, a man’s entitled to an opinion in a free country. PRISONER: Of course. However, owing to the failure of the revolution this is still a country dedicated to the suppression of freedom. From the highest motives. Self-preservation …. It is the State’s role to hold opinions. It is your privilege to share them. (p. 26)

The close of the Prisoner’s lines prefigures the phrasing and ideas that would undergird Professional Foul and Every Good Boy Deserves Favour, Stoppard’s 1977 “political” plays that critique and condemned Eastern Bloc repression. 117 While Stoppard has dismissed The Gamblers as a mere imitation of Godot and has forbidden any further productions of it, the play is actually a respectable, albeit obviously early, work which understandably would benefit from some revisions.118 The Gamblers contains what Stoppard would consider soft moments—jokes that do not work, speeches that fall flat—but there are also sustained passages of thought-provoking comedy.

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Like Beckett’s posthumously published pre-Godot play Eleutheria, The Gamblers is likely to remain a work that is prohibited from productions; nonetheless it is the work that Stoppard once referred to as “the first play which I regard as mine.”119 As a curtain raiser for the 1965 Bristol production of The Gamblers, Stoppard penned Higg and Cogg, about a man, Higg, who threatens to make a suicidal leap.120 Rather than try to talk him out of it, Cogg simply moves aside so he will not get hit. Two other characters also encourage Higg to jump, calling him a coward when he vows that he will jump tomorrow when he is more in the mood. When the disappointed crowd leaves, Higg sees someone on a higher ledge and starts yelling for him to jump, berating his cowardice as the lights fade. This slight, situational play about insensitive people’s desire for the sensational has its lasting impact in serving as a prelude for an incident in Albert’s Bridge, Stoppard’s 1967 award-winning radio play.

More Misses than Hits While Stoppard prepped for these first English-language stagings, he and Josie were married on March 26, 1965, had a brief honeymoon, and found themselves begrudgingly accepting Smith’s offer for a short-term loan to tide them over while Stoppard churned out TV synopses in hopes of securing an advance to pay some of the bills. Stoppard’s letters refer to the synopsis for a mystery that was well liked by Norman Bogner, the story editor for “Armchair Theatre” at ABC Television Ltd. (later known as Thames-TV). While the details of that proposed script remain unknown, the Gordon Dickerson Collection at the Ransom Center has two other synopses that are likely from this period of April/May 1965. The Waiter was to be about a guy, Frank, who places ads in the Personals section. He describes himself as a James Bond-type, and thus it is ironic that he would be “desperate for a girl.”121 The main action was to revolve around the first meeting between Frank and Daisy, “a squashed little girl” (p. 1). In the course of the play “Daisy’s hidden reserves of confidence emerge as Frank’s veneer of confidence cracks” (p. 1). By the end of the piece, “each of them has gained from the encounter, gained not merely each other’s affection, but mainly in their self-awareness” (p. 2). The Servant Problem was more developed as an idea and was to focus on a maid, Clara, and a butler, Moon. While the masters are away, the servants role-play seduction scenes between master and servant. Unexpectedly, the Lord and Lady return and each discovers evidence of the servants’ playing with their belongings and thus each, unbeknownst to

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the other, fires a servant. However, at the same time, the Lord begins to lust after Clara and the Lady after Moon. The next day, learning that the desired servant has been given notice, the Lord and Lady feel free to act on their sexual impulses. The Lady sleeps with Moon, and afterwards: “Moon treats her as less than an equal, and Lady X enjoys being treated like a tart. He bullies her. She’ll bring him a drink. He treats her like a maid. She joins in. She likes being a maid.”122 Soon Clara and Lord X return and, still teasing him, Clara convinces him to dress as the butler. This leads to the final moment where, dressed as a butler and a maid, the Lord and Lady discover each other while Moon and Clara are seen leaving the manor, dressed to travel. Ultimately, none of the three synopses was commissioned, and so none of the scripts were written. While the proposed television projects did not generate the needed income, Stoppard was able to pay part of his debt to Smith via money from the Royal Shakespeare Company’s £150 year-long optioning of Rosencrantz in May of 1965. At the time of the optioning, the third act had not yet been written, but Peter Hall and Jeremy Brooks were enthusiastic about the first two acts. At Brooks’ encouragement, Stoppard wrote the third act in two weeks, thereby making the play one of six candidates for a fall production; one idea was that Rosencrantz would alternate with Peter Hall’s production of Hamlet that starred David Warner, a production that drew good crowds, particularly younger audience members, in its run at Stratford. While Stoppard had reason for hope, once again an anticipated breakthrough did not occur as Rosencrantz was not selected, in part because Brooks thought the script needed more work; ironically, the selected play, David Wright’s Strike, was later “scrapped by Peter Hall, who returned from holiday to find that rehearsals were in a mess and the script had not even been finalized.”123 While the play was not selected for RSC’s main season in London, Trevor Nunn wanted to stage it (with actors from the David Warner Hamlet) in a studio series of new plays, but the external funding ran dry when the funds were needed to support the main season at the Aldwych. Despite the setback, the ensuing year was an active period in Stoppard’s career. By early August 1965 he had finished his first, and only, novel Lord Malquist and Mr Moon.124 Stoppard also had a number of television and radio commitments. He was commissioned to write a 45minute radio play, Albert’s Bridge, which he delivered a year late. For the BBC series Pursuit of Happiness, he wrote a half-hour television play, A Separate Peace (1966), which was accompanied by a half-hour documentary (co-written with Christopher Martin), on chess. Also, during the fall of 1965, BBC radio gave Stoppard his most unusual assignment. He was

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hired, along with Peter Hoar, to write a radio series about an Arab medical student living in London; the fifteen-minute episodes would be translated in Arabic and broadcast on the Overseas Service. Starting with Stoppard, every five scripts would alternate between the writers. For his efforts, Stoppard would be paid twenty-seven guineas per script.125 Stoppard dubbed this mercenary project “Ali in Wonderland,” and he ultimately wrote almost seventy episodes of the series, A Student’s Diary. The scripts survive in the BBC Written Archives, and Ira Nadel reports on the first five episodes: [They] show Stoppard’s comic presentation of the clichés and stereotypes of England for the Arabic world but also emphasize an undercurrent of deception and trickery. In many ways, Stoppard makes his tale a warning for immigrants and a very sixties story: drugs, sex and rebellion soon dominate the series.126

Since it was going to be translated into Arabic, Stoppard focused more on plot than dialogue; at the same time, in a foreshadowing of The Real Inspector Hound, in subsequent episodes Stoppard displayed his “parodic skill as he piles clichéd syntax and tone on to this story, borrowed from typical whodunits and mysteries.”127 As the series progressed, Stoppard included devices found in his later plays: lectures and satirizing academicians. In episode twenty-three, the dean of medicine addresses the students on the importance of commitment and study, but also adds: Mind you the [social] clubs exist to enrich your leisure hours, not to tempt you away from your studies. There have been one or two students who after five years at St. Mark’s have gone out into the world with a nodding acquaintance with medicine and absolute genius for ping-pong.128

Other scripts explore the practicalities of where to live and lack of money (both real concerns of the young Stoppard), while others include unscrupulous journalists (another motif of this period) as well as the occasional rumination on science (emblematic of his later interests). As the show progressed, Stoppard even worked with the BBC’s Arab Programming Organizer and the Arabic producer. Overall, Stoppard worked on the series for over a year, and the income generated (approximately £30 per week) by these propagandistic soap opera episodes helped kept Stoppard afloat while he revised his breakthrough play. Throughout this year, Stoppard also followed his pattern of debt and doubts, punctuated by holidays. After a fall vacation in France, he returned in a state of anxiety and severe writer’s block:

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I sweat with fear about my work. I have not been able to apply myself since I got back, which is to say since I went away, which is to say a fortnight before I went away, which is to say two months. I may have lost the knack. I now have a month to write Albert’s Bridge, a 60-min TV and rewrite Rosguil. [Discussion of a TV commission for a play about gluttony and the official word that he was hired for the Arab work.] So although we returned to England somewhat pensive about money and cursing our proneness to spending it so fast, in fact we return to a small boom in Ordinary Stoppards. In our myriadly scrawled and scattered backs of old envelopes, parcelling out our winnings, your name is prominent and encircled. Presumably I owe you about £130, but if you have an exact figure do advise.129

Stoppard eventually regained his confidence in his writing and gradually paid the loans back via his Arab work, the sale of his 1966 radio play If You’re Glad I’ll be Frank (Stoppard’s meditation on the nature of time and how modern society is imprisoned by it), and from advances for television projects. The commission for the gluttony teleplay was for a series on the seven deadly sins. Stoppard’s offering, How Sir Dudley Lost the Empire, went unproduced. In a letter, Stoppard commented: “The idea for it, born of more desperation than inspiration, does not fascinate me I’m afraid, and it is dangerously close to Black Mischief.”130 Stoppard’s lack of interest is apparent, for How Sir Dudley Lost the Empire is probably his most unremarkable surviving script. The play takes place on the fictitious island of Baku in the middle of the Arabian Sea. It is the “last dreg of the British Empire, having survived by neglect” with the “air of a ramshackle outpost” that the British government has used “as a kind of punishment posting for the discredited and the malcontent.”131 The two main characters are Sir Evelyn Travers, a man who has an idealistic nostalgia for the passing of the empire, and Sir Dudley Colquhoun, the governor, who is incredibly overweight. As might be expected, Sir Dudley is always eating or talking about eating, often waxing poetically over the thought of food: Four and a half pounds of pink plump Wiltshire ham . . . taunting temptress of my dreams . . . coated in milk white fat and a skin of breadcrumbs as yellow as July . . . pink and white and gold, lean succulent haunch where do you lie now, tumbled among the rocks and currents of the Arabian Sea? (p.15)

His insatiable desire for food will, of course, be a key plot point.

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The British government is planning on building up Baku as a military installation, and so Travers is sent to inspect its Britishness, to see if there is any threat of secession, foreign encroachments, or independence. Indeed, the natives, led by Ngkayyad, are planning to revolt. Sir Dudley’s tactical error is in spurning dinner with the American ambassador in favour of a sumptuous dinner with a German merchant, Block, who turns out to be East German. Another character, Palfrey, explains why Ngkayyad arranges this meal: “To make the Americans think that we’ve made a deal with the East Germans …. The point being that the Americans won’t help keep us in Baku if we’re going to let the Communists in” (pp. 65-66). When the British officials learn that Block is East German, they consider throwing him out of the country, but Sir Dudley is against it because Block runs the local grocery store. This leads to Stoppard’s overt addressing of the selected theme and his play’s title: LADY: (Furiously) Food, food! That’s all you are capable of grasping in your food-fatted head! You big glutton! COL: (Calmly) I’m a hearty eater, I see nothing to be ashamed about. As a personality trait gluttony is unjustly and grotesquely stigmatized. In fact I can’t imagine how it ever fell into disrepute let alone became a deadly sin. I can well imagine a chap being kicked into hell for lust or something like that—being a bit overproud, avaricious, envious, full of wrath or even, at a pinch, bone-idle—but for liking his dinner—quite absurd—Even Christ never had anything against the old loaves and fishes, did he—I must say, I won’t be maligned for what is nothing more than a healthy appetite and a love of good food and plenty of it. …. LADY: In Cairo you snubbed an invitation it was your duty to accept. In Kuala Lumpur you refused to issue an invitation it was your duty to make. And in Baku you have accepted an invitation it was your duty to decline. In the first two cases the result was a diplomatic gaffe of the first water that put every map of the world instantly out of date. The third will doubtless be no exception—even now the cartographers flounder about in the wake of your spectacular career. (pp. 62-63)

As expected, the natives do revolt. Then, in an uncharacteristic satire of British patriotism, Stoppard has Travers grab the Union Jack and declare: “Keep calm, everyone, stay where you are—I’ll remind them that they’re British!” (p. 71) But Travers is captured by the mob, who ultimately gains their independence. At the ensuing feast that closes the play, Stoppard hints that Travers, not a wild boar, may actually be the main ingredient in the stew. Overall, the script is one of Stoppard’s weakest efforts. While he uses customary techniques such as cross talk and mispronunciation of

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names, the jokes often fall flat, the characters are thinly developed, and the plot is rather predictable. Stoppard’s letter from October 1965 also discusses his least-known produced script, the television play A Paragraph for Mr Blake, a reworking of his short story, “The Story.” The latter focuses on a reporter who, after promising not to, sells a story about a headmaster (Mr Blake) who got fined for fondling a seven- year-old girl. Intended as a filler piece, the story soon swells in details and importance, at which point Blake commits suicide. Stoppard expanded this brief piece of fiction into an hour-long teleplay that was originally entitled The Explorers. A drama with very few jokes, The Explorers focuses on capturing the atmosphere and lifestyle of a provincial reporter. The protagonist, John Haydon, is a journalist who ekes out an existence and who derives his greatest pleasure from “fiddling his expenses” (p. 2). He cynically assesses his profession: “[Journalism’s] street of adventure stuff … is true on every level except reality …. In many ways it’s such a dreary awful job that you’ve got to retain a few illusions to go on liking it—that and vanity, the vanity of seeing it in print” (pp. 19-20). While Haydon dreams of being an explorer, he ultimately endures his profession’s pitfalls because deep down he likes being a reporter; thus he consistently refuses his father-inlaw’s offer of a more lucrative job selling central heating units. The main action of The Explorers involves an immersion into the world of a small-time reporter. A young woman, Madge, is on her first day of work as she joins Haydon to cover the court cases. Going through the roster of cases, Haydon is not interested in Blake’s case, but rather thinks there is a story to be written about three young thugs involved in a “malicious wounding” incident (p. 25). While Haydon is out trying to pry information from a local police inspector, Madge diligently observes and documents Blake’s indecency case. Despite all her news gathering, Haydon still does not want to report the story, but only because he feels it lacks newsworthiness for their particular market. However, when they meet a reporter for a news agency who is looking for something to sell the national papers, they decide that since Blake is a headmaster and not an ordinary teacher, “it’s worth a line” (p. 35). However, Madge had told Blake that they were not writing anything about him, and so when Blake sees the story in a number of newspapers, he is distraught and eventually commits suicide by jumping in front of a subway train. When Madge learns of his suicide, she is troubled by it, wondering if her story is to blame; Haydon is more nonchalant:

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Tom Stoppard: A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man HAYDON: That’s too simple—Because he ruined himself, and after thinking about it all week he got desperate enough or brave enough or cowardly enough to jump in front of a train. I don’t know …. If he had gone to Blackpool instead of Pevington; if he had gone to the pictures instead of the beach; or if the girl had; if his mother hadn’t conceived. . . MADGE: It’s awful though. HAYDON: Yes, of course it’s awful. It’s one of a million awful things which happened today. MADGE: If he hadn’t been a headmaster, just an ordinary teacher, you wouldn’t have bothered to— HAYDON: But he wasn’t. Rules of the game. I didn’t make them …. I don’t know what the moral of that is. Except, maybe .… Never be anybody. (p. 52)

Thus, Blake’s downfall is a combination of a wrong choice, his profession, and an element of chance. Blake had asserted that his actions were “totally out of character” (p. 26), and when Madge said they were not reporting it, he thought he had escaped and could go back to his normal life. However, a chain of fortuitous events altered his life for the worse. In Stoppard’s script, Blake is virtually a silent character and somewhat of a “Moon” figure—someone to whom things happen. Stoppard’s script emphasizes the reporter’s life, but while he was on holiday in France, the title was changed to A Paragraph for Mr Blake and the text was severely altered. The producer decided to focus almost exclusively on the character of Mr Blake, a man he saw as a social problem. He added numerous scenes that Stoppard felt were laborious, gratuitous, and stereotyped. The additions came at the expense of material about Haydon’s home life. Stoppard considered removing his name from the project, but the production was so far advanced and he had already done all the media PR work, that he decided the best thing to do was to say nothing. A Paragraph for Mr Blake was broadcast on Independent Television in October 1965 as part of their “Knock on Any Door” series. Subsequently, there was a German TV production, but it has never been published. Since the script was severely altered from his draft, it stands as more of a historical curiosity than as an actual piece of the Stoppard canon.

The Circuitous Path to Success While the Royal Shakespeare Company’s option on Rosencrantz expired in May 1966, Trevor Nunn remained interested in the project and hoped that Stoppard would wait for the potential revival of the studio

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program. At the same time, Nunn hired Stoppard to do a last-minute script polish for the RSC production of Slawomir Mrozek’s Tango; it would establish the process followed in subsequent years in which Stoppard would adapt plays and create English versions by working from a literal translation.132 Stoppard was anxious to get Rosencrantz produced, and so rather than wait any longer for the RSC, the script began to make the rounds again, including a possible submission to the Royal Court.133 In a further effort to aid Stoppard, Nunn sent Rosencrantz to the Oxford Playhouse, which in turn passed it on to the Oxford Theatre Group. When this amateur company asked permission to stage a production at that summer’s Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Ewing reluctantly agreed.134 Janet Watts, who played Ophelia in the Edinburgh production, recalls that the production was in disarray when Stoppard arrived for the last few rehearsals. The director and leading lady had quit, the stage manager was directing, and the actors were “bewildered by the play, which seemed clogged with repetitions and had no proper ending.”135 Stoppard calmly entered the fray, “revised the last two acts, laughed the repetitions off as a massive typing error, and set the directions to right.”136 There were, in fact, typing errors, with some lines repeated and others missing, leading to odd non sequiturs that the cast attributed to the script being absurdist in nature. Beyond the script errors, the dialogue required a certain rhythm. One of the actors later remarked: “He seemed to me pretty desperate to get the thing through. We went through several sleepless nights with him, trying to get it to sound the way he heard it in his head.”137 Despite his last minute restoration of order, Stoppard relates: “We didn’t even attempt to do the very last scene at Edinburgh; it was simply unstageable in those circumstances, the circumstances being a stage the size of a ping pong table and a dozen actors instead of 35.”138 While Stoppard stressed that it was “a comedy first and foremost, rather than a Comment on the Human Predicament,” his original program note also suggests the existential nature of the piece: “[Rosencrantz and Guildenstern] have been thrust into a situation which is nothing to do with them and which they hardly understand.”139 Stoppard stayed for the first few performances and recalls it being received “politely rather than with hilarity.”140 The initial reviews ranged from mixed to less than flattering. The Glasgow Herald called it “as off-putting a piece of non-theatre as has been presented at the Festival for many a year.”141 Even Michael Codron, Stoppard’s future West End producer, wryly remarked: “It was difficult to see beyond the wrinkled tights.”142 However, on the train back to London, Stoppard discovered the review that was to mark the pivotal turn in his

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career. Ronald Bryden, writing in the Observer, aptly captured the essence of the play and ignited the spark of interest: Mr Stoppard has taken up the vestigial lives of Hamlet’s two Wittenberg cronies and made out of them an existential fable unabashedly indebted to Waiting for Godot, but as witty and vaulting as Beckett’s original is despairing …. This is erudite comedy, punning, far-fetched, leaping from depth to dizziness. It’s the most brilliant debut by a young playwright since John Arden’s.143

When Kenneth Tynan, then Literary Manager at the National Theatre, read the review, he cabled Stoppard for a copy of the script, and thus the wheels were set in motion for his professional breakthrough. Regarding this life-turning amateur production, Stoppard said in 1973: I was very light-hearted about the whole thing because I had a novel [Lord Malquist and Mr Moon] published in the same week that the play opened, and there was no doubt in my mind whatsoever that the novel would make my reputation, and the play would be of little consequence either way.144

Again, one might wonder about the accuracy of this retrospective public posture. While the prospect of an amateur production was no cause for great excitement, Stoppard’s letters do little to corroborate this professed belief that the novel would make his reputation, or that he even desired to be a novelist. After completing his novel, he noted that if the publisher was interested, he might commit himself to a second novel “for the sake of the advance,”145 but Stoppard soon learned that his publisher’s response was much less enthusiastic than he had hoped. The publisher told Stoppard’s agent that the book was “admirable without being even vaguely commercial.”146 Stoppard reports on a subsequent meeting with the publisher: [Blond’s] frank confession was namely that much as he admired my book, people were not buying novels at all, short novels even less and funny novels even less than that . . . and I had written a short funny novel …. [However] he was going ahead with the proviso that he wanted to hold it back until about June (meaning September?) to give his salesmen time to whip up some trade for it.147

Thus, the initial outlook was less than published on 22 August 1966, by 13 learned that the novel had been rejected as by publishers in the United States

promising. While the book was September 1966, Stoppard had by his German publisher as well and on the Continent. Overall,

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Stoppard’s statement about thinking he would make his literary reputation through his novel seems more like a colourful and quotable story than an actual belief.148 On the other hand, one of the main themes of the novel is whether there is an underlying order in the world or whether it is all random, a theme that appears in Stoppard’s plays. While the novel was headed towards relative obscurity, Rosencrantz was on its way to forever altering Stoppard’s life. The National Theatre was reading the play, and Stoppard endured a few weeks of uncertainty, wondering how long he should let them consider the work: [Tynan] and Olivier and Dexter were all highly keen on Rosenguild and it remained to decide whether they could do it in May—their first gap— already filled with another show, the Cuba documentary which apparently was having problems. He said they’d like to do it in October anyway (1967), if I’d wait that long but assumed that I wouldn’t. He assumed that everyone in London was after it, little knowing that no one was. Anyway they asked for a fortnight to decide and last night decided to buy a six month’s option, which could mean they are going to do it or it could mean that they are willing to waste 50 quid on stopping anyone else from doing it. I don’t know. In fact I don’t get it at all, because six months doesn’t take them as far as May anyway. However, it’s quite promising, Tynan says it’s the best play they’ve ever received, Dexter says he’s keener to direct it than any other play they’ve had. Tynan said they’ve pushed out two other plays in order to fit in mine. Or something. Naturally this is twoedged; i.e., if they come across another play which they like even more than mine they’d have no compunction about phasing me out. I had lunch with O’Toole one day and consulted him about the advisability of leaving the play with the National for an October production, and he advised against, citing other plays which were all certainties till the next post brought in some newer ones. Whatever enthusiasm is broadcast initially. I agree …. Also, I have a theory that plays go off, like fruit. Somehow, in a year’s time the play won’t be as good a play. It’s not as good now as it was a year ago when I wrote it.149

Despite these misgivings, Stoppard ultimately accepted the National’s offer of £250 for a nine-month option.150 While there was much excitement around Rosencrantz, the play’s future and Stoppard’s finances remained in limbo. While Stoppard waited to see if the National would actually produce his play, there were also negotiations with multiple publishers and inquiries from America, Canada, Israel, Holland, Germany, Switzerland, Sweden, and other countries; at the same time, he was beset by his customary financial problems:

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Tom Stoppard: A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man The awful part is that with all this international excitement and knighted enthusiasm, I am penniless and besieged by creditors, so I have put my case for a loan to Ewing this weekend, having totally alienated my bank by the conduct of my finances …. So here I am, in the midst of prestigious negotiations, praising Allah for my Arabs, and more or less committing myself to a similar opera for the Africans.151

While Stoppard never did write the African propagandistic radio soap opera, he continued writing the Arab serial into the spring of 1967; his last script of A Student’s Diary, episode 138, was recorded on 30 May 1967, six weeks after Rosencrantz had opened at the National. During this period when Rosencrantz’s future was still uncertain, Stoppard accepted a commission to co-write, with Gordon Williams, the pilot for a BBC radio serial to be entitled Tales of Doctor Masopust. The series was to be a campy send-up of the maniacal doctor trying to take over the world genre. The pilot script preserved at the Ransom Center, “Doctor Masopust, I Presume,” is filled with vaudeville-type gags and the kind of stream-of-consciousness writing where the dialogue is based on puns rather than logical developments and where the characters burst into song when “prompted” by a phrase. It is a weak script that seems to have been hastily written; presumably, it was never broadcast. Fortunately, Stoppard did not have to rely on his radio work. In December 1966, Stoppard finished the Rosencrantz revisions that Tynan and the publishers had requested; that same month, after a cancellation of an all-male As You Like It, the National slated Rosencrantz for an April production.152 Though the National was pleased with his revisions, Stoppard was not, privately expressing his dissatisfaction with the play.153 At the time, Stoppard was the youngest (age 29) and first unknown playwright to be staged at the National; his show was scheduled in between Strindberg’s Dance of Death (starring Olivier) and Chekhov’s Three Sisters (starring Joan Plowright). While the selection of Stoppard’s play satisfied Tynan’s desire to encourage and find new voices, from a resources standpoint, the National hedged their bet. The lead actors were the relatively unknown John Stride (Rosencrantz) and Edward Petherbridge (Guildenstern), with direction by twenty-six year old Derek Goldby, an assistant director with the company who had never directed a major production. To minimize production costs, the costumes were pulled from storage, using the same, now-partiallyfaded items worn in Peter O’Toole’s 1963 Hamlet. While accounts vary as to how much the text changed during rehearsals, all agreed that the ending required special attention. Faraone reports: “[T]he company eventually

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rehearsed eight separate denouements before settling on the disappearance of the two players, and the excerpt from the final scene of Hamlet.”154 Following the National’s repertory rehearsal schedule, and in an era before previews, the cast’s first time on stage was Sunday, followed by an invited dress rehearsal on Monday and a Tuesday opening. While Rosencrantz’s premiere at the National was to change Stoppard’s life, his anxiety prevented him from fully enjoying the evening. Years later, Stoppard revealed: “Early in the first act a man sitting in front of me turned to his companion and said, ‘I do wish they’d get on with it.’ That finished it for me. I went to the pub and never came back.”155 While Stoppard was not around for the curtain call, he joined the cast for the opening party, and before it ended, the newspaper reviews had begun to come in. According to one account, “Stoppard read the notices one by one after dashing up and down Fleet Street from one machineroom to the next.”156 While a few of the reviews were negative, most lavished high praise on the play and young playwright. The most significant was Harold Hobson’s in the Sunday Times: “If the history of drama is chiefly the history of dramatists—and it is—then the National Theatre’s production of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead by Tom Stoppard is the most important event in the British professional theatre of the last nine years [since Harold Pinter’s The Birthday Party in 1958].”157 Ultimately, the play exceeded anyone’s expectations, remaining in the National’s repertoire for nearly four years while also becoming their first show to transfer to Broadway, where it ran for just over a year. By the end of 1968, the play had been staged in twenty-three countries and was ultimately translated into at least twenty languages. The commercial success was joined by critical acclaim. In England, Stoppard won the John Whiting Award from the Arts Council of Great Britain and the Evening Standard Award for Most Promising Playwright (shared with David Storey); in the United States Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead won both the Tony Award and the New York Drama Critics Circle Award. Within a year of Rosencrantz’s opening, the once perpetually borrowing Stoppard was wealthy beyond his expectations. More important than the relief from monetary worries, in that spring of 1967, for the first time since he had committed himself to writing in 1960, Stoppard had achieved what he truly sought: recognition. In 1974, Stoppard remarked: “As soon as Rosencrantz was seen and recognized and I had succeeded in reaching audiences, I felt, ‘My God, the pressure is off for the first time in eight or nine years.’”158 The relief from the self-imposed pressure would, of course, be temporary, as the desire to be more than a one-hit wonder meant creating a body of work that could stand up to the lofty

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expectations created by his first hit. And while the “overnight” success of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern was seven years in the making, Stoppard’s intellect, talent, and determination have helped ensure that his place at the top would not be short-lived. Indeed, Stoppard’s mix of critical and commercial success is exceedingly rare, and his nine Best New Play Awards spread across five decades is nearly unparalleled. Now, near the end of his career, it is safe to say that Stoppard has achieved, even surpassed, the level of success he once dreamed about as a young artist.

Notes 1

See Hedgepeth, p. 96. See Barnes, p.53. 3 A brief biographical note: Stoppard was born on 3 July 1937 in Czechoslovakia, and his name at birth was Tomas Straussler. In 1939, on the eve of the Nazi invasion, his family fled to Singapore. When the Japanese invaded Singapore in 1942, women and children were evacuated, but Dr Straussler remained behind where he was killed. Mrs Straussler took her two sons to India where they lived from 1942-1946, when she married British army officer Kenneth Stoppard. The family then moved to England, eventually settling in Bristol. At the age of 17, Stoppard finished his formal schooling and became a journalist. 4 For more on Stoppard in Bristol and the young artists there, see Tynan, pp. 5860, and Nadel, pp.73-99. 5 See Stoppard, “Act II,” p.8. 6 See Hudson, Itzin, and Trussler, p. 54; see also Stoppard, “Something to Declare,” p. 10. One side note from the latter article is Stoppard’s assertion that in early 1966 he began writing a play, that he still intended to write, “to commemorate, probably rather sceptically, the fiftieth anniversary of the Russian Revolution. [. . .] But confronted with the enormous importance and reality of that revolution, I absolutely boggle, I don’t know what to do about it” (p.10). Over thirty years later, Stoppard would find his way back to the topic by probing the roots of the Russian Revolution via his epic trilogy The Coast of Utopia (2002), an examination of the intellectual ideas percolating through Russia in the mid-1800s, with an emphasis on Alexander Herzen, the father of Russian socialism, albeit one who ultimately had different ideas than Marx or Lenin. 7 See Stoppard, “Definite Maybe,” p. 18. 8 See Kuurman, p. 42. 9 See Kuurman, p. 44. 10 Stoppard to Dunjohn, July 1960. Quoted in Nadel, p. 77. To further save money while keeping himself connected to the theatre scene, Stoppard took a small room in the home of Val Lorraine, a friend and actress at the Bristol Old Vic. Her faith in his writing was another source of encouragement. 2

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Stoppard told Mel Gussow that The Critics was “the second thing I wrote,” while he told the editors of Theatre Quarterly that he wrote it “after The Gamblers.” See Gussow, p. 1; see Hudson, Itzin, and Trussler, p.60. Stoppard has always used The Critics to describe the early texts that evolved into Hound; however, there are multiple manuscript copies, fragments, and notes at the Ransom Center. A text entitled The Critics is dated January 1, 1962, while there are multiple versions or fragments of The Stand-Ins with dates ranging from June 1962 to July 1963. A seemingly later version is entitled Murder at Mousetrap Manor. After the success of Rosencrantz, the not yet completed text of Mousetrap Manor, along with a synopsis of its ending, was sent to Michael Codron who produced it (i.e., The Real Inspector Hound) on the West End in 1968. 12 See Stoppard, “The Definite Maybe,” p. 19. In “Ambushes for the Audiences,” Stoppard offers a different version in which he sent Ewing A Walk on the Water not The Gamblers (see Hudson, Itzin, and Trussler, p. 55). In the latter account Stoppard asks for a recommendation for an agent; Ira Nadel offers another version in which the Bristol Old Vic’s John Hale sent Walk to Peter Dunlop, advising “give it to your literary man” (p. 87). 13 See Hudson, Itzin, and Trussler, p.55. 14 See Stoppard, “Grandmother Courage,” p. 8. A main point of the article is Stoppard’s claim (which no one else has made) that Brecht’s play is based on La Guerre, an 1866 play by the Frenchmen Emile Erckmann and Alexandre Chatrain. In the article, Stoppard notes that Shakespeare used Plutarch’s description of Cleopatra’s barge; thirty years later, Stoppard himself slyly references Shakespeare’s borrowing when Septimus does a “free translation” from the Latin and ends up with Shakespeare’s words (see Arcadia, p. 39). 15 See Stoppard, “After Wesker—is the horse so thirsty?,” p. 8 16 Ibid. 17 Quoted in Nadel 80. 18 See Stoppard, “Double Focus,” p. 8. 19 Ibid. 20 See Stoppard, “The Misfits in the Machine,” p. 10 21 See Stoppard, “Who’s Talking of Jerusalem?” p.8. 22 Ibid. 23 Stoppard to Smith, May 1962. For ease of reading, in quoting from Stoppard's letters, typographical errors and uses of shorthand have been silently emended. 24 See Watts, “Tom Stoppard,” p. 49. 25 Ibid. 26 Stoppard to Dunjohn, August/September 1962. Quoted in Nadel, p. 104. 27 Stoppard to Dunjohn, September 1962. Quoted in Nadel, p. 105. 28 See Hudson, Itzin, and Trussler, p.71. For a discussion of Scene articles written under the name of William Boot, see Nadel, pp. 111-112. 29 In the early plays, Stoppard's other favourite character name is Moon, which comes from his idiosyncratic relationship to an incident in the film Left-Handed Gun (see Hudson, Itzin, and Trussler, pp. 70-71).The Moon and Boot characters

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often work in tandem. In Tom Stoppard: Comedy as a Moral Matrix, Joan Fitzpatrick Dean offers the distinction: "Boots are often more ostentatious and outgoing, often in fact more dominant than the submissive Moons. Stoppard himself describes a Moon as ‘a person to whom things happen. Boot is rather more aggressive’” (p. 18). For a more detailed discussion of these names see Londré, pp.107-109. Mel Gussow biographically interprets Moon and Boot as representing “two sides of the author's nature, the philosopher and pragmatist, the intellectual and the entertainer” (p. X). 30 See Stoppard, “Bits of Bert,” p. 21. 31 See Stoppard, “Off the Shaftesbury Fringe,” p. 19. 32 See Nadel, p. 110. 33 For an extended discussion of the influence of Next Time I'll Sing to You on Stoppard and Rosencrantz, see Sammels, pp. 32-39. 34 See Kelly, p. 16. 35 See Kelly, p. 18. 36 See Amory, p. 68. 37 Stoppard to Smith, Early 1963. 38 Quoted in Tynan, p.90. 39 For a summary and discussion of these short stories, see Londré 91-99, Rusinko 17-22, or Nadel 116-118. 40 Stoppard to Smith, 30 August 1962. In his article “The Definite Maybe” Stoppard records this development differently when he glibly writes: “Because it was not unlike Flowering Cherry it was sent to Ralph Richardson, who declined on grounds that it was not unlike Flowering Cherry” (p. 19). Stoppard's published declarations are probably more quotable than accurate, for a year later when the rights were sold to television Richardson was still considering playing the lead role. Ironically, Stoppard followed Richardson's suggestion and expanded the play, only to have 42 minutes cut out of the script that was eventually filmed for television. 41 Quoted in Tynan, p. 66. 42 Quoted in Tynan, p. 66. 43 Stoppard to Smith, November or December 1965. 44 See Amory, p. 68. 45 See Lewis, “How Tom…” p.6. 46 Stoppard to Smith, Summer 1963. 47 Stoppard to Smith, October 1963. 48 Stoppard to Smith, November 1963. 49 Stoppard knew O'Toole from Bristol, and they remained friends in London. They also had mutual respect for each other's artistry. Once when Stoppard was struggling, “[O’Toole], discovering that I was broke, expressed astonishment and dismay that such injustice should be rife in the world, gave me ‘for now’ £10 [. . .] and wrote out a cheque for £100. Said I was too good a writer to ‘fuck about with journalism.’ Someday I'll pay £110 into his account and square my conscience” (Stoppard to Smith, November 1963).

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Stoppard to Smith, October 1963. Stoppard to Smith, Late October or Early November 1963. 52 Ibid. 53 Stoppard to Smith, November 1963. 54 Ibid. 55 See Stoppard, Funny Man, Scene III, p.2. Subsequent citations are noted parenthetically in the text. 56 Stoppard to Smith, Late October or Early November 1963. 57 Stoppard to Smith, November 1963. 58 Ibid. 59 In a follow-up letter, Stoppard relates that the play “is going to end with the demonic taxi driver taking the man's clothes and furniture in part exchange after an all-night search for loans as the meter ticks on and on . . . abandonment of realism. It's called The Last Mad Ride of Dominic Boot. I think it ends with Boot walking into a bank in his underwear to raise a loan for the taxi fare” (Stoppard to Smith, November 1963). Stoppard changed the title and the proposed ending. In the broadcast version, Boot is left with only a raincoat and pyjamas which he wears as he enters his place of work. He is fired for missing the afternoon of work, and then a secretary hails a taxi for them, saying “You can drop me off...” (Stoppard: The Plays for Radio 1964-1983, p.12). The closing joke suggests that Dominic is trapped in an unending cycle—images of circularity abounded in Stoppard's early work, including the rehearsal script for the National Theatre's production of Rosencrantz where the play ended with the sound of a messenger banging on a shutter and indistinctly calling two names, much the same way Rosencrantz and Guildenstern had been summoned. Incidentally, Dominic's street number “48” was also Stoppard's address. 60 Stoppard to Smith, November 1963. 61 The short story (four and a half typed pages) was entitled “August.” It provided a loose framework, as well as some dialogue, for the radio play (HRHRC Box 49.6). 62 M is for Moon among Other Things has been staged. Having seen it off-off Broadway in 1989, I must agree with Ned Chaillet's review of its first staging in 1977 in Richmond, England: “Stoppard's play does not adjust to the stage very well and looks like a radio play, over-endowed with poignancy” (Quoted in Malcolm Page, p. 10). 63 See Stoppard, I Can't Give You Anything But Love, Baby, Scene 1, p. 19. Subsequent citations are noted parenthetically in the text. 64 Tynan, with Londré following, incorrectly states that Ewing's idea for the King Lear Rosencrantz came after a rejection of This Way Out with Samuel Boot. That television play was not completed until just before or after Stoppard arrived in Berlin in May of 1964. However, the error (perhaps originated by Stoppard's faulty memory) is understandable because the Samuel Boot script is essentially a reworking of some of the ideas and situations of I Can't Give You Anything But Love, Baby. Incidentally, Arthur and Jamie initially had the surname Boot, but in 51

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some places the name was amended to Jarvis, the surname Stoppard would later use for his principal researcher in Arcadia. 65 Stoppard to Smith, Late 1963. 66 Ibid. 67 While the BBC enjoyed some of Stoppard’s episodes, they declined to hire him for a permanent staff position because his style and treatment were deemed too individual for series writing. Nonetheless, Stoppard received about £90 for his efforts. 68 Stoppard to Smith, January 1964. 69 Ibid. 70 Exemplifying his career-long struggle of beginning plays, Stoppard commented on his 1987 play Hapgood: “Believe me, it took me an awful long time to get anywhere near knowing what to write about. My refrain is that the long, uphill struggle in playwriting is getting to the top of page one. Once I know roughly what I'm supposed to be doing, I find dialogue much easier to write” (See O' Connor, p. 228). 71 The objects the two men accumulate are similar and include vacuum cleaners, miners' helmets, goggles, and a harpoon gun. The plays even use similar situations as when both Jamie and Jonathan buy a Deaf-Aid even though they hear perfectly well; this leads to Stoppard's joke of having the salesman shout: "There! That's better isn't it?" To which the buyer responds: “You don't have to shout. I'm not deaf” (Samuel Boot, p.19; for ICGYABLB, see scene 5). 72 See Tynan, p.69. 73 Stoppard to Smith, May 1964. 74 See Stoppard, This Way Out with Samuel Boot, p.16. Subsequent citations are noted parenthetically in the text. 75 Stoppard to Smith, August 1964. 76 Tynan refers to Stoppard and Ingle's first meeting as taking place in 1962 when Stoppard arrived in London and moved into the house in Notting Hill, which was divided into bedsits. Most accounts suggest they were friends for many months before getting romantically involved at some point in late 1963. Fellow bedsit dweller Derek Marlowe remembers Jose as being "svelte and sun-tanned" (quoted in Tynan, p. 65), and while she had a background in nursing, she was working as a researcher for the London consumer magazine Which? when they began dating. In “Stoppard Goes,” Howard Davies reports: “She was in his room one day while he was away in Berlin, and saw a photograph of him. ‘Hmm, he looks a bit of all right, I thought’” (p.13). This published account is incorrect as multiple Stoppard letters clearly indicate that the two were involved before Stoppard left for his Ford Foundation fellowship; one of his main concerns was finding her a new flat before he left (Stoppard to Smith, 23 April 1964). As with many aspects of Stoppard's personal life, specific details are difficult to pin down, and published accounts often contain imprecisions or minor inaccuracies. 77 Stoppard to Smith, February 1964.

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Some accounts refer to The Newcomers as being about a family’s attempt to adjust to life in a country town; that was the premise for the BBC soap opera also entitled The Newcomers which ran from 1965-1969. 79 See Amory, p. 67. 80 Stoppard to Smith, July 1964. On 4 May 1966 Stoppard realized one of his dreams as he and Jose had their first child, a son named Oliver, who had to spend a few weeks in the hospital before being healthy enough to come home. 81 Stoppard to Smith, May 1964. 82 Ibid. 83 The Hamburg production considered a number of titles for the play. It started as the German equivalent of What The World Needs; eight days before opening it was Old Riley Goes over the Ocean, before settling on The Spleen of George Riley, a title which Stoppard wryly remarked made it “sounds like an episode of Emergency Ward Ten [a Rediffusion TV show]” (Stoppard to Smith, July 1964). The titles of unproduced drafts of its English version have included The Preservation of George Riley and Home and Dry. 84 Stoppard to Smith, June 1964. 85 Stoppard to Smith, 22 June 1964. 86 See Tynan, p.71. 87 Stoppard to Smith, July 1964. 88 Ibid. 89 See Hudson, Itzin, and Trussler, p.56. 90 Knowing that it would not stand up to the success of Rosencrantz, Stoppard prohibited a proposed 1970 New York production of Enter a Free Man. It would not be staged in New York until December 1974, after Jumpers and Travesties had cemented Stoppard’s reputation. 91 Stoppard to Smith, June 1964. According to the letter, the film trio was comprised of a Dutch director, his Australian mistress, and an American writer named George Moorse. Tynan reports that the film was based on a short story by Jorge Luis Borges (p.71), with Ira Nadel stating that it was most likely Borges’ “Streetcorner Man” (p. 134). According to IMDB, the film was In Side Out, a 17minute short directed by Moorse. IMDB only credits three actors: Stoppard, Moorse, and Pamela Badyk. It won a Silver Film Award for Outstanding Short Film at the 1965 German Film Awards. 92 Stoppard to Smith, 22 June 1964. 93 See Tynan, p.70. 94 Stoppard to Smith, August 1964. 95 See Lewis, “How Tom…,” p.6. 96 An example of the sentiment that family is more important than work can be found in Amory, p. 65. For the importance of writing to his happiness see Schiff, pp. 216-17. 97 Stoppard to Smith, 22 June 1964. 98 Some of the confusion and misconception of this earliest draft of Stoppard's breakthrough play stems from the faulty account of the Berlin script found in

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Charles Marowitz's Confessions of a Counterfeit Critic. After incorrectly citing the year as 1965, Marowitz’s recollection continues: “Mr Stoppard's excerpt concerned two minor characters from Shakespeare's play Hamlet who spent a lot of time tossing coins in the air, and receiving a visit from a hoary self-denigrating gent called King Lear. It struck me, and most everyone else, as a lot of academic twaddle” (p. 123). As noted at the end of the Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Meets King Lear section, Stoppard presented a shortened version in Berlin and at The Questors Theatre. Descriptions of that text correspond to an 18-page script at the Ransom Center (Box 24.1). This Questors text is very similar to the opening section of the Lear version, the part that Stoppard most maintained for the third-act of the full-length version. In the surviving manuscripts, the coin-tossing scene first appears in an undated hand-written draft of the full-length play, and it is highly doubtful that a twenty-five-minute excerpt would have included both the opening coin-tossing scene and the closing Lear scene, a scene which would have been cut from any full-length versions. Most likely the Berlin presentation was this Questors text or something similar. (The Questors actors had performed in Berlin, and they arranged for the reading back home.) While Marowitz was highly critical of the work in progress, Hayman notes that Martin Esslin, who also adjudicated, was less dismissive (p. 32). Hayman also reports that when the protagonists arrive in Dover, they “are informed that there are three rivals for the throne” (p. 32). Hayman offers no sources, and this plot point, like most of his brief description of the text, sounds like hearsay or faulty memory, for again it bears no relation to the script preserved. 99 An expanded version of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern's opening exchange over money appears in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead (pp. 80-81). 100 See Stoppard, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, p. 52. In Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Meet King Lear, the Player's lines are spoken by the Captain, and other than switching a couple of speaker tags the exchange going from “Melancholy?” to “And he does both” (Rosencrantz Lear, p. 2; Rosencrantz, p. 52) is almost verbatim. Here, as elsewhere, the final dialogue runs close to the original, yet in the latter it is shifted to a different context. Likewise Rosencrantz's speech “A compulsion towards philosophical investigation . . .” (Rosencrantz Lear, p. 5; Rosencrantz, p. 91), and Guildenstern's (originally Rosencrantz's) speech “It really boils down to symptoms . . .” (Rosencrantz Lear, p. 6; Rosencrantz, p. 91) are virtually verbatim, but in the original they are separated by a page of dialogue rather than placed following each other. 101 Stoppard's conceit of having the Player's mask resemble Hamlet's face might have come from his reading of Dover Wilson's What Happens in Hamlet where Wilson discusses how Lucianus, by virtue of his being the nephew to the king as opposed to the brother of the king, is the Hamlet figure of The Murder of Gonzago (see Wilson, chapter 5, particularly pp. 170-71). Stoppard's inspiration for using an overt visual parallel may have come from Wilson's suggestion that Lucianus might wear the same black doublet as Hamlet.

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102 See Stoppard, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Meet King Lear, p. 10. Subsequent citations are noted parenthetically in the text. 103 This speech survives nearly verbatim in the full-length version of Rosencrantz, p. 79. 104 The dialogue concerning the letter, on pp. 14-16 of Rosencrantz Lear, is fairly similar to the expanded and revised version in Rosencrantz, but the sections are reversed. The passage from Rosencrantz's “The letter” through Guildenstern's “No” (Rosencrantz, p. 83; Rosencrantz Lear, p. 15) precedes the passage from Rosencrantz's "We take Hamlet to the English king" through Guildenstern's “That depends on when we get there” (Rosencrantz, p. 82; Rosencrantz Lear, p. 16). Both sections are nearly verbatim. 105 Ibid., p. 21. The Rosencrantz line reads: “Incidents! All we get is incidents! Dear God, is it too much to ask for a little sustained action?” (p. 91). 106 In Stoppard's edits to the script, he adds a hand-written note: “Hamlet gets letter?” (p. 28). Indeed, in the full-length version it is Hamlet, not the Player, who reads the letter. 107 Hamlet IV, iv; Rosencrantz Lear, p. 3. 108 See Stoppard, “The Definite Maybe,” p. 19. 109 See Hudson, Itzin, and Trussler, p. 57. 110 Quoted in Tynan, p. 72. 111 Stoppard to Smith, Early 1965. 112 Jumpers' forerunner is the 30-minute television play Another Moon Called Earth (1967), while Travesties' antecedent is the radio play Artist Descending a Staircase (1972). 113 Stoppard first wrote The Gamblers in 1960 or 1961, and then revised and expanded it more than once before it was produced in 1965 at Bristol. (Along the way, Ewing tried to sell the play to both radio and television producers.) The Ransom Center has multiple versions of The Gamblers, none of which are dated by Stoppard. Box 10, Folder 13 contains a complete holograph draft, while Box 10, Folder 14 contains a partial typescript of the same version as the holograph. However, Box 67, Folder 5 contains a partial typescript that is sufficiently different—the Ransom Center dates this script as being from 1960, and indeed since it is shorter, it does seem to be an earlier version. While the literature on Stoppard occasionally includes a brief discussion of The Gamblers, most, if not all, accounts seem to be based on Ronald Hayman's description of the play (pp. 28-31). Unfortunately, Hayman does not provide a source for his information on The Gamblers. Since Hayman had Stoppard's cooperation, one assumes that he got a copy from Stoppard, from his agent, or perhaps from the Bristol Drama Department. The excerpts Hayman uses correspond to the partial typescript in Box 67; however, my discussion is based on the longer, complete script in Box 10. More recently, the Ransom Center has acquired a Gamblers script from Gordon Dickerson, an agent of Fraser and Dunlop; that script is similar to the Box 67 version. 114 See Tynan, p. 60.

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See Stoppard, Synopsis of The Gamblers. See Stoppard, The Gamblers, p.59. Subsequent citations are noted parenthetically in the text. 117 Kenneth Tynan, among many others, characterized the pre-1977 Stoppard as “a cool, apolitical stylist” (p. 47). Stoppard has added an important clarification: “I was always morally, if not politically, involved" (See Schulman, p. 108). 118 In 1977, Stoppard rejected Smith's request for a student production of The Gamblers: “I really would hate The Gamblers to be done, however modestly and in whatever obscurity. Sorry” (Stoppard to Smith, 7 February 1977). 119 See Hudson, Itzin, and Trussler, p.55. 120 My summary of Higg and Cogg is based on the script at the Ransom Center; in a May 1965 letter to Smith, Stoppard referred to it as a little sketch entitled “I’ll Jump Tomorrow.” 121 See Stoppard, Synopsis of The Waiter. 122 See Stoppard, Synopsis of The Servant Problem, p.3. 123 Stoppard to Smith, October 1965. While the play was under option, Stoppard was also hired to do a series of interviews/actor profiles as program inserts for the RSC. Ironically, one of those whom Stoppard interviewed was David Warner whose Hamlet opened in August 1965. 124 When Stoppard submitted the novel, it did not have a title. He wrote to Smith: “Possible [titles] include, The Funeral of the Year; So Far So Good; A Hero’s Death. I like The Funeral of the Year, but it slightly distorts the book’s emphasis. As do all titles” (August 1965). 125 Ewing’s retrospective summary to Tynan (“every other week he was paid £40 for five episodes…. But the job kept him going for nine months” p.73) is imprecise. Based on a letter Ewing wrote Stoppard (29 October 1965), the payment was 27 guineas for each script, with the first five scripts (£135) paid in advance. With two writers and two episodes per week, Stoppard earned a little under £30 per week during the run of the series. Stoppard worked on the series for over a year, through episode 138; the series continued on to episode 397, broadcast on 10 February 1969. 126 See Nadel, p. 155. 127 Ibid. 128 Stoppard, A Student’s Diary, Episode 23, p. 8. Quoted in Nadel, p. 156. 129 Stoppard to Smith, 12 October 1965. 130 Stoppard to Smith, 12 October 1965. 131 See Stoppard, How Sir Dudley Lost the Empire, p.1. Subsequent citations are noted parenthetically in the text. 132 When the lead actor was hospitalized, Nunn performed the role of Arthur for the opening nights (Nadel, p. 162). 133 In Gollob and Roper, Stoppard says he sent Rosencrantz to the Royal Court before anyone had produced it, but that nothing happened (p. 159). Whether this was before or after the RSC option year is unsure. 116

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The contract, dated 12 July 1966, between the Oxford Theatre Group and Stoppard stipulated he was deliver the revised script by July 31 and that if they were satisfied with the revisions they would perform it at the Edinburgh Festival from 24 August-10 September. Stoppard received board and lodging, a first class round-trip train ticket and up to £15 in expenses. For their part the Oxford Theatre Group would receive perhaps the largest windfall in the history of amateur theatre: the contract stipulated that they would get “10% of the gross receipts from the exploitations of the play [including television and film] in the English language for the next 5 years.” 135 See Watts, “Tom Stoppard,” p.47. 136 Ibid. 137 Ibid. 138 See Gordon, p. 17. 139 The first quotation is from Stoppard, “Programme Note” for On the Razzle at Edinburgh in 1981 (National Theatre Archives); the second is from the Playbill for the 1966 production (HRHRC Box 24.5). 140 Quoted in Gordon, p. 17. 141 Quoted in Watts, “Stoppard’s Half Century,” p. 17. 142 Ibid. 143 See Bryden, “Wyndy Excitements,” p. 15. 144 See Watts, “Tom Stoppard,” p. 47. 145 Stoppard to Smith, August 1965. In 1995, Stoppard clarified that he never had a sincere interest in being a novelist. Regarding the impetus for Lord Malquist and Mr Moon, he told Mel Gussow: “At that age, at that stage of one's career, one doesn't let the opportunity go by. It's hard enough to get a publisher interested in a novel which is completed, let alone having a publisher commission a book, so naturally I wrote a novel. I haven't wanted to write a novel since” (p. 136). Likewise, in 1978, he told Penelope Mortimer that he wrote the novel “for the advance” and because he “liked the idea of having written a novel, and if it was necessary to write one in order to reach that position, I was prepared to make the effort” (p. 31). Depending on when he has been asked about the novel, his retrospective assessment of its quality has ranged from displeasure to satisfaction. 146 Stoppard to Smith, August 1965. A subsequent letter from Ewing to Stoppard (15 September 1965) indicates that Blond had seriously considered not even publishing the novel; however, when subsequent in-house readers gave the book strong reviews, he went ahead with the project. 147 Stoppard to Smith, 12 October 1965. 148 Similarly, Stoppard's claim that it sold well in Venezuela sounds suspect. It makes for a colourful, quotable anecdote, but since no European translators were interested in this first novel by an unknown author, there is no reason to believe Latin American publishers were. Reports on the exact sales figures of the novel will also vary; though most seem to be based on Stoppard's 1967 report that the book had sold “481 copies, not counting the 207 sold abroad” (see Harper, p. 7); those numbers coincide with his 31 December 1966 royalty statement. A 31

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December 1968 royalty statement for the preceding six months lists 14 UK copies and 35 international. In the 1970s, after Stoppard’s status was secured, the novel was reprinted and fared much better in the marketplace. 149 Stoppard to Smith, Late September or Early October 1966. 150 The contract of 1 October 1966 was for £250 and nine months. If they decide to exercise the option, they have one year to put in on. In addition, the National was to receive 33% of Stoppard’s royalties from subsequent English-language stage and film rights. Thus, due to his agent’s fee, the Oxford Theatre Group’s 10% commission and the National’s share, for the first five years Stoppard only received about 50% of Rosencrantz’s English-language stage and film royalties. The film rights were indeed sold, and Stoppard wrote an unproduced screenplay in 1968 (Ransom Center Box 8.3). For more on that film script, see Fleming, pp. 5253 and pp. 266-67 (n15). 151 Stoppard to Smith, Late September or Early October 1966. 152 Stoppard signed the Rosencrantz book contract with Faber on 28 October 1966. Within the week he also signed contracts optioning the rights for productions in Sweden, Holland, and Belgium. Thus the wheels were in motion even before the National formally decided to stage the play. In addition, while John Dexter had claimed to be eager to direct the play, his resignation from the National in March 1967 was partly due to their decision to cancel the all-male As You Like It (Times 23 March 1967). 153 Stoppard to Smith, 6 December 1966. While Stoppard’s dissatisfaction reflects his perfectionism, he was not yet accustomed to success and public attention. Now known as a cool, smooth interviewee filled with quotable sentences, when he was first interviewed after the National’s announcement, he remarked: “I am rather neurotic, and this makes me somewhat more neurotic” (see Knight, p. 13). 154 See Faraone, p. 42. Petherbridge proceeds to describe some of the experiments. 155 See Lewis, “Quantum Stoppard,” p. 59. When the play moved to Broadway, Stoppard spent opening night with his wife and a reporter at a bar across the street (see Hedgepeth, p. 96). For at least the next decade Stoppard had trouble enjoying the opening night performances, often only relaxing after the reviews had come in and audience response had been gauged. 156 See Dodd, p. 13. 157 See Hobson, p. 49. 158 See Amory, p. 71.

Works Cited Anonymous. “Dexter Dispute over As You Like It.” Times (London), 23 March 1967: 10. Amory, Mark. “The Joke's the Thing.” Sunday Times Magazine, 9 June 1974: 65-73. Barnes, Clive. “Theater: ‘Rosenkrantz [sic] and Guildenstern are Dead.’”

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New York Times, 17 October 1967: 53. Bryden, Ronald. "Theatre: Wyndy Excitement." Observer, 28 August 1966:15. Davies, Hunter. “Stoppard Goes.” Sunday Times, 23 April 1967: 13. Dean, Joan Fitzpatrick. Tom Stoppard: Comedy as a Moral Matrix. Columbia; U of Missouri P, 1981. Dodd, John. “Success Is the only Unusual Thing about Mr Stoppard.” The Sun, 13 April 1967. Reprinted in Paul Delaney, Tom Stoppard in Conversation. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 1993: pp.12-14. Ewing, Kenneth. Letter to Stoppard, 15 September 1965. Tom Stoppard Collection. Box 36.2. Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center. —. Letter to Stoppard, 29 October 1965. Faraone, Cheryl. An Analysis of Tom Stoppard's Plays and their Productions (1964-1975). Dissertation. Florida State, 1980. Ann Arbor: UMI, 1980. Fleming, John. Stoppard’s Theatre: Finding Order amid Chaos. Austin: U of Texas P, 2001. Gordon, Giles. “Tom Stoppard.” Transatlantic Review 29 (Summer 1968). Reprinted in Paul Delaney, Tom Stoppard in Conversation. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 1993: 15-23. Gollob, David and David Roper. “Trad Tom Pops In.” Gambit 10.37 (Summer 1981). Reprinted in Paul Delaney, Tom Stoppard in Conversation. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 1993: 150-166. Gussow, Mel. Conversations with Stoppard. London: Nick Hern Books, 1995. Harper, Keith. “The Devious Route to Waterloo Road.” Guardian, 12 April 1967: n.p. [National Theatre Archives.] Hayman, Ronald. Tom Stoppard. 4th edition. Contemporary Playwrights series. London; Heinemann, 1982. Hedgepeth, William. “Playwright Tom Stoppard: ‘Go Home, British Boy Genius!’” Look 31 (26 December 1967): 92-96. Hobson, Harold. “A Fearful Summons.” Sunday Times, 16 April 1967: 49. Hudson, Roger, Catherine Itzin, and Simon Trussler. “Ambushes for the Audience: Towards a High Comedy of Ideas.” Theatre Quarterly 4.14 (May 1974). Reprinted in Paul Delaney, Tom Stoppard in Conversation. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 1993: 51-72. Kelly, Katherine E. Tom Stoppard and the Craft of Comedy: Medium and Genre at Play. Ann Arbor; U of Michigan P, 1991.

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Knight, John. “Saturday Night, Sunday Morning.” Sunday Mirror, 18 December 1966: 13. Kuurman, Joost. “An Interview with Tom Stoppard.” Dutch Quarterly Review of Anglo-American Letters. 10 (1980/1): 41-57. Lewis, Peter. “How Tom went to work on an absent mind and picked up £20,000.” London Daily Mail, 24 May 1967: 6. —. “Quantum Stoppard.” Observer Magazine, 6 March 1988: 58-59. Londré, Felicia Hardison. Tom Stoppard. New York: Frederick Ungar, 1981. Marowitz, Charles. Confessions of a Counterfeit Critic. London: Eyre Methuen, 1973. Mortimer, Penelope. “Tom Stoppard: Funny, Fast Talking and Our First Playwright.” [British] Cosmopolitan. Jan. 1978: 30-31, 39. Nadel, Ira. Tom Stoppard: A Life. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002. O’Connor, Thomas. “Welcome to the World of Tom Stoppard.” Orange County Register, 2 April 1989. Reprinted in Paul Delaney, Tom Stoppard in Conversation. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 1993: 225230 Oxford Theatre Group. Letter/contract to Stoppard, 12 July 1966: Gordon Dickerson Collection 19.4. Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center. Page, Malcolm. File on Stoppard. London: Methuen, 1986. Rusinko, Susan. Tom Stoppard. Boston; Twayne Publishers, 1986. Sammells, Neil. Tom Stoppard: The Artist as Critic. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1988. Schiff, Stephen. “Full Stoppard.” Vanity Fair 52. 5 (May 1989). Reprinted in Paul Delaney, Tom Stoppard in Conversation. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 1993: 212-224. Shulman, Martin. “The Politicizing of Tom Stoppard.” New York Times, 23 April 1978. Reprinted in Paul Delaney, Tom Stoppard in Conversation. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 1993: 107-112. Stoppard, Tom. “Act II . . . In Which Tom Stoppard Tries another Profession.” Western Daily Press, 13 September 1958: 8. —. “The Misfits in the Machine, Western Daily Press, 21 June 1961:10 —. “After Wesker—is the horse so thirsty?” Western Daily Press, 30 October 1961: 8 —. “Grandmother Courage.” Western Daily Press, 13 November 1981: 8 —. “Double Focus—the plight of the sane lunatic.” Western Daily Press, 13 November 1961: 8.

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—. “Who’s Talking of Jerusalem?” Western Daily Press, 15 January 1962:8. —. “Bits of Bert.” Scene 1.14 (September 1962): 21. —. “Off the Shaftesbury Fringe.” Scene 8.1 (November 1962): 19. —. “The Definite Maybe.” Author 78 (Spring 1967): 18-20. —. “Something to Declare.” The Sunday Times, 25 February 1968: 10. —. The Gamblers. Synopsis. ts. [n.d.] Tom Stoppard Collection. Box 10.11. Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center. —. The Gamblers. ms. [n.d.] Tom Stoppard Collection. Box 67.5. Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center. —. I Can't Give You Anything But Love, Baby. ms. [1963] Tom Stoppard Collection. Box 14.10. Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center. —. Funny Man. Unproduced teleplay. Ts. [1963] Tom Stoppard Collection. Box 67.4. Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center. —. This Way Out With Samuel Boot. Unproduced teleplay. Ts. [1964] Box 68.5. Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center. —. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Meet King Lear. ms. [1964]. Tom Stoppard Collection. Box 23.10. Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center. —. Higg and Cogg. Ts. [1965] Tom Stoppard Collection. Box 13.11. Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center. —. The Explorers. Ts. [1965]. Gordon Dickerson Collection. Box 8.7. Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center. —. Synopsis of The Waiter. Proposed teleplay. Ts. [1965] Gordon Dickerson Collection. Box 11.10. Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center. —. Synopsis of The Servant Problem. Proposed teleplay. Ts. [1965] Gordon Dickerson Collection. Box 11.10. Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center. —. How Sir Dudley Lost The Empire. Unproduced teleplay. Ts. [1965] Tom Stoppard Collection. Box 67.6. —. Doctor Masopust, I Presume. Pilot for radio serial, co-written with Gordon M. Williams. Ts. [1966] Gordon Dickerson Collection. Box 8.1. Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center. —. Letter to Anthony C. H. Smith. May 1962. Tom Stoppard Collection. Box 37.1. Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center. —. 30 August 1962. —. Early 1963. —. June 1963.

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—. Summer 1963. —. October 1963. —. Late October or Early November 1963. —. November 1963. —. Late 1963. —. January 1964. —. February 1964. —. 23 April 1964. —. May 1964. —. June 1964 —. 22 June 1964. —. July 1964. —. August 1964. —. Early 1965. —. August 1965. —. October 1965. —. 12 October 1965. —. November or December 1965. —. Late September or Early October 1966. —. 6 December 1966. —. 7 February 1977. —. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. New York: Samuel French, 1967. —. Stoppard: The Plays for Radio 1964-1983. London: Faber and Faber, 1990. —. Arcadia. London: Faber and Faber, 1993. Tynan, Kenneth. “Withdrawing with Style from the Chaos.” Show People: Profiles in Entertainment. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1979: 44123. Watts, Janet. “Tom Stoppard.” The Guardian, 21 March 1973. Reprinted in Paul Delaney, Tom Stoppard in Conversation. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 1993: 46-50. —. “Stoppard’s Half-century.” Observer, 28 June 1987: 17. Wilson, John Dover. What Happens In Hamlet. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1937.

STOPPARD’S ARCADIA: “THIS IS NOT SCIENCE; THIS IS STORY-TELLING” JOHN V. KNAPP

“A great piece of comedy is a verbal magic trick.” —Chris Bliss

I. During the more than twenty years since its first production in London (April 13, 1993), Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia seemed to have generated a variety of critical responses with predominant emphasis on its “scientific metaphors” to explain both the behaviours of the characters and some of the major themes of literary investigation during the latter 20th century (Fleming 2008, 197; Demastes; Delaney; Prapassaree and Kramer 5-6; Vees-Gulani 412-15). Stoppard employs the mathematical science of nonlinear dynamic systems, or more commonly stated among literary critics, “chaos theory,” as a means of understanding this complex yet very humorous play (Renk 106). As one writer suggests, Arcadia’s focus is on science as if supervised by the Roman playwright Plautus, and so “the father of farce” becomes something of a presiding spirit over these “[scientific] ceremonies” (Kramer 6). For many literary and theatre critics from the 1990s to the new century, learning about Mandelbrot’s fractals, Newton’s 2nd law of thermodynamics, and chaos theory generally required a real stretch, given the decades since most of us last worked on scientific numbers any more complicated than those in a check book. While the majority of critical analyses have indeed proven helpful in understanding Stoppard’s use of the mathematics and sciences available to the layperson in the 1990s, they have by no means exhausted Stoppard’s infinite variety of character interactions, whether authorially intentional or inadvertently revelatory. Hence in this chapter, I intend to discuss additional scientific metaphors, as developed by Daniel Kahneman in his Thinking, Fast and

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Slow (2011), and Terrence Deacon in his Incomplete Matter: How Mind Emerged from Matter (2012). I employ both thinkers to help cast further light surrounding the penumbra of criticism on Arcadia, and to argue that by looking at human behaviours and their systems—as well as mathematical and physical ones—I remind the playgoer that Arcadia is as emotionally powerful as it is intellectually stimulating. Stoppard himself suggests that “Arcadia has got a classical kind of story and, whether we are writing about science or French maids, the whole thing is about story-telling first and foremost” (Nadel 441). Overall, the debate about Stoppard’s use (and abuse) of the sciences is hardly settled. One critic of Stoppard’s, Jim Hunter, contrasts Stoppard’s previous use of scientific thinking in Hapgood by suggesting (in that instance) that the playwright’s “reading about quantum mechanics … may have pointed him toward the spy plot; but the analogies merely decorate his story and give no real insight into the science” (82).1 Not that one expects scientific breakthroughs from humanistic writers, no matter their intellectual talents, but it could be equally problematic for writers to look to the sciences of the 1990s for characterological insights. When it comes to Arcadia, Hunter is much more assertive, even if he over-reaches a bit when he argues that the “science here is not something pasted in as metaphor …; it’s what the play is about” (92). This may not necessarily be high praise because John Fleming summarizes, for example, an oftenheard critical reaction to Stoppard’s scientifically-oriented plays when he notes that some “critics find the sheer amount of intellectual material one must know (or absorb) in order to fully appreciate a Stoppard play to be off-putting … and have accused his plays of being cold and lacking in emotion” (24).

II. Heat Death vs. Unpredictable Iterations The “science here” Fleming refers to in Arcadia is a mix of entropy (Thomasina’s heat death) and “the qualities of fractal geometry leading to chaos theory.” While understanding those references is important in comprehending elements of Stoppard’s blend of dramatic art and physical science, one should realize that during the two decades since Arcadia was written, theories about the physical and psychological sciences have continue to move forward, and “chaos theory” as assumed in the play has been replaced by continued thinking about the nature of physical and biopsychological reality and their emergent properties. Valentine tells Hannah, for example, that (regarding tea), “hot goes to cold. It’s a one-way street. Your tea will end up at room temperature [... and] we’re all going to end

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up at room temperature” (78). Valentine is speaking of what Stoppard thought (and physics speculated) was then (1990s) the phenomenon called entropy. That was then. Now, some 20 years later, Terrence Deacon would consider that Thomasina’s ideas of jam in puddings and heat death assume “a hypothetically insulated physical system in which energy neither enters nor leaves” so that “entropy will inevitably tend to increase until it reaches this maximum,” or simply put, “things just tend to get as mixed up as they can possibly get.” Interestingly, according to Deacon and his intellectual salon of philosophically-oriented anthropological ‘pirates,’ “living and mental phenomena violate this presumably universal law,” so that, in actuality, “the complex adaptive functions of organism bodies tend to increase orderliness, stabilize correspondence, and generate complex patterns of molecular interactions that are precisely complementary to one another and well suited to the contexts in which they occur” (108). However, there is more. While one could argue that entities in the organic world are different from inorganic material, Deacon argues that there “must be a loophole in the second law” (of thermodynamics) because that law “is actually only a description of a tendency, not a determinate necessity” … a “probabilistic tendency, not a necessity” (109). Deacon goes on to state the heart of the changes in the sciences (mentioned above) during the last two decades, both for Thomasina (had she lived to develop her theories) and for us as readers: What made [Darwin’s discovery] so revolutionary was … the after-the fact logic of his … counterintuitive logic of design-without-designing. [That is,] the process that generated variant forms could be completely uncorrelated with the process that determined which variant forms were functionally superior to others in a given environment … as long the options with favourable outcomes were preferentially reproduced or retained and reexpressed in future contexts, it did not matter why or how they were generated. (111)

Likewise, for inorganic materials, “generating complex global regularities and identifiable ‘entities’ from simple iterated operations became a new model for emergent processes. The emergent character appeared even more distinctive because such regularities would arise spontaneously from randomly distributed starting conditions” (171). Stoppard prompts Thomasina to think of the physical world in terms of an 18th century Laplacian-type regularity: 2

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Stoppard’s Arcadia: “This is not Science; this is story-telling” If you could stop every atom in its position and direction, and if your mind could comprehend all the actions thus suspended, then if you were really, really good at algebra you could write the formula for all the future; and although nobody can be so clever as to do it, the formula must exist just as if one could. (5)

In contrast to theories suggesting Valentine’s cooling tea, Thomasina’s jam mixing in rice pudding, and her Laplacian-like expressions of ultimate universal entropy, more recent physical models of the universe indicate that “recurrent calculations” (or iterations) often discover that: the results are not entirely regular, and yet not chaotic either. This quasiregularity of repeated operations means that the products of an unspecified number of iterations will be quite unpredictable, with similar values often producing widely divergent results, and yet can also produce values that are likely to be confined to distinct sub-regions of the phase space.3 (Deacon 171)

For readers/viewers of the play who, in 1993, recalled some of their college physics, these changes in more contemporary thinking about the nature of the physical and bio-psychological universe have, in my opinion, made our understanding of the play even more interesting when one realizes the relatively primitive nature of Stoppard’s (and Thomasina’s) 1990s metaphor of entropy. Heat death is no more necessarily deterministic than it is merely unpredictable. As a prelude to the famous waltz at the end of the play, Stoppard has Valentine despairing that “everything is mixing in the same way, all the time, irreversibly … till there’s no time left. That’s what time means, meaning we will be all alone.” Septimus—standing next to him in a space on stage but at that moment in time separated by 186 years—seems to echo him by intoning: “When we have found all the mysteries and lost all the meaning, we will be alone, on an empty shore” (94), sounding a bit like Keats’s mournful “turn” in the sonnet, “When I have fears that I may cease to be”: Then on the shore Of the wide world I stand alone, and think Till Love and Fame to nothingness do sink. (Jan 22-31, 1818)

But, contrasted to such early 19th century attitudes of cosmic despair mixed with late 20th century angst, we now know that physical reality is no longer identified with earlier scientific versions of heat death, that the universes are no longer considered closed systems, and that subtle

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variations arise spontaneously even in the most severe iterations. Hence, the metaphor most likely to impact an audience in the 2nd decade of the 21st century are the images and sounds seen in the two sets of characters’ spontaneous figure eights of the play’s last waltz. The music and twirling that end the play are too joyful to reflect an “empty shore,” and simultaneously, too elegiac to miss the fact of Thomasina’s last waltz. Her last words are sadly hopeful—“Once more, for my birthday” (96)—for the audience who know more than either partner about her birthday. I will discuss ahead some additional scientific methods and metaphors that will help to make sense of arguably Stoppard’s best play thus far, not to mention one that, at the final curtain, is hardly lacking in emotion for the audience. What is particularly fascinating is how relatively sophisticated, scientifically speaking, that many literary readers and play-goers have had to become in the last 15 years or so, contrasted to the high moderns back entre-guerre and well into the 1970s (Eagleton 1983, 62; Gottschall, 23, 25). Even as late as the end of the 1970s, modernist critics distained scientific research as inappropriate for literary study, as well described in the debates between F.R. Leavis and C. P. Snow, the latter of whom lamented over the distance between the two cultures, literary and scientific (1959; Cf. Bell, 29; Eagleton, 2004; Kintch, Baker, and Kimber). These days, critics must at least consider how or when to incorporate scientific concepts popularized via magazines like Discover and Scientific American into the analyses of the plays they see and the fiction they read. The question is no longer one of how merely to begin bridging the enormous gap between the two cultures, but rather how to navigate inside the ideas the playwright uses, some of which include the rather heavy-duty conceptual apparatus associated with the physical and biological sciences, to help explain mimetic characters to his/her audience (Cf. Knapp 2008). Of course, as William Storm argues, the science that is talked about is, of necessity, diluted. In accordance with the tendency of science-oriented plays, the subject matter must be kept within reach for a non-scientific audience. [Indeed,] the theatre itself, with its varied audiences, dramaturgical structures, and time limitations, can be delimiting in the communication of science, or even of scientific characters, especially if these are of a typed or stock variety. (248).

Nonetheless, Storm continues, through “the actor’s patterns of movement and speech in given scenes” and the “interrelation among dialogue, stage movements, and scientific reference,” successful playwrights like Stoppard and Michael Frayn (in Copenhagen) deliver successfully an

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“interdependence of form and content that often relies on performance to convey the science” (248-49). As play-goers, we attend theatrical productions to witness characters we can connect with emotionally as well as to enjoy wrestling with the type of stimulating ideas intermixing post-Snow’s two cultures. While Prof Fleming (as did Stoppard) sees the characters in bifurcated terms of romantic and classic personality (or literary vs. scientific) types, I offer ahead a means of understanding Arcadia by looking at the characters reacting to one another as might be analysed by someone interested in not only chaotic mathematical systems but in human systems, in patterns of behaviour explained by recent cognitive and clinical thinking not often discussed within critical models whose assumptions emphasize one character at a time (Delaney 261; Fleming 2001, 202; Knapp and Womack). By doing so, I will try to satisfy my own speculations as to why this play is different (and better) in just emotionally human characterological terms than anything else of Stoppard’s I have seen to date.

III. Unreasonable Aversion to Losses I witnessed my first production of Arcadia just a few weeks after it opened in London in 1993 and found myself laughing and crying at the same time at the end of the performance as my wife and I stood up to applaud. She whispered to me that what we had just witnessed was one of the best dramatic productions she had ever seen, and, at the moment, neither could recall a previous Stoppard play to which we had reacted quite that intensely. As we walked away, I kept asking myself why my emotional response at the end was so strong when this one, like so many of Stoppard’s plays, often employs the rat-a-tat-tat of brittle and witty exchanges that were both very funny but, at the same time, distancing emotionally. Usually, the very act of parody tended to disconnect the audience from the mimetic qualities of the characters by emphasizing a given character’s obsessions and/or the wittiness of the author (Hutcheon). Note this early exchange (“between quotation marks”) between Hannah and Bernard, one not all that far removed in tone from the limericks in his Travesties (16—19) although this set of verbal jousting is from Arcadia: B: I’ve got to give a talk next week, in London, and … any leads at all … I’d be most grateful. H: Well. This is a new experience for me. A grovelling academic. B: Oh, I say. H: Oh but it is. All academics who reviewed my book patronized it.

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B: Surely not. [Unknown to her, Bernard is the actual reviewer]. H: Surely yes. The Byron gang unzipped their flies and patronized all over it. ……………………………………………. H: How did you know I was here? B: Oh, I didn’t. I spoke to the son on the phone but he didn’t mention you by name … and then he forgot to mention me. H: Valentine. He’s at Oxford, technically. B: Yes, I met him. Brideshead Regurgitated. H: My fiancé (she holds his look). [A falsehood, looking to his reaction]. B: (pause) I’ll take a chance. You’re lying. [both playing dominance games] H: (pause) Well done, Bernard (22-23).

This is Stoppard humour at its best: brief, somewhat biting exchanges between characters, each trying to gain the upper hand by outwitting the opponent and eventually by humiliating him/her via a semblance of polite sincerity. Success for Bernard means beating the Byron gang; he wants to be the first to establish that the great poet left England in too great a hurry because he had killed Mr Chater in a hitherto unknown dual. Later, he exults to his academic rival: “Hannah, this is fame” if he can prove his claim. Bernard’s devotion to pre-eminence in academic reputational terms appears at first to contrast with both Thomasina and Hannah’s interests in knowledge for its own sake (Fleming 2001, 201): Hannah insists to Valentine: “It’s wanting to know that makes us matter. Otherwise, we’re going out the way we came in” (75). Thomasina’s Bernard-like enthrallment with priority (“Am I the first person to have thought of this?”) is the playfulness of a 13 year old whose fascination with disorder out of order, heat death, carnal embraces, and waltzing seem all of a piece (5). One question always puzzled me as I watched the play. Bernard seems almost too easy a target, a clichéd randy and obsessed academic representing Stoppard’s distain of historical source hunters more than becoming an interesting character. I asked myself why the theatre audience was both fascinated and repelled by Mr Nightingale, but then, when reading the text bit later, I noted that Stoppard himself is a little ambiguous vis-à-vis the debates between Hannah and Bernard as she describes her own project with a reference to the hermit of Sidley Park: H: [he was] not one of your village simpletons to frighten the ladies, but a savant among the idiots, a sage of lunacy. B: An oxy-moron, so to speak. H: (busy) Yes. What? B: Nothing.

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Stoppard’s Arcadia: “This is not Science; this is story-telling” …………….. B: Was the letter to Thackeray? H: (Brought up short). I don’t know. Does it matter? B: No. Sorry. (But the gaps he leaves for her are false promises—and she is not quick enough. That’s how it goes.)

The aside is the narrator’s (Stoppard’s?) voice, and, of course, unavailable to the theatre-going audience but noticed immediately by the reader of the play-text. 4 My question about Bernard as a character grew even further as I reread the play. Is Stoppard in some odd fashion joining Bernard’s attempt at this dominance game with Hannah? If Bernard really is, as Ms Jarvis will soon label him, “an absolute shit,” why do we get the narratorlike interpolation? To many literary critics, these kinds of exchanges are the all too familiar zero-sum games (someone’s win is another’s loss and vice versa) played by those in competition for publications, literary awards, and college salary raises. Jon Gottschall says it well, although he may himself be underestimating the “fudge factor” found in some scientific journal articles. Contrasted to writers of scientific research whose compositional conventions stress economy, clarity, and rhetorical restraint, literature scholars … are much less likely to raise the chins of their beloved ideas and expose the pale, tender flesh just below the jaw. Rather, rhetorical fireworks, gratuitous jargonizing, avoidance of negative evidence, interdisciplinary cherry-picking of only supportive evidence, and cunningly-placed thickets of impenetrable prose all serve to deter and intimidate dissenters and to conceal vulnerabilities in the thesis. (84-5)

Why does Stoppard’s narrative interpolation dramatized above seem to take sides with Bernard—who is guilty of almost all of the critical sins Gottschall has just enumerated? Perhaps there was more intended in this exchange between the two literature scholars than originally meets the ear? That puzzle, coupled with any evidence we see in Arcadia of Ira Nadel’s claim that since producing The Real Thing, Stoppard has been invested with a “new emotional energy” (444), it might be helpful to turn to recent work in cognitive psychology by Daniel Kahneman who speaks of the problems and costs of “keeping score.” I will pause for a moment and explain what Kahneman means by human accounting. In Thinking, Fast and Slow (2011), Kahneman writes, in a chapter titled “Keeping Score,” of the risks and aversions to scoring that constitute what he calls the “analogies between the world of accounting and the

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mental accounts that we use to organize and run our lives” (342). For human beings, he says, “mental accounts are a form of narrow framing; they keep things under control and manageable by a finite mind” (343). Kahneman considers that human beings “by nature are narrow framers” (336) and have an intense aversion to losing gambles. Earlier, he defined “narrow framing” as involving a “sequence of two simple decisions, considered separately,” one of which makes one potentially win (at financial gambles, at workplace risks, at choices of spouse, etc.) and the other possibly lose. On the other hand, “broad framing” includes a single comprehensive decision” usually with multiple options (336). Further, one should beware of what Kahneman calls “the planning fallacy,” a fallacy that describes “plans and forecasts that are unrealistically close to the bestcase scenario,” because those caught up in such plans fail to “imagine how much their wishes will escalate over time” (250). Stock brokers, for example, treat buying or selling a given stock or a thousand of them as simply part of one decision made on a day (or week or month) of many such decisions. Hence, stock brokers shield “themselves from the pain of losses by broad framing” (339) and, in their case, many, many gambles. Kahneman offers some insight in his “sermon” to those who reject “the offer of a single highly favourable gamble played once” and for those who share an “unreasonable aversion to losses” (338). If one can control one’s “emotional response” when one loses, one soon learns that in general, “you win a few and you lose a few,” but the “combination of loss aversion and narrow framing is a costly curse” (339). Hence, in gambles with money and in life, paying too close attention to “daily fluctuations is a losing proposition, because the pain of frequent small losses exceeds the pleasure of the equally frequent small gains” (339). Decision makers, for example, would do better by having a risk-policy that they routinely apply whenever a relevant problem arises. … A risk policy is a broad frame that embeds a particular risky choice in a set of similar choices. [Taking an outside view] shifts the focus from the specifics of the current situation to the statistics of outcomes in similar situations. [Hence,] the outside view and the risk policy are remedies against two distinct biases that affect many decisions: the exaggerated optimism of the planning fallacy and the exaggerated caution induced by loss aversion. (340; emphasis added)

In the world of literary criticism about Arcadia, to whose service I will extrapolate Kahneman’s ideas, someone deciding on a given interpretation of a mimetic character, or as Bernard does, on the certainty of an historical event, is better served by employing “broad framing” and being emotionally

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resistant to the phenomenon of loss aversion, that is, to the possible dismissal of his/her theoretical model (a “loss” of prestige). Most literary problems may be said to be over-determined, that is, there could be multiple and very different, almost oppositional reasons why a mimetic character behaves as s/he does, or whether or not an historical event can be reconstructed via scanty evidence. However, every critical risk-taker has to feel, as Bernard does, “a visceral belief in yourself. Gut instinct. The part of you which doesn’t reason. The certainty for which there is no back reference [and so] you were in there and you bloody know!” (50). Bernard becomes a type of obsessive poster child for unreasoned “knowing” and supposedly in opposition to the slower-paced, more careful Hannah. But that assumption about their opposition would be a mistake, I will argue ahead. As Act II, scene v opens, Bernard is lecturing to a Sidley Park audience composed of his acolyte Chloe, silent Gus, the scientist Valentine, and his fellow scholar Hannah. Now, as mentioned, a number of critics see the two, Bernard and Hannah, as oppositional pairs: “Bernard’s dominant temperament is romantic” vs. reserved classic-like Hannah who “sees the world in binary terms” (Fleming 2008, 35). Nadel refers to them as Bernard, “the impulsive, ambitious, caustic Sussex [over-eager] don” vs. “the sceptical but inquisitive novelist, Hannah Jarvis.” The “former supposed to represent reason besotted by imagination, the latter the creator of fiction drawn to research and fact” (443). Fleming initially mentions Hannah’s “dispassionate intellect” (2001, 201), but in a later work (2008) speaks of Stoppard’s complicating of perspective when “Bernard’s gut instinct is proved dead wrong, while Hannah’s is ultimately able to prove the validity of her instinctually derived thesis that Septimus was the hermit of Sidley Park” (38). Just as Stoppard once spoke tongue-in-cheek of the film Shakespeare in Love (he wrote much of the screen-play) as a “wicked film” because of the misdirection and inside-jokes to a literate audience (Cf. the pseudoFreudian therapy session where young Shakespeare laments that his “organ of creativity has dried up”), so too he (Stoppard) may have tried to misdirect the audience into an early and facile view of Bernard and Hannah as somehow different and variously complementary when in fact they both display many if not most of Gottschall’s top-ten list of literary academics’ most grievous sins. Bernard ends his much-interrupted lecture to the family and Hannah by asserting Chater’s “fact” of having fought a dual. With whom? Well, Bernard thinks his opponent was “a critic with a gift for ridicule and a taste for seduction,” and so then ends his peroration with a series of rhetorical questions: “Do we need look far?” Mrs Chater

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was a widow by 1810, and if “we seek the occasion of Ezra Chater’s early and unrecorded death, so we need look far?” (58). In his own mind, the answer is, of course, no, and following his dismissal of a series of audience rebuttals, Bernard concludes ironically with a humanistic sounding “If knowledge isn’t self-knowledge, it isn’t doing much, mate” (61). His opponent, Hannah, tries to poke holes in his arguments and assumptions about historical causality: You have gone from a glint in your eye to a sure thing in a hop, skip, and jump. … You’re like an exasperating child pedalling its tricycle towards the edge of a cliff, and I have to do something. So listen to me. If Byron killed Chater in a dual, I’m Marie of Romania. (59)

Bernard, responds first with faux-offended dignity, and finally gets nasty with his interlocutress by a tactic made famous via an American political operative named Karl Rove who craftily if dishonestly demonstrated that there is no need to fear withering criticism. Instead, he counsels, one should attack one’s opponent at the very issue where one feels oneself to be the weakest and most vulnerable. So, having already savaged her book in his written review (whose author is still unknown to Hannah), Bernard drops a salient hint about Hannah’s book jacket. She bites. Stoppard’s choices of dialogue put in doubt our early assumptions about their characterological opposition when Bernard tells Hannah that the couple pictured on the dust jacket of her recent book is really “not them.” H: (She explodes) Who says? B: The Fuseli expert in the Byron Society Journal. H: But of course it’s them. Everybody knows— B: Popular tradition only. He is finding a place in the journal. Here we are. “No earlier than 1820.” He’s analysed it (Offers it to her.) Read at your leisure. H: (She sounds like Bernard jeering). Analysed it? B: Charming sketch, of course, but Byron was in Italy … H: But, Bernard—I know it’s them. B: How? H: How? It just is. Analysed it, my big toe! B: Language. H: He’s wrong! B: Oh. Gut instinct, you mean? H: (Flatly.) He’s wrong. (62-3).

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In brief, one could argue that both so-called Classic and Romantic temperaments are not sharply defining features separating these two characters; both cling irrationally to their original beliefs even after substantial evidence is provided that calls their personal judgments into question. Rather, they exhibit the very human trait of relying on “accurate intuition.” What IS accurate intuition? Kahneman says that the “psychology of accurate intuition involves not magic.” Relying on work done by Herbert Simon,5 Kahneman speaks of environmental cues. In a given situation, the “situation has provided a cue; this cue has given the expert access to information stored in memory, and the information provides the answer. Intuition is nothing more and nothing less than recognition” (11). “Valid intuitions develop when experts have learned to recognize familiar elements in a new situation and to act in a manner that is appropriate to it” (12). The key words are, of course, “valid” and “appropriate.” Consequently, one could argue, as I am, that both Barnard and Hannah are dominated by their assumptions of accurate intuition, both make humanistic sounding pleas about the need to learn and to know, but both characters’ real reasons are a bit less than idealistic. Each basically remains caught in a system where knowing is motivated more by fame and the approval of their peers. Bernard says so overtly but Hannah, while appearing more subtle, is more than happy to expose Bernard’s mistake to The Times (“It’s a dirty job but somebody …”) (90). When a shocked Bernard exhibits the gamut of reactions (“Darling. Sorry. Hannah!”), she reminds him that “And, after all, it is my discovery” and menacingly suggests with a touch of schadenfreude that he will respond to her letter with “dignified congratulations” (90; emphasis added). Now these exchanges are all delivered with the witty humour mentioned above, but their characterological differences appear to me to be minimal relative to ultimate motivation. Their temperaments are hardly unusual nor are they necessarily always mean-spirited, but both mask why they seek out the insights they do under the guise of disinterestedness: Both exhibit “unreasonable aversion to losses.” Hence, the emotional heart of the play appears to belong to Thomasina and Septimus.

IV. The Tyranny of the Remembering Self But even here, I was still unable at first to see Septimus as part of why this particular play of Stoppard’s evoked such an emotional reaction in me and for most audience members and readers. The play opens with some standard Stoppardian witticisms in the early exchanges between Septimus

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and Mr Chater (pronounced “cheater” on the London stage). Shortly after the opening question by the innocent 13 year old, Thomasina, who overheard Mr Noakes gossiping about a “carnal embrace in the Gazebo,” the horn-bearing husband, Mr Chater, shows up at the school-room door, demanding satisfaction from the cuckolder, Septimus. Chater begins in a righteous fury: Ch: You damned lecher. You would drag down a lady’s reputation to make a refuge for your cowardice. … I am calling you out! S: Chater! Chater! Chater! Chater! My dear friend! Ch: Dare you call me that. I demand satisfaction! S: Mrs Chater demanded satisfaction and now you are demanding satisfaction. I cannot spend my time day and night satisfying the demands of the Chater family. As for your wife’s reputation, it stands where it ever stood. Ch: You Blackguard! S: I assure you. Mrs Chater is charming and spirited … yet her chief renown is for a readiness that keeps her in a state of tropical humidity as would grow orchids in her drawers in January. Ch: Damn you, Hodge. I will not listen to this. Will you fight or not? S: (Definitively) Not. There are no more than two or three poets of the first rank now living, and I will not shoot one of them dead over a perpendicular poke in a gazebo with a woman whose reputation could not be adequately defended with a platoon of musketry deployed by rota. (6 -7)

The question one asks: given these witty and brittle exchanges by characters who appear too comic to be mimetically real, how does a member of the audience go from laughing at (and with) Septimus to feeling by the end of the play that here was great matter, an ending as emotionally powerful as any board-certified tragedy? Could the audience’s feelings for the character of Septimus evolve—from considering him as merely a randy 22-year-old, finding “tropical humidity” not only in Mrs Chater’s drawers, but soon also in Lady Croom’s sitting room, with his only erotic reluctance centring on his still-innocent student who is about to turn 17—to intensely feeling for him as “the genius of the place,” the tragic hermit of Sidley Park? Was my intuitive feeling about the power of this experience at the end of the play misguided? Was I foolishly being manipulated in a way that, after a few minutes rational reflection, would have made a mockery of my theatre-going perceptions? The answers to such questions ultimately reflect both our feelings during and our memories after we attend an evening at the theatre. Once again, I want to pause for a moment to consider some recent psychological analyses.

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One of the “sciences” I will bring to bear to answer these questions in relation to Arcadia is that of human cognition and what the psychologist Daniel Kahneman has referred to as the “biases of intuition.” Kahneman (2011) has observed the discrepancies in what human beings describe as the “experiencing self” and what he calls the “remembering self.” He notes that when you are asked what you are thinking about [as I asked myself walking out of the Lyttelton theatre at the National some two decades ago], you can normally answer. You believe you know what goes on in your mind, which often consists of one conscious thought leading in an orderly way to another. But that is not the only way the mind works, nor indeed is that the typical way. Most impressions and thoughts arise in your conscious experience without your knowing how they got there …. The mental work that produces impressions, intuitions, and many decisions goes on in silence in our mind. (4)

I intend to use his ideas here to examine the felt problem I had in watching Stoppard’s Arcadia, and possibly to extend this analysis to the audience’s experience in the theatre generally—not so much as a conclusion but as a thought probe: what would our understanding be of theatrical productions we witnessed if we were to apply Kahneman’s rules generally? From research he and others have conducted, Kahneman posits two distinct measures of what he calls, after Jeremy Bentham, “experienced utility” and “decision utility.” He first notes both Bentham’s concluding that “nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure” and British economist Francis Edgeworth’s operationalizing that experiential bifurcation by proposing a “hedonimeter,” an imaginary instrument “which would measure the level of pleasure or pain that an individual experiences at any moment” (377-78). As Kahneman employs Bentham’s rather awkward phrase, “utility,” he posits two rules that he claims govern the human pain/pleasure contrastive experience by reporting a study conducted by himself and Don Redelmeier. A painful colonoscopy was administered to two patients who were both “prompted every 60 seconds to indicate the level of pain they experienced at the moment” (379). Following the procedure, all participants were asked to rate the “total amount of pain” they had experienced during the operation. They surprised the scientists in their retrospective by remaining relatively insensitive to the duration of pain but weighting two “singular moments: the peak and the end” (380):

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The Peak-end rule: The global retrospective rating … by the average level of pain reported at the worst moment of the experience and at its end. Duration neglect: The duration of the procedure had no effect whatsoever on the ratings of total pain. [emphasis added]

From this, Kahneman suggests that human beings have, in effect, two selves: The experiencing self that answers the question, “Does it hurt now,” and the remembering self: “How was it, on the whole?” “Memories are all we get to keep from our experience of living, and the only perspective that we can adapt as we think about our lives is therefore that of the remembering self” (381). He concludes that confusing experience with the memory of it is a compelling cognitive illusion—and it is the substitution that makes us believe a past experience can be ruined. The experiencing self does not have a voice. The remembering self is sometimes wrong, but it is the one that keeps score and governs what we learn from living, and it is the one that makes decisions…

—the tyranny of the remembering self (381). He reminds us that an “inconsistency is built into the design of our minds” where “tastes and decisions are shaped by memories, and the memories can be wrong.” “All of us want pain to be brief and our pleasures to last, but our memory … has evolved to represent the most intense moment of an episode of pain or pleasure (the peak) and the feelings when the episode was at its end” (385). Now, applying these cognitive explanations to literature generally and to Stoppard’s Arcadia specifically, we need to speak of the evolved human attribute of storytelling (Carroll 271ff). Kahneman recalls, for example, seeing Verdi’s opera La Traviata and focuses on the plot point as to whether (or not) the dying consumptive heroine, Violetta, will be joined during the last few minutes of the last act by her long-estranged lover before she dies. Of course, dramatic tension is relieved when they finally reunite during the last ten minutes at end of the play; their reunion is both tearful and filled with “glorious music,” and then she dies. No matter how many times he has seen the opera, the ending where they rejoin for the final few minutes of Violetta’s life always moves this hardscience psychologist. He speculates: why do we (the audience) “care so much about those last ten minutes,” and then answers his own question: “A story” [play, opera, novel, narrative poem] “is about significant events and memorable moments, not about time passing. Duration neglect is normal in a story, and the ending often defines the character.” “Caring for people often takes the form of concern for the quality of their stories, not

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for their feelings. In intuitive evaluation of entire lives as well as brief episodes, peaks and ends matter but duration does not” (387-88). Indeed, Kahneman thinks that most of us are “remarkably indifferent to the pains of their experiencing self.” As odd as it may seem, he thinks, “I am my remembering self, and the experiencing self, who does my living, is like a stranger to me” (390). At the end of Arcadia, we know, as two of the twirling dancers do not, that these are the last few happy minutes of both Thomasina and Septimus’s existence, one in a beautiful and precocious adolescent’s life, the other her dancing partner, the intelligent, dedicated, yet randy tutor who will then spend the rest of his life ostensibly memorializing her by trying to prove her method of forcing “all the forms of nature to give up their numerical secrets” (43). We have not hitherto experienced any nobility in Septimus’ life, but, like Violetta’s last ten minutes of beautiful aria, we remember only that his twirling dancing has given Thomasina her final moments of life’s pleasure. Whether logically motivated drama or no, it is our remembering self, not our play-long experiencing self that dominates our emotions. Hence, Septimus’s bedding most of the women in the play, his eviscerating Mr Chater’s poetry with some critical malice, and his weary dismissal of Capt. Brice, his student’s uncle, are all soon forgotten as we last recall his final waltz with his too-innocent protégé. This memory includes the echo of learning, albeit offhandedly, of her horrible and early death, and his life-long devotion to her mathematical insights. Stoppard has pulled off a sleight-of-hand with our remembered and final emotions and the waltz is indeed the musical cue triggering the tyranny of the remembering self.

Notes 1

In an interview from the 1990s, Stoppard spoke of getting “tremendously interested in a book called Chaos, by James Gleick which is about this new kind of mathematics. That sounds fairly daunting if one is talking about a play. I thought, here is a marvellous metaphor. But, as ever, there wasn’t really a play until it had connected with stray thoughts about other things.” Later in the interview, Delaney mentions that “Stoppard once said, `I write plays because writing dialogue is the only respectable way of contradicting yourself.` Nor has he changed much over the years” (263). 2 “Pierre-Simon Laplace suggested that to an infinitely knowledgeable mind the world would be an entirely predictable clockwork process, right down to the movement of each atom” (Deacon 555, n. 2)

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3

Deacon defines a “phase space is a space in which all possible states of a system are represented. … For mechanical systems, a phase space usually consists of all possible values of position and momentum” (551). 4 For a lengthy discussion of playwrights (in this case, Shakespeare) and authorial intentions, see the whole issue of Style (44.3 fall 2010) titled, “Shakespeare and Intention,” guest-edited by Cary DiPietro with Hardy Cooke. 5 Herbert A. Simon is one of the founding fathers of information theory, artificial intelligence, and a Nobel Prize winner in economics (in 1978).

Works Cited Bell, Michael. “The Metaphysics of Modernism.” Cambridge Companion to Modernism, ed. Michael Levenson, (Cambridge UP, 1999): 9-32. Carroll, Joseph. Reading Human Nature: Literary Darwinism in Theory and Practice. Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 2011. Deacon, Terrence W. Incomplete Nature: How Mind Emerged from Matter. NY: Norton 2012. Delaney, Paul, ed. Tom Stoppard in Conversation. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 1994. Demastes, William W. “Portrait of an Artist as Proto-Chaotician: Tom Stoppard Working His Way to Arcadia.” Narrative 91.2 (2011) 22940. Edwards, Paul. “Science in Hapgood and Arcadia,” Cambridge Companion, 2001: 171-84. Fleming, John. Stoppard’s Theatre. Austin: U of Texas, 2001. —. Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia. London: Continuum, 2008. Gleick, James. Chaos: The Making of a New Science. NY: Penguin, 1988; rpt 2008. Gottschall, Jonathan. Literature, Science, and a New Humanities. NY: Palgrave/Macmillan, 2008. Eagleton, Terry. After Theory. Basic, 2004. —. Literary Theory: An Introduction. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1983. Hunter, Jim. About Stoppard: The Playwright and the Work. London: Faber and Faber, 2005. Hutcheon, Linda. A Theory of Parody: The Teachings of 20th Century Art Forms. NY: Routledge, rpt, 1991. Kahneman, Daniel. Thinking, Fast and Slow. NY: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2011.

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Kelly, Katherine E. The Cambridge Companion to Tom Stoppard. Cambridge UP, 2001. Kinch, M B., William Baker, John Kimber, F.R. Leavis and Q.D. Leavis, An Annotated Bibliography, NY: Garland, 1989 Knapp, John V. Review of Jonathan Gottschall, Literature, Science, and the New Humanities. NY: Palgrave, 2008. Politics and Culture, (April 29, 2010): www.politicsand culture.org/2010/04/29 Knapp, John V. and Kenneth Womack, eds. Reading the Family Dance: Family Systems Therapy and Literary Studies. Cranbury, NJ: U of Delaware P, 2003. Kramer, Prapassaree, and Jeffrey Kramer. “Stoppard’s Arcadia: Research, Time, Loss.” Modern Drama 40 (1997): 1-10. Nadel, Ira. Double Act: A Life of Tom Stoppard. NY: Methuen, 2002. Palmer, Alan. “Social Minds in Criticism and Fiction,” Style 45.2 (2011): 196-240. Pohvinen, Merja. “Reading the Texture of Reality: Chaos Theory, Literature, and the Humanistic Perspective.” English Department 6, Unpublished Dissertation, University of Helsinki, 2008. Rabinowitz, Peter. “The Impossible has a Way of Passing Unnoticed: Reading Science in Fiction.” Narrative 19.2 (2011): 201-15. Renk, Kathleen, Magic, Science and Empire in Postcolonial Literature: The Alchemical Literary Imagination. NY: Routledge, 2012. Snow, C.P. The Two Cultures. London: Cambridge UP, 1959. Stoppard, Tom. Arcadia. Hollywood, CA: Samuel French, 1993, rpt 2011. Stoppard in Conversation, ed., Paul Delaney. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 1994. Storm, William. “On The Science of Dramatic Character,” Narrative 19.2 (2011): 241-52. Woodruff, Paul. The Necessity of Theatre: The Art of Watching and Being Watched. Oxford UP, 2009.

“THE ILLUSION OF PROPRIETORSHIP”: TOM STOPPARD’S PARADE’S END STEVEN PRICE

Tom Stoppard’s five-part adaptation of Ford Madox Ford’s tetralogy Parade’s End, broadcast in 2012, represents his return to the small screen after an interval of twenty-eight years. During that time, the broadcast media have changed so much that the piece bears little relation to his previous teleplays; although, precisely because his writing for television has been rather sporadic, it can quite consistently be mapped onto broader developments within the medium. His first plays for television were exactly that: “a species of theatre,” as Elissa S. Guralnick describes A Separate Peace (1966).1 Only with Neutral Ground (1968) and, in particular, Professional Foul (1977) did Stoppard begin to combine a more television-specific mode of writing for the camera and televisual editing with, in the latter, a dramatization of Cold War politics that showed him starting to use the medium for more directly authorial expression. With Squaring the Circle (1984), Stoppard moved towards the self-reflexive interrogation of the medium itself that had already characterized his work for theatre in the 1970s, and which would also become a staple of British television drama in the 1980s, most notably perhaps in Dennis Potter’s The Singing Detective (1986). After this point, Stoppard withdrew from television, dividing his writing between new plays for the theatre and working for film. Like those of Harold Pinter, his filmed screenplays are not “original,” but instead encompass various forms of adaptation: either of his own plays, such as Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead (self-directed, 1990), or more commonly of novels by others. Unlike Pinter (but like David Mamet), Stoppard also acquired a reputation as a “script doctor.” This highly problematic term can encompass anything from being asked for suggestions on an already completed draft, to working on a particular scene (such as Robert Towne’s contribution to The Godfather [Francis Ford Coppola, 1972]),2 to completely rewriting the script, which can cause difficulties in the attribution of credit. Perhaps Stoppard’s most widely-

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known work as a screenwriter is Shakespeare in Love (John Madden, 1998), for which he shares credit, having rewritten the work of Marc Norman.3 Although he is often a collaborator of sorts, Stoppard’s working methods preserve a certain autonomy: he is not a member of a writing “team” but is instead employed either to revise existing material or as one of the few writers whose name brings prestige to a production independently of, or in addition to, the quality of the writing itself. Consequently, much of the media attention surrounding Parade’s End focused on Stoppard’s involvement. Commenting in the week in which it started its run on the BBC, and noting a similar, 20-year gap in David Hare’s television writing, Mark Lawson observed that the “overlap between the [theatrical] boards and broadcasting stopped largely because of the collapse of the single TV play (in slots such as Play for Today, Playhouse and Screenplay) in the 1980s, with schedulers preferring serials.” Stoppard’s return via the multi-part adaptation comes, as Lawson points out, at a time when there has been “a shift in the artistic hierarchy of screenwriting.” American series such as The Wire and Mad Men have made television drama “culturally fashionable,” while on the other hand “cinema gradually became less hospitable to serious writers used to the autonomy and protection that theatre affords.”4 Certainly that status as a “serious writer” helped to fashion the reception of the piece. In Lawson’s words, “By any measures, Sir Tom Stoppard is among our greatest living writers and the BBC is one of the most industrious producers of culture in the world,” and several reviewers tended to discuss the piece in terms of cultural status—even negatively, with some articles contrasting the prestige conferred by Stoppard’s involvement with the fact that the programme was broadcast in a notorious graveyard slot, on Friday (as opposed to the prestige Sunday) nights, and at the end of August, when many potential viewers would be on holiday. Shortly afterwards Faber, the main publisher of screenplays in the U.K., brought out (in hardback) a version of the script approved by Stoppard himself. Although the marketing of the series made much of Stoppard’s involvement, these conflicting indicators of status and the circulation of different versions of the material suggest that Stoppard’s work can also be considered in relative autonomy from the commercial and broadcasting decisions taken in relation to the production itself. The present essay examines not only the Faber edition but also the unpublished “third draft” of the five episodes, all dated 29 July 2011, which in turn differs significantly from both the published and the broadcast versions.5 Studying the material in this way reveals much about the nature of Stoppard’s screen writing, within a form that makes the very

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notion of authorship problematic.6 In his introduction to the Faber edition, Stoppard states that “perhaps to an unwarranted degree, I think of this Parade’s End as mine, such was the illusion of proprietorship over Ford’s characters and story.”7 The illusion is further complicated by the necessarily collaborative nature of television drama today. Although the BBC commissioned Stoppard to write the script, he notes that they also “commissioned an independent production company, Mammoth Screen, to make the piece,” always under the assumption that the American broadcaster HBO would be part of the package, since “[i]t is a truth universally acknowledged that for a British TV drama in want of an American partner, HBO is Mr Darcy” (PE, p. vi). Such contractual and economic arrangements today preclude the kind of experience Stoppard had with Professional Foul in 1977, when he and director Michael Lindsay-Hogg “were pretty much left alone to deliver the piece.” By contrast, on Parade’s End, HBO’s Kary Antholis was one of those contributing “notes from five directions—six counting mine, because by the editing stage I was as prolific as anyone in my comments on successive versions” (PE, p. v). As this shows, not only is the television script of today multiplyauthored—albeit with Stoppard retaining a sense of ownership—but it is also, as Claudia Sternberg remarks of screenplays generally, “literature in flux” since it “rarely reaches a state that could be termed fixed or final.” 8 Parade’s End as broadcast is clearly based closely on Stoppard’s “third draft,” but variations abound; meanwhile, the Faber edition does not simply preserve any one of the pre-production drafts but is a postproduction, conflated text which has been edited to preserve some material that was either not filmed or edited out, and which often presents scene sequences in a different order to how they appear on screen, while also intervening in matters of textual presentation in ways that reveal something of Stoppard’s own self-conception as a writer. The simplest and most common approach to adaptation is to compare the television broadcast or release print of a film to the precursor text. This obscures the screenplay that mediates between them, although it does reveal the creative decisions of the programme-makers. For instance, Stoppard will frequently invent a moment that has no precise corollary in Ford’s novel. To take an example he cites in his introduction, in the second episode Valentine witnesses a sister suffragette defacing a picture, Velázquez’s “Rokeby Venus,” in the National Gallery. In a later allusion to this moment, in the third episode he inserts a momentary fantasy: Valentine, anticipating Christopher’s arrival at her flat for their first sexual

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tryst, fantasises herself posed in the position of the nude in Velázquez’s painting. By such means, Stoppard creates an internal system of allusion that preserves something of the quality of the source novel. Ford uses a kind of montage technique, analogous to that of The Waste Land in poetry, whereby events are presented not as a linear narrative but as an assembly of fragments that requires significant effort on the part of the reader to discern its underlying structural patterns. As the novelist Julian Barnes writes, in one of the many substantial discussions in the British “quality” press occasioned by the broadcast: The narrative … goes round and round, backtracking and criss-crossing. A fact, or an opinion, or a memory will be dropped in, and often not explained for a dozen or a hundred pages .… It will be a very rare reader who does not intermittently look up from the page to ask: “But did I know that? Have we been told that already or not?” In what sense did Christopher “kill” his father? Did we know that Mrs Macmaster was even pregnant, let alone that she had lost a child? Have we been told Tietjens is under arrest? That his stepmother died of grief when Sylvia left him? That Macmaster was dead? Has Mark really been struck dumb? And so on, confusingly and clarifyingly, to the very end.9

Not all of these questions are posed by the adaptation, and where they are, in most cases they are more readily answered. Although its time frames are not always straightforward, in general the adaptation rearranges the material along simpler and broadly chronological lines, while retaining the structural divisions of the tetralogy. As Stoppard notes in his introduction, the first three episodes draw on Some Do Not … (1924), the first and longest of the novels, with No More Parades (1925) and A Man Could Stand Up (1926) furnishing the material for the fourth and fifth episodes respectively. The concluding novel The Last Post (1928) has long been recognized as problematic, and Stoppard chooses not to adapt its story of the post-war domestic arrangements of some of the main characters. The most important element retained from the fourth book is Sylvia’s responsibility for the cutting down of the Groby tree, which in both the novels and the adaptation has symbolised the continuity of the values Christopher represents; although, as with several episodes, the precise manner in which this event takes place differs significantly from the novel. Both the tetralogy and the adaptation juxtapose the complacent domestic affairs of the privileged Edwardian classes with the developments that will bring about their downfall: the domestic suffragette movement,

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the emergence of Soviet Communism, and the devastation wrought by the war. The protagonist, the brilliant government statistician Christopher Tietjens, is a man out of time, the last defender of an eighteenth-century conception of patrician Toryism and decency at odds with the selfindulgence and complacency of the circles in which he moves. Christopher’s stiff upper lip—a quintessentially English characteristic, which coincidentally was the subject of a documentary series broadcast by the BBC a matter of weeks after Parade’s End10—is quite literally a focus of attention in Benedict Cumberbatch’s portrayal of the character, and contrasts with the cheaply-bought sentimentality of his sometime friend Macmaster and the snobbish and hypocritical Edith Duchemin, who marries Macmaster after the death of her sexually lunatic husband. Sex itself is another thematic concern, with Christopher, who stands for monogamy, and his promiscuous wife Sylvia standing as two points in a love triangle of which the third is Valentine Wannop, the virginal young suffragette with whom Christopher falls in love. In its later episodes, the adaptation intercuts between this triangle, which forms its dramatic core, and the chaos and suffering of the war in France. As Barnes writes, in Ford’s novel “War and sexual passion are not opposites: they are in the same business, two parts of the same pincer attack on the sanity of the individual.” But Christopher is not brought down simply by the extremes of love and war. The more subtle drama of Parade’s End lies in its dissection of the hidden and minutely complex workings of power, the intended and unintended consequences of minor slights and petty jealousies that conspire to produce the “pincer attack” that increasingly threatens to destroy the protagonist. Christopher is a kind of ghost writer and spin doctor, reluctantly massaging statistics to support the government line and the career of his less talented colleague Macmaster and coming up with ideas for newspaper columns that are gratefully seized upon by Valentine’s mother, Mrs Wannop. His hidden and essentially benign influence parallels the machinations of his enemies, who translate personal grievances and ambitions into semi-public lies to engineer his downfall. In a fit of pique, Christopher needlessly insults a family acquaintance, Ruggles, who is later employed by Christopher’s father and his brother Mark to root out compromising information about him. Brownlie, a banker in charge of Christopher’s account and who is in love with Sylvia, arranges for his cheques to bounce, contributing to his ruin. Other of Sylvia’s former and current suitors (Drake, Perowne) are in a position to do him further damage once all are serving in the British army. During the war, relatively trivial personal and professional squabbles leave his chief supporter,

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General Campion, unable effectively to protect him. Throughout, his refusal to divorce or disgrace Sylvia contributes to his undeserved reputation as a man with a scandalous private life. This is the dramatic arc of Parade’s End: a good man, opposed to what he perceives as the vices of his time, is ruined by having those vices projected onto him by the enemies who really embody them. By the middle of episode three, halfway through the serial, the snobbish and hypocritical Edith, now married to Macmaster and refusing to believe that Christopher could be responsible for the economic calculations for which her husband has been knighted, claims that “there’s not a more discredited man in London.” Meanwhile, this perception of the storyline is framed, for both the viewer in 2012 and Ford’s contemporary readership, by the secure irony of retrospection: we share with both Ford and Christopher, who is a disarmingly prescient voice within the book, the knowledge that war will make a bonfire of such vanities. This lends the earlier episodes in particular an elegiac, Chekhovian air, accentuated by Christopher’s deep affinity with the horses that are visibly giving way to the internal combustion engine, in a manner faintly reminiscent of The Magnificent Ambersons (Orson Welles, 1943). The later episodes’ dramatization of the incompetence of the ruling classes in prosecuting and administering the war translate this elegiac quality into something closer to the anger that is also present in Valentine’s commitment to the suffragette movement and, less convincingly, in the faux-Bolshevism of her foppish brother Edward. Although Christopher is politically very different, he is notably sympathetic to the suffragettes even before he meets Valentine. His values, which are idiosyncratic and anachronistic in his own time let alone ours, lie at the heart of Parade’s End, and as Stoppard tells it, one of the producers “nagged at me for weeks to write some lines to spell out what Christopher stood for …. When I stopped bridling, I wrote the lines I would most miss if they weren’t there” (PE, p. xi). Although he does not identify which these were, logically they must be those Christopher speaks near the end of the second episode in the broadcast and published, but not draft, versions: VALENTINE You shouldn’t be proud of despising your country. CHRISTOPHER Oh, don’t believe that! I love every field and hedgerow. The land is England, and—once—it was the foundation of order, before money took over and handed the country to swindlers and schemers—the Toryism of the pig’s trough.

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VALENTINE Then what is your Toryism? CHRISTOPHER Duty. Duty and service to above and below. Frugality. Keeping your word. Honouring the past. Looking after your people, and beggaring yourself if need be before letting duty go hang. (PE, pp. 140-1)

The displacement of old-fashioned values of responsibility and good husbandry by money-obsessed “swindlers and schemers” implicitly comments also on today’s economic crisis and the excesses of the City. Plus ça change. The published version of the scene in the first episode when Christopher first meets Valentine on a golf course preserves the appearance in Ford’s novel of two “City Men,” whose vulgarity contrasts with both Christopher’s aristocratic reserve and the upper-crust sense of entitlement of his associates. In both the draft and the broadcast versions, some of the City Men’s lines are transferred to the raffish Sandbach, specifically the aggressively sexist remarks directed towards the suffragettes, which again serves by contrast to emphasise Christopher’s sense of propriety, as well as to define his role in the work’s complex dramatization of sexual desire. The exposition of Christopher’s philosophy in the discussion with Valentine is more subtle and appealing than an analogous moment towards the end of the draft version of episode five, when he converses in an army hospital with Smith, the Communist whose several scenes are deleted in both the published and broadcast versions: CHRISTOPHER We’re both radicals. Among the people I’d send to prison immediately are stockbrokers, Whitehall schemers, landowners who don’t look after their tenants, most Members of Parliament, urban developers, boondogglers of every stripe …. SMITH We’re going to shoot them. What do you call your system, may I ask? CHRISTOPHER Feudalism. SMITH I’m an egalitarian, sir.

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“The Illusion of Proprietorship”: Tom Stoppard’s Parade’s End CHRISTOPHER The superstition of intellectuals. It wouldn’t work in the army. (V.48)

The excision of Smith and the City Men, and many other minor characters (for example among the soldiers Christopher encounters in France) who appear in neither of Stoppard’s versions, is one consequence of the smaller canvas, compared to Ford’s tetralogy, on which he was obliged to work. Furthermore, as we have already seen, the broadcast version quite frequently condenses or omits scenes or speeches Stoppard drafted, some of which he re-inserts into the published text. In another example, in the third episode Valentine tells her mother about being barred from the butcher’s shop because the villagers consider the Wallops to be pacifists and therefore pro-German, but Stoppard had originally dramatized the scene at the butcher’s, and incorporates it within the Faber edition. The need for condensation and clarity explains many of the differences between Stoppard’s draft and published scripts on the one hand, and the broadcast episodes on the other. On dozens if not hundreds of occasions, tiny alterations and additions have been made to clarify the exposition or to help with the identification of characters. To give only a few of the more noticeable illustrations from the first episode: in the opening scene, Sylvia directly tells Drake, “I’m pregnant, you fool!”; Lady Claudine’s “Those suffragettes!” identifies whom she thinks should be whipped; Christopher’s mother laments of Michael, the boy he raises as his son but whose biological father may be Drake: “Poor child, living like an orphan with his aunt Effie.” While some of the alterations have been made prior to (or during) the filming, in many cases the revised words have clearly been inserted on the soundtrack during post-production. Similarly, the editing for broadcast has rearranged material within scenes and re-sequenced others in all of the episodes, most notably the third. Often this is to group several scenes from the same location into a more continuous sequence, or conversely, to intercut between scenes in different locations. The most notable example of the latter occurs at the beginning of episode three, which first introduces scenes showing Christopher’s wartime experiences in France. In both written versions, this material is not introduced for some forty scenes: twenty pages in the draft text, and so, by the usual rule of thumb, approximately twenty minutes of screen time during which the protagonist would not appear at all. While the novel will frequently abandon Christopher for lengthy periods, in the adaptation he is the centre of consciousness around which the narrative and themes cohere. To keep him at the forefront of the audience’s attention, the broadcast version of part three commences with the shell-

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shocked Christopher lying in a hospital bed in France, his shattered memories occasioning some striking montage effects that serve to remind the viewer of key events, while giving a glimpse into the mental disorder that will plague him for the remainder of the episode. In addition to comparing the television broadcast to the source novel and the screenplay to the broadcast, much can also be gained by studying the variations between the draft and published versions of the script. To over-simplify, a published screenplay is logically directed at a general reading public, while a draft circulated to a production team is a planning document. Stoppard’s versions of Parade’s End are more complicated, however, because each (but especially the unpublished draft) contains much material that is not usually encountered in screenplays. The presence of this material gives some sense of Stoppard as an author retaining an unusual degree of control over the material, or at least retaining material that in the work of a less eminent writer would have been excised before circulation to the production team. The idiosyncratic qualities of these scripts are found in what Sternberg refers to as the “scene text.” Dialogue is proportionately the most prominent element of most scripts for television and film, including Stoppard’s, while the scene text is essentially everything bar the dialogue and any paratextual materials, and so is analogous to the stage directions of a play for theatre. In Sternberg’s analysis, the scene text comprises three distinct elements or “modes.” The first is that of description, which “is composed of detailed sections about production design in addition to economical slug-line reductions.”11 Slug lines are mostly scene headings, such as the “INT. HOTEL SUITE—NIGHT” setting of the first scene of Parade’s End (PE, p. 9; draft, I.1). Below this slug line, the text describes “Lamp-lit luxury … the suite of a bride on her wedding eve, with everything laid out ready: the dress, underwear, the white satin shoes, coronet. There are orchids, wrapped gifts and honeymoon luggage.” This illustrates well Sternberg’s contention that this mode combines the “frozenness” of prose description with indications of camera movement. It should be stressed that such indications are normally oblique, something to be inferred by the reader rather than directly specified by the writer; one may imagine a panning movement to reveal the items in the suite, but this is not prescribed. Since the 1930s, the writing of camera directions has been progressively discouraged, with most contemporary writing manuals prohibiting the practice altogether on the grounds that it intrudes on the responsibilities of the director or camera operator. Writing such directions therefore appears unprofessional; so it is worth noting that in the draft of this scene, as well as in several other places, Stoppard does

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not shy from inserting them (“Heightened slo-mo of St. Anthony medallion on chain” [I.1]). Like most other camera directions, this has been eliminated in the published text; and although the camera picks out the medallion in the broadcast version, the heightened slo-mo has not been utilised. Sternberg’s second “mode” is that of the “report”: that is, the temporal sequence of (usually) human actions. At the end of Parade’s End’s first scene, for instance, “Hullo Central starts to help Sylvia out of her dress” (I.1). The third mode, of “comment,” is for present purposes the most important. As Sternberg notes, manuals also routinely prohibit the inclusion of comment, which would include figures of speech and anything that cannot be shown or seen on the screen, such as authorial reflections on the characters’ thoughts. Screenwriting manuals therefore imply that a screenplay should include only “dialogue, report and description.”12 Sternberg easily refutes this by showing that in her sample of 43 Hollywood screenplays “screenwriters rarely miss the opportunity to use the mode of comment. It is in this mode of presentation that ever new forms and designs of screenwriting shall be revealed.”13 Stoppard’s draft of Parade’s End is replete with comment, some but by no means all of which has been eliminated in the published version. To take a very discreet example, in the second episode Sylvia retreats to a convent where she is visited by her friend Bobbie: “Sylvia regards her steadily. She takes her ‘retreat’ seriously. Bobbie looks around for somewhere to put her cigarette” (II.13). In the published text, the second sentence has been removed, presumably because “She takes her ‘retreat’ seriously” is a comment on Sylvia rather than a description or an action. It could be countered that it is actually a suggestion to the actor (to avoid flippancy, for example), although as with camera directions, any such instructions are widely discouraged in manuals on the grounds that they impinge on the autonomy of actor or director. In turn, this convention reveals something of the situation of a writer for television or film, who is ordinarily under contract to an employer (such as a studio), unlike a playwright who retains complete control over the work. In addition to the reduced amount of comment and direction, the Faber edition has been edited in other ways that more closely conform to screenplay conventions. It eliminates the draft text’s scene numbering, which has probably been generated by a screenwriting software program such as Final Draft. The numbering of scenes has a dual purpose: it aids the writer (or others) in the re-sequencing of scenes, and facilitates the grouping of scenes for pre-production purposes (so that all the scenes to be shot in a particular location can be readily identified, for instance).

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Published screenplays (other than “shooting scripts”) usually eliminate the numbering, which has a purely technical function. Similarly, the Faber edition presents the scene text (other than slug lines) in italics, another common though by no means invariable practice in screenplay publication, which perhaps results from a similar convention in the publication of stage plays. While collectively these decisions give the Faber edition a rather conventional sheen, arguably the reduction of comment and direction in the scene text shows Stoppard exerting authorial control by working from the draft texts, but with publication firmly in mind. Certainly his introduction indicates that the decisions as to which additional scenes to include were his, while the presence of that introduction itself, and indeed the mere fact that the book has been published at all, makes this very much an “authorial” version. It is always worth looking at the paratexts of a published television or film script, however: while “Tom Stoppard is hereby identified as author of this work,” the copyright belongs to “Mammoth Screen Limited.” Although, in general, the scene text in the draft is rather more expansive than in the published text, the latter is nonetheless considerably more voluble than the mere “set of notes to a production crew” that one, by no means untypical, manual recommends.14 At a party, for example, “Two Women come and go, talking of Michelangelo” (PE, p. 136; II.55), which is as much an authorial joke as a description. More significantly, when Christopher comforts his son Michael, who has had a bad dream, the nursemaid Marchant looks on: “There is an intimacy and things which cannot be spoken” (PE, p. 17). A screenwriting pedant might object that one can hardly film a thought that cannot even be spoken, although again Stoppard’s comment might be taken as an indication that the actors and director are to find a way of conveying this dimension of the relationship between Christopher and Marchant. What is more important in the present context, however, is that in the draft version Stoppard spells out the unspoken thought: “i.e. the paternity of Michael. Marchant has picked up the doubts about that” (I.8). His decision to eliminate these words for purposes of publication shows that he is well aware of the convention, which raises the question of why they are present in this late draft. The implication is that it is a kind of note to self, a reminder of the subtleties of motivation in Ford’s novel that Stoppard wishes to retain in the adaptation, without invariably specifying how they are to be conveyed to the audience. This kind of mnemonic device or instruction, directed to self or others, is found frequently in the draft: on the first page of the first episode, for

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instance, Stoppard notes that “Evie [is] known as Hullo Central for her ‘telephone tinny’ voice” (I.1), and on the following page, having described a train, he adds the observation that “Sleepers came later” (I.2). Again, these remarks are eliminated for publication. Elsewhere Stoppard is concerned to anticipate, or simply to keep in his mind’s eye, a certain look to the production. For example, in the final episode, as Christopher gazes across no-man’s-land, he sees in his mind’s eye “a pony trap with a horse too big for it, moving soundlessly through the mist—an image from 1912 near Rye” (V.38; p. 315). The published text omits the draft’s remark aimed at the production team that “Ideally, this takes place in the mist near the marsh church and is additional to the other Rye material.” In these and other ways, the Faber edition creates the effect of recording, rather than anticipating, the production. In some places, there is a definite attempt to create a kind of production design or visual texture. Following Christopher and Sylvia’s sexual escapade on the train near the beginning of the first episode, the draft suggests the insertion of a “Still of Gaudier-Brzeska image of childbirth” (I.7): this is found neither in PE nor in the broadcast. Many establishing shots are absent from published and broadcast versions, while the abstract transitional devices of vorticist wheels in motion are present in the draft (and in the broadcast version, although not always in the same places), but absent from PE. Decisions on this aspect of the design were part of a collaborative effort involving the director, Susannah White, as well as the writer. As Stoppard remarks in the companion documentary screened by the BBC (in another indication of the cultural status of the adaptation), “It was the beginning of Modernism, and we wanted to try to reflect the artistic culture of the time.”15 While most of the above examples can be seen to have definable functions within the production context, there are passages of prose in the draft that cannot be accommodated within conventional notions of screenwriting. After Christopher aids the escape of the suffragettes, Valentine and Gertie, at the golf course, in the published text Valentine taunts her pursuers: “You’ll have to go round by Camber railway bridge!” This is followed by scene description: “The two girls run away across the vast marshy field …” (PE, p. 48). In the draft, between Valentine’s speech and the scene description appears a lengthy paragraph of narration: Christopher now looks at Valentine as if for the first time. Things were too busy before. Something about her as a woman has got through to him as a man. He has no intentions. He is monogamous. But he is attracted by her. Valentine hasn’t yet taken him in except as “a big golfing idiot.” But from

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this moment, as she later says, they are being inexorably pushed together as though in a carpenter’s vice. It’s going to take a long time, and a war, before they acknowledge that. (I.36)

The first several sentences blur the line between report and description in a manner which, in combination with some of the other examples cited above, represents a certain authorial style on Stoppard’s part. Once the temporal sequence goes beyond the present tense, however (“from this moment, as she later says …”), the passage has definitively moved outside accepted and logical conventions. The scene text of a screenplay should, in theory, invariably be written in the present tense because the viewer always perceives an image on the screen in the here and now, even if it is understood to be a memory or an anticipation of a future event. Another example is found at the beginning of the second episode. When Sylvia and Christopher are reunited in Germany, she gives him the news of his mother’s death: Separated from Christopher, especially with Perowne, Sylvia was reminded of his rare quality, and her apology and her sympathy about his mother are genuine. Even so, those rare qualities are also infuriating and she can’t suppress her spikey mischief. She wants to re-establish her possession of him, in her own way. As for Christopher, he is “accepting his fate,” as a married man doing the only honourable thing. Also, he is not insensitive to her point of view. Much later, he tells her that he’s never disapproved of her actions. (II.2)

Here the narration moves in and out of the consciousness of the characters and melds events and emotions from different times into a novelistic, narrative summary of repressed and half-revealed motivations. In a quite different way to the depiction of the momentary unspoken intimacy between Marchant and Christopher, these passages knit together an understanding of character from threads separated in space and time, and do not recast the material as a succession of filmable images. It must be remembered that this is a draft. These passages are important in revealing a working method, but it is possible that they were excised in a later version, with the published text being closer in this respect to this putative intermediate stage. The presence of an unusual degree of comment even in the Faber edition, however, and the regular slippage between different modes within the scene text, suggest that Stoppard has his own authorial style, and that his pre-eminence as a screenwriter allows it to be retained in scripts used by actors and crew in the production. If so, this writerly style also gives his scripts possibilities

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of a creative afterlife, as published literary works that repay repeated rereading. As he remarks in a recent interview, “probably to this day, I don’t write in pure cinematic language the way a screenwriter probably aspires to. I write scenes—often quite long scenes—mainly because I still get seduced into writing six lines where one and a half will do …. Parade’s End is closer to writing a play than anything I’ve ever written for the screen.”16

Notes 1

Elissa S. Guralnick, ‘Stoppard’s Radio and Television Plays’, in Katherine E. Kelly (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Tom Stoppard (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), p. 79. 2 Peter Cowie, The Godfather Book (London: Faber, 1997), pp. 53-4. 3 Marc Norman and Tom Stoppard, Shakespeare in Love (London: Faber, 1999). In the contractual and conventional attribution of credit, ‘and’ signifies that the work of the first writer was revised by the second, whereas an ampersand would signify that the writers collaborated as a team. 4 Mark Lawson, ‘Parade’s End: Why Tom Stoppard’s return to television is a cause for celebration’, Guardian (online), 24 August 2012, http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/tvandradioblog/2012/aug/24/parades-endtom-stoppards-return?INTCMP=SRCH, accessed on 28 October 2012. 5 Tom Stoppard, Parade’s End, third draft, dated 29 July 2011. Via William Baker, Stoppard has generously given permission for me to draw on this draft in the present essay. Like the broadcast and published versions, the draft is divided into five episodes, here cited by episode and page number: IV.25, for example, refers to episode four, page 25. 6 See Steven Price, The Screenplay: Authorship, Theory and Criticism (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2010), pp. 1-23. 7 Tom Stoppard, Parade’s End (London: Faber, 2012), p. xii. Subsequent references are to PE. 8 Claudia Sternberg, Written for the Screen: The American Motion-Picture Screenplay as Text (Tübingen: Stauffenburg Verlag, 1997), pp. 27-8. 9 Julian Barnes, ‘A Tribute to Parade’s End by Ford Madox Ford’, Guardian, 24 August 2012. 10 Ian Hislop’s Stiff Upper Lip: An Emotional History of Britain, broadcast 2, 9 and 15 October 2012, BBC2. 11 Sternberg, p. 71. 12 Sternberg, p. 72. 13 Sternberg, p. 74. 14 Esther Luttrell, Tools of the Screen Writing Trade, rev. ed. (Mt. Dora, Fla.: Broadcast Club of America, 1998), p. 10.

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15

The World of Parade’s End (BBC2, 24 August 2012). John Preston, ‘Tom Stoppard Interview for Parade’s End and Anna Karenina’, Daily Telegraph, 24 October 2012. 16

Works Cited Barnes, Julian. “A Tribute to Parade’s End by Ford Madox Ford.” Guardian, 24 August 2012. Cowie, Peter. The Godfather Book. London: Faber and Faber, 1997. “Emergence (1/3).” Ian Hislop’s Stiff Upper Lip: An Emotional History of Britain. BBC2. 2 October 2012. Guarlnick, Elissa S. “Stoppard’s Radio and Television Plays.” In The Cambridge Companion to Tom Stoppard, edited by Katherine E. Kelly, 68-83. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001. “Heyday (2/3).” Ian Hislop’s Stiff Upper Lip: An Emotional History of Britain. BBC2. 9 October 2012. “Last Hurrah? (3/3).” Ian Hislop’s Stiff Upper Lip: An Emotional History of Britain. BBC2. 15 October 2012. Lawson, Mark. “Parade’s End: Why Tom Stoppard’s return to television is a cause for celebration.” Guardian, 24 August 2012. Accessed 28 October 2012. http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/tvandradioblog /2012/aug/24/parades-end-tom-stoppards-return?INTCMP=SRCH, accessed on 28 October 2012. Luttrell, Esther. Tools of the Screen Writing Trade. Mt. Dora, FL: Broadcast Club of America, 1998. Norman, Marc, and Tom Stoppard. Shakespeare in Love. London: Faber and Faber, 1999. Price, Steven. The Screenplay: Authorship, Theory and Criticism. Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2010. Sternberg, Claudia. Written for the Screen: The American Motion-Picture Screenplay as Text. Tübingen: Stauffenburg Verlag, 1997. Stoppard, Tom. “Tom Stoppard Interview for Parade’s End and Anna Karenina.” With John Preston. Daily Telegraph. 24 October 2012. —. Parade’s End. Third draft. 29 July 2011. (Via William Baker.) —. Parade’s End. London: Faber and Faber, 2012. The World of Parade’s End. BBC2, 24 August 2012.

READING (AND WRITING) THE ETHICS OF AUTHORSHIP: SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE AS POSTMODERN METANARRATIVE TODD F. DAVIS AND KENNETH WOMACK

“Answer me only this: are you the author of the plays of William Shakespeare?” —Viola De Lessups to Will Shakespeare in Shakespeare in Love

Although Shakespeare in Love (1998) enjoyed rave reviews in the popular press, some critics in the intelligentsia question the artistic significance of the film’s postmodern aspirations. In an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education, for example, Martin Harries reserves special disdain for the intrusion, via a series of anachronisms, of popular culture into the film’s screenplay, written by Marc Norman and playwright Tom Stoppard1. Harries ascribes these textual gestures to a desire on the filmmakers’ part to pander to Hollywood narcissism: “The anachronisms give a comforting illusion of closeness,” Harries writes, “but this closeness can never overcome the distance between entertainment as industry and the more fragile and, finally, more mysterious business of the Globe, the Rose, and the Theatre” (B9). For Harries, Norman and Stoppard’s screenplay only succeeds in satisfying Hollywood’s ostensible yen for reenvisaging itself, rather implausibly, as an Elizabethan theatrical enterprise. A. O. Scott similarly derides Shakespeare in Love as “a frisson of self-congratulatory pleasure.” A Senior Editor of Lingua Franca, Scott devotes particular attention to problematizing Stoppard’s obvious role in the construction of the film’s anachronistic puns, linguistic games, and witty textual paradoxes. “What we get is mostly less than meets the eye: the erudition of the cocktail party and the emotional range of a good TV sitcom, middlebrow pleasures dressing up in the trappings of high learning,” Scott writes. Troubled by what they perceive to be the film’s intellectual masquerade, Harries and Scott essentially misconstrue the

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narrative structure of Norman and Stoppard’s screenplay as the mere product of linguistic hijinks and textual diversions, rather than as a carefully constructed and highly literate text that offers valuable insight into contemporary conceptions of authorship, the semantics of love, and the humanistic possibilities of postmodernity. In fact, Scott even refuses to acknowledge Shakespeare in Love’s explicitly postmodern narrative design, preferring instead to refer to John Madden’s Academy-Award winning film as “brain-teaser modernism” and as “modernism without difficulty.” Clearly, modernism implies a literary tradition that essentializes art forms through its adherence to a universal belief system founded upon logic, rationality, and the existence of a moral centre. Scott’s flawed terminology hardly begins to account for the postmodern narrative philosophy that undergirds Shakespeare in Love. Availing themselves of such techniques as metanarration and parody in their screenplay, Norman and Stoppard recognize the indeterminacy of language and the multivocality inherent in the kinds of intertextual discourse evinced by such Stoppard plays as Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (1967) and Travesties (1974). As with Shakespeare in Love, the latter play argues for the elasticity of history as Stoppard stages an imaginary encounter in early twentieth-century Zürich that features Lenin, James Joyce, and Dadaist Tristan Tzara. In Sequel to History: Postmodernism and the Crisis of Representational Time (1992), Elizabeth Deeds Ermarth observes that “the best definition of postmodern narrative might be precisely that it resolutely does not operate according to any form of historical time, that is, representational time, and in many cases directly parodies or disputes that time and the generalizations it allows to form” (43). Postmodernists such as Stoppard deliberately flaunt the constructed nature of history and the sanctity of historical truth in their texts. Shifting back and forth across the arbitrary borders of linear time, such writers embrace the resulting multiplicity of cultural perspectives that the negation of history necessarily allows. In Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, Stoppard challenges modernist notions of authorship by narrating Shakespeare’s Hamlet from the play’s textual margins. The elevation of the roles of two minor characters in Shakespeare’s master-text provides Stoppard with the means for exploding authority and for undermining modernist notions of univocality. Simply put, authorship becomes dispersed among many voices in a postmodern era marked by the death of the author. Multivocality furnishes Stoppard with the means for eschewing the impoverished single-voiced master narrative in favour of a more variegated text whose greatest strength lies in its plurality of authorial voices.

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In Tom Stoppard and the Craft of Comedy: Medium and Genre at Play (1991), Katherine E. Kelly astutely describes this phenomenon as “postmodern polyphony,” the postmodern tendency, she writes, “to multiply the textual voices participating in and simultaneously commenting upon the dramatic event” (6). The very nature of drama as a genre is itself polyphonous. While writers compose their dialogue in ostensible isolation, actors must give voice to the playwright’s words and interpret them before an audience replete with its own cultural norms and biases. The convergence of the textual voices of which Kelly speaks inevitably produces tension and ambiguity in postmodern narratives, yet these attributes also afford writers such as Stoppard with the capacity for elucidating the nature of a given plot and its characters in a multiperspectival fashion, as well as with the means for addressing the act of writing itself.2 In Shakespeare in Love, Norman and Stoppard fashion a screenplay that functions upon a multiplicity of voices—de facto authors, if you will—who share in the construction of the filmic narrative. Rather than adhering to the modernist tradition and representing the Bard as a master-genius who writes in isolation in a literary vacuum, Norman and Stoppard playfully depict a variety of characters as they participate, both implicitly and explicitly, in the composition of Shakespeare’s drama. Availing themselves of postmodern polyphony allows Norman and Stoppard to argue for the cultural production of Shakespeare’s plays. Norman and Stoppard further problematize the notion of authorship in Shakespeare in Love by crafting various levels of metanarration in their screenplay. By referencing numerous textual, cultural, and historical aspects of Shakespeareana, moreover, the film continually reminds us that we are witnessing the construction of narrative. In this way, metanarration ultimately reduces the distance between viewer and text in Shakespeare in Love. Seeking to diminish the boundaries of composition allows Norman and Stoppard to move beyond typical postmodern conceptions of narrative dislocation and to proffer a kind of postmodern humanism that champions creation over negation, presence over absence. Yet the very idea that humanism might be merged with postmodernity seems implausible for some poststructuralist critics. In The Idea of the Postmodern: A History (1995), for example, Hans Bertens traces the “turn” of certain postmodern theorists toward the tradition of American pragmatism as promulgated by such thinkers as William James and Richard Rorty. Arguing that this shift seems incommensurate with the ideological foundations of postmodern philosophy, Bertens clings to a vision of postmodernism that finds its origins in demystification, deconstruction, and disjunction.3 As Ihab Hassan contends in The

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Postmodern Turn (1987), however, “if postmodernism points at all any way, it points now to something beyond mourning or nostalgia for old faiths, points, in many directions at once, to belief itself, if not renewed beliefs. The time for sterility is past,” he continues. “Without some radiancy, wonder, wisdom, we all risk, in this postmodern clime, to become barren” (229-30). Shakespeare in Love provides readers (and viewers) with precisely such a text. The myriad forms of metanarration that we witness in the film do not serve as distancing or demystifying mechanisms as theorists such as Bertens might expect, but rather, as the means for drawing the audience into closer proximity with the narrative. As Linda Hutcheon observes, “The familiar humanist separation of art and life (or human imagination and order versus chaos and disorder) no longer holds” (“Beginning” 248). In short, art and life become conflated within the strictures of postmodern humanism; the seemingly disparate realms of the fictional, historical, and cultural merge as writers attempt to fill empty or negative spaces with the transcendent possibilities of human presence. In sharp contrast with the often more overt aspects of metanarration that mark other postmodernist texts, the levels of metanarration in Norman and Stoppard’s screenplay provide subtle but profuse cultural and literary referents. Shakespeare’s stature as the most celebrated writer in the Western literary tradition and his prodigious cultural influence obviously make this kind of easy recognition possible. While audience members clearly enjoy different levels of intertextual awareness, few viewers could possibly fail to perceive the filmmakers’ various references to the plots of Romeo and Juliet and Hamlet. As with the culturally deft construction of Norman and Stoppard’s screenplay, Madden’s direction of Shakespeare in Love establishes a number of intertextual relationships of its own. Drawing upon a Shakespearean film tradition that spans more than a century—and originating with such silent-film productions as Herbert Beerbohm-Tree’s King John (1899) and Clement Maurice’s Romeo and Juliet (1900)—Madden stylizes various scenes in Shakespeare in Love by borrowing aspects of choreography, set design, and plot interpretation from a number of earlier films. In addition to making an affectionate nod toward the realistic construction of the Globe playhouse in Sir Laurence Olivier’s Henry V (1944), Madden’s film replicates the near-drowning scene that opens Trevor Nunn’s Twelfth Night (1996). The director invests particular narrative energy in his recreation of the dance sequences that serve as the romantic setting for such films as Jerome Robbins and Robert Wise’s West Side Story (1961) and Franco Zeffirelli’s Romeo and Juliet (1968).4 In each instance, the act of metanarration both reminds the audience about Shakespeare in Love’s place in the larger film tradition

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and creates a sense of ironic pleasure for the viewer by shrinking the distance between audience and text. The screenwriters accomplish a similar end by deliberately locating a series of cultural anachronisms throughout their narrative. While such anachronisms foster a sense of dis-ease or dislocation in some postmodernist texts, they perform a dramatically different function in Shakespeare in Love. By providing the audience with a sense of familiarity in the film, such anachronistic moments invariably supply viewers with a system of cultural referents that transform Shakespeare in Love’s otherwise alien Elizabethan locale into an immediately recognizable urban landscape. In an early scene, for example, Will Shakespeare (Joseph Fiennes) seeks treatment from Dr Moth (Antony Sher), an obvious precursor to the Freudian psychoanalysts of the present. While confessing his sense of impotence as a writer to his Renaissance-era therapist, Will unknowingly employs a vocabulary of sexual dysfunction designed to elicit recognition in a contemporary audience: “It’s as if my quill is broken. As if the organ of the imagination has dried up. As if the proud tower of my genius has collapsed” (10). Viewers enjoy a similar moment of cultural recognition when a waiter (Barnaby Kay) in a London tavern recites the inn’s daily fare as if he were in a restaurant in present-day uptown Manhattan: “The special today is a pig’s foot marinated in juniper-berry vinegar,” he tells Will, “served with a buckwheat pancake” (27). Similar artefacts from the twentieth-century landscape adorn the screenplay as well, including Will’s souvenir mug from Stratford-upon-Avon, the boat “taxis” that ferry customers across the Thames, and, in one of Norman and Stoppard’s most mischievous and inspired comic turns, the villain’s desire to make his name as a tobacco baron in Virginia. Rather than producing disjunction in the narrative, Shakespeare in Love’s anachronisms establish a textual bridge between the film’s contemporary audience and the mockElizabethan past that functions as its setting. Norman and Stoppard also appeal to their audience’s desires for cultural recognition through a series of intertextual allusions to various moments from Shakespeareana. Viewers not only experience a sense of ironic pleasure through their textual encounters with bits of Shakespearean dialogue in Shakespeare in Love, but also enjoy the fabrication of historical and literary detail in the film’s pseudo-Elizabethan world. In Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism (1991), Fredric Jameson describes intertextuality as a “deliberate, built-in feature of the aesthetic effect and as the operator of a new connotation of ‘pastness’ and pseudo-historical depth, in which the history of aesthetic styles displaces ‘real’ history” (20).5 Norman and Stoppard essentially offer their audience

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a heightened form of realism—a kind of hyper-realism, if you will—that establishes an exaggerated sense of pastness for viewers as they consume the film. Shakespeare in Love features a number of intertextual allusions to Shakespeare’s life and work, including an early scene in the film in which Will practices his signature and produces variant spellings of his name. Such an improbable event refers both to twentieth-century notions of celebrity and to the historical fact that six remarkably different versions of Shakespeare’s signature survive. Norman and Stoppard also treat us to several verbal allusions to Shakespeare’s plays, including The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Love’s Labours Lost, Antony and Cleopatra, and Titus Andronicus, among a host of others. While many of these instances involve linguistic double entendres, several of Shakespeare in Love’s textual allusions are visual in nature. When Lord Wessex (Colin Firth) glimpses what he believes to be the ghost of Christopher Marlowe in a cathedral, the audience cannot help but be reminded of the apparitions that haunt Hamlet and Macbeth. Later, when Richard Burbage (Martin Clunes) gets clobbered with a skull during a farcical brawl, viewers recall the image, if not the language itself, of Hamlet’s well-known “Alas, poor Yorick” speech.6 Norman and Stoppard devote yet another level of metanarration in Shakespeare in Love to the on-going controversy regarding the authorship of Shakespeare’s plays, as well as to the notion of authorship itself. The film playfully depicts Marlowe (Rupert Everett), for instance, in the act of suggesting plot twists and character names to Will for his latest play, Romeo and Ethel, the Pirate’s Daughter. Rather than merely calling Shakespeare’s claim to authorship into question, such a manoeuvre underscores the systems of cultural production inherent in all texts. One of Shakespeare in Love’s greatest strengths lies in the fact that its postmodern aspirations never hamper our capacity for identifying with the rich character-scapes that the screenwriters establish through postmodern polyphony. As with Mikhail M. Bakhtin’s conception of heteroglossia, the multiplicity of voices that comprise the text of Shakespeare in Love demonstrates the synergistic role of cultural, social, and historical conditions in the act of composition. Writing about the novel as literary form, Bakhtin observes that a given narrative orchestrates all its themes, the totality of the world of objects and ideas depicted and expressed in it, by means of the social diversity of speech types [raznoreþie] and by the differing individual voices that flourish under such conditions. (263)

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As Shakespeare in Love reveals, these themes, objects, and ideas function in conversation with one another via the screenplay’s characters, who themselves operate as virtual authors of the text as they speak, argue, and modify both the narrative that will ultimately become Romeo and Juliet, as well as the story of Will and Viola De Lesseps’s doomed romance. In the film, the concept of authorship confronts the audience at nearly every turn. As the constant refrain of theatre owner Philip Henslowe (Geoffrey Rush), the phrase, “It’s a mystery,” exemplifies the magical, enigmatic nature of authorship in Shakespeare in Love. Much of its mystery concerns the manner in which the many competing voices in the text come together in a complex process of cultural production. Authorship takes on two significant aspects in Norman and Stoppard’s narrative: both the story of Will’s relationship with Viola (Gwyneth Paltrow) and his simultaneous composition of their affair in Romeo and Juliet result from the convergence of a variety of social and cultural forces. Simply put, the actions of certain characters in the film impact the course of Will’s life, while yet other personalities in Shakespeare in Love share in the creation and ultimate production of Will’s art as embodied by the performance of Romeo and Juliet in the film’s final reel. Henslowe chooses to participate in the composition of Will’s life because of the economic forces that impinge upon his own existence. Desperately in need of a play to stage in his financially beleaguered theatre, Henslowe badgers Will into writing Romeo and Ethel. Henslowe’s subsequent commentary about the state of the theatre business could easily pertain to the struggle that the act of composition necessarily entails. “The natural condition is one of insurmountable obstacles on the road to imminent disaster,” he explains. “Strangely enough, it all turns out well” (23). In many ways, Henslowe functions as the audience’s alter ego, following Will throughout the narrative and hoping to ensure that all is indeed well that ends well. Rosaline (Sandra Reinton), the mistress of Elizabethan England’s most famous actor Richard Burbage, also shares in the construction of Will’s life when she acts as his muse. Falsely believing her to be the source of his creative gift, Will writes her into his fledgling play, which he retitles as Romeo and Rosaline. When he later discovers her in bed with Tilney, the Master of the Revels (Simon Callow), the emotionally wounded playwright tells her that “I would have made you immortal” (26). Spurning his false muse, Will burns his manuscript in anguish. As one of the de facto authors of Will’s life, Rosaline sets a series of events into motion through her betrayal of him that culminates in his fateful meeting with Viola. The daughter of a nouveau-riche Londoner, Viola appears in Will’s life as the result of a variety of cultural forces. Her devotion to the

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theatre, for example, prompts her to defy existing theatrical codes that prohibit women from performing on stage and to disguise herself as Thomas Kent.7 Transgressing the boundaries of gender and class, Viola initially writes her way into the text of Will’s life as a man rather than as the woman who will furnish him with the inspiration that he needs to rediscover his literary gifts. In a truncated parody of Romeo and Juliet’s famous balcony scene, Will pledges his love to Viola, now his muse and for whom in the film he composes Sonnet 18 (“Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?”). Yet Viola functions as far more than a passive muse in Norman and Stoppard’s screenplay. As Will’s ideal audience—particularly as an active participant in the creation of his art—Viola longs for his poetry and thus motivates Will’s suddenly unrestrained composition of Romeo and Juliet.8 Norman and Stoppard demonstrate the reawakening of Will’s imagination—indeed, the resuscitation of his gift at the writerly hands of Viola—through a sensual and protracted montage that deftly shifts between the text of Will’s life and the act of composing Romeo and Juliet. The manner in which the scenes blend into one another during this portion of the film represents the porousness of the borders that separate art and life. Sensing the unreality of their dreamlike, atemporal interlude, Will feels empowered, believing everything to be limitless and interconnected even though he and Viola know that she will wed Lord Wessex within a fortnight. The unreality inherent in the montage sequence mirrors the otherworldly quality of the couple’s experience as they wilfully defy the legalistic and social structures that forbid their union. The montage also provides viewers with their first glimpse into the mystery of heteroglossia as the social and cultural forces that adorn the narrative finally converge in Will’s imagination. The sequence in question begins, rather conventionally, with the image of Will writing in isolation, yet the interconnected scenes that follow emphasize the social-constructedness of his play. As Will completes the segment of Romeo and Juliet’s balcony scene in which Romeo muses, “But soft, what light through yonder window breaks?/It is the east and Juliet is the sun” (78), the scene shifts to Viola’s bedroom, where she rehearses the same lines. The effect of this pattern, which merges the lovers’ most intimate experiences with the dialogue of their theatrical counterparts, serves to erase, if only briefly, any remaining barriers that exist between art and life. As the montage progresses, Viola sombrely recognizes, as with Juliet in the play, that “all this is but a dream,/Too flattering-sweet to be substantial” (84). Moments later, the stage voice of the Nurse (Jim Carter) interrupts the unreality of the montage and the seamless quality of the scene dissolves.

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While reality promises to end their affair, Will and Viola never lose sight of their larger artistic mission. Real life ceases to matter, for the lovers implicitly realize that the play is truly the thing. As with the other writers and actors who devote themselves to the stage in Shakespeare in Love—including the likes of Marlowe, Burbage, actor Ned Alleyn (Ben Affleck), and producer Hugh Fennyman (Tom Wilkinson)—Will and Viola cannot help but redirect their sorrow and grief into the theatrical energy necessary to see Romeo and Juliet through to fruition. While Viola astutely recognizes that their romance exists in a “stolen season,” Will transfigures their plight into the impetus for resolving his play’s previously hazy conclusion: “It is not a comedy I am writing now,” he tells Viola. “A broad river divides my lovers—family, duty, fate—as unchangeable as nature” (88). With their dual role in the authorship of the play nearly complete, Will and Viola benefit greatly from Alleyn and Burbage’s efforts in order to assure Romeo and Juliet’s production. Their actions on behalf of the play ultimately arise not from any selfish desire for fame or profit, but rather, from a genuine passion for the theatre and its mysterious potential for transformation. As the leader of the Admiral’s Men, Alleyn brings the magic of the theatre into bold relief: “I am Hieronimo! I am Tamburlaine! I am Faustus! I am Barabbas, the Jew of Malta—oh yes, Master Will, and I am Henry VI,” he announces as rehearsals ensue for Romeo and Juliet. “Pay attention and you will see how genius creates a legend” (51). As the film progresses, Alleyn self-consciously replaces his earlier braggadocio with the sense of humility necessary to see the play through its production, even providing Will with a new title for the poorly named Romeo and Ethel: “Romeo and Juliet,” he tells the young playwright, “just a suggestion” (86). The cocksure owner of the Curtain theatre and the leader of the celebrated Chamberlain’s Men, Burbage also sacrifices his pride and comes to Will’s aid when the staging of Romeo and Juliet seems in jeopardy: The Master of the Revels despises us for vagrants, tinkers, and peddlers of bombast. But my father, James Burbage, had the first license to make a company of players from Her Majesty, and he drew from poets the literature of the age. Their fame will be our fame. So let them all know, we are men of parts. We are a brotherhood, and we will be a profession. Will Shakespeare has a play. I have a theatre. The Curtain is yours. (125)

By dispensing with the arbitrary divisions that exist between competing acting companies and theatres, Burbage sublimates any personal desires

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for fame and pre-eminence in favour of the more urgent and tangible needs of his community. His recognition of the fraternity of players and of the interconnectedness that characterizes the relationship between playwrights and the acting community—“their fame will be our fame”— also underscores the multiple facets of authorship that exist in any textual production. The actual staging of Romeo and Juliet represents the artistic culmination of the many competing authorial voices that mark Will’s life and the construction of his play. In contrast with the scenes from the montage in which Will and Viola subsist in a state of unreality, the performance of Romeo and Juliet forces them to confront the fleeting nature of their relationship. Ironically, it is the artifice of the theatre that compels them to face the cold reality of life beyond the sanctuary of its walls. When circumstances force Viola and Will to perform the roles of Romeo and Juliet, respectively, art becomes concretized into life. While the rehearsal scenes from the montage sequence focus solely on Romeo and Juliet falling in love, the later production of the play only concerns itself, rather significantly, with scenes that illustrate the social and cultural forces that ensure the lovers’ undoing. Norman and Stoppard demonstrate the merging of Romeo and Juliet’s fate with that of Will and Viola— indeed, the actual coalescence of art and life—through Will’s corresponding on- and offstage remarks. As Romeo, he tells Benvolio, “I am fortune’s fool!” Moments later, Will realizes that Viola has fulfilled her duty and married Wessex, with whom she will travel to the New World. Suddenly, Will’s stage lines possess a deeper and more personal meaning: “I am fortune’s fool,” he remarks yet again (140). In the film, Queen Elizabeth (Judi Dench) functions as both the ultimate author and interpreter of Will and Viola’s fate. Their narrative will end, she tells them, “as stories must when love’s denied—with tears and a journey. Those whom God has joined in marriage, not even I can put asunder” (150). Explicating the text of Romeo and Juliet as performed by Will and Viola forces the Queen to reconsider her earlier contention that “playwrights teach nothing about love, they make it pretty, they make it comical, or they make it lust. They cannot make it true” (94). Yet Queen Elizabeth has not witnessed the artifice of a mere play at the Curtain Theatre. The reality inherent in Will and Viola’s personal drama imbues the text of Romeo and Juliet with a more compelling and affecting form of human truth. “The illusion is remarkable,” she admits. “A play can show the very truth and nature of love” (148; emphasis added). While Will and Viola’s performance in Romeo and Juliet demonstrates the finite aspects of human mortality and romance, their textual experiences reveal the

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potentially limitless qualities of love itself. Although the corporeal limitations inherent in their separation will ensure the demise of their physical relationship, the boundless nature of narrative will provide for the telling and retelling of their story in the future for countless other audiences. Shakespeare in Love assures us that the playwright will achieve this latter end by virtue of the film’s final scene, a moving sequence in which Will imagines the composition of a new play that finds its origins in a dream: “I dreamed last night of a shipwreck,” he confesses to Viola during the rehearsals for Romeo and Juliet. “You were cast ashore in a far country” (101). Instructed by the Queen to compose a comedy for Twelfth Night, Will initially feels sceptical about art’s potential for addressing the painful realities with which we are often forced to live. “I am done with the theatre,” he tells Viola. “The playhouse is for dreamers. Look where the dream has brought us” (151). Yet his over-arching desire for making meaning out of his experiences—for memorializing his relationship with Viola and for transcending its loss—inspires him to return once more to the world of his imagination. Resolving that she will become his “heroine for all time,” Will seeks to fill the empty spaces left by her absence through the composition of Twelfth Night (154).9 As Will begins his story, he transforms the essence of his dream into narrative: “My story starts at sea,” he writes, “the brave vessel is dashed all to pieces, and all the helpless souls within her drowned . . . all save one . . . a lady . . . whose soul is greater than the ocean . . . and her spirit stronger than the sea’s embrace . . . not for her a watery end, but a new life beginning on a stranger shore . . . and her name will be . . . Viola” (153-55). As Shakespeare in Love draws to a close, the figure of Viola symbolically walks along the beach of Will’s imagination and into the mystery of his text. The brave new world of Twelfth Night’s Illyrian setting is itself an empty space awaiting Will’s profundity of words. “Language is based on difference and absence,” Jerome Klinkowitz observes, “yet the act of language eternalizes [a] desire for presence” (120). Rather than feeling doomed in the face of endless negation, Will opts instead to create presence through Viola’s textual existence among Illyria’s imaginary island environs. Utilizing postmodern polyphony in their screenplay, Norman and Stoppard not only problematize conventional notions of authorship through their usage of heteroglossia and various levels of metanarration, but also argue for the more hopeful, humanistic possibilities of postmodernity. By elevating notions of presence over absence and creation over negation, Shakespeare in Love invites us to explore the

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mysteries of authorship, the human condition, and the multiplicity of voices that textualize their existence. As Zygmunt Bauman remarks in Postmodern Ethics (1994), “We learn to live with events and acts that are not only not-yet-explained, but (for all we know about what we will ever know) inexplicable. Some of us would even say that it is such events and acts that constitute the hard, irremovable core of the human predicament,” he writes. “We learn again to respect ambiguity, to feel regard for human emotions, to appreciate actions without purpose and calculable rewards” (33). In this way, reading the narrative of Shakespeare in Love in the context of postmodern humanism’s philosophy of textual creation illuminates our innate desires for belief, for wonder, for transcending the unfathomable void, and for fabulating our own brave new imaginary worlds.

Notes 1

Norman—the writer behind such films as Cutthroat Island (1995) and Waterworld (1995)—composed the screenplay’s first draft, while Stoppard was called in later, presumably to enrich the narrative’s literary textures, according to Stanley Kauffmann. “Who wrote this scene or that scene in the final version is of course indecipherable to us,” Kauffmann writes, “but the result is clearly the result of people who know a good deal about the Elizabethan era and theatre, so much so that they can play games with the material” (26). 2 Stoppard’s latest play, The Invention of Love (1997), utilizes similar narrative techniques. In addition to its numerous historical and cultural levels of metanarration, the play explores the life of A. E. Housman from a variety of perspectives and by using a vast array of voices—including those of a young Housman, the poet’s 77-year-old spirit, and Oscar Wilde. 3 In Constructing Postmodernism (1992), Brian McHale offers a useful delineation of the contrasting features of modernism and postmodernism. In particular, McHale defines postmodernity in terms of anarchy, absence, the polymorphous, anti-narrative, irony, indeterminacy, and ontological uncertainty, among other traits (7-8). 4 Similarly, Norman and Stoppard borrow several of their screenplay’s plot devices from Caryl Brahms and S. J. Simon’s comic novel No Bed for Bacon (1941). In the novel, Lady Viola Compton visits the theatre, becomes infatuated with Shakespeare, and inspires his composition of Twelfth Night. See Craig Offman’s essay on the novel for additional discussion of Shakespeare in Love’s rather overt textual intersections with No Bed for Bacon. Obviously, Brahms and Simon’s novel remains far too obscure to guarantee audience recognition, and hence, to argue for its value as a level of metanarration. 5 In A Poetics of Postmodernism: History, Theory, Fiction (1988), Hutcheon likewise ascribes postmodern intertextual motives to a desire for establishing

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historical interconnection: “The textual incorporation of these intertextual pasts as a constitutive structural element of postmodernist fiction functions as a formal marking of historicity—both literary and ‘worldly,’” she writes (124). 6 For additional discussion of Shakespeare in Love’s intertextual nuances, see Trey Graham’s essay on the film’s literary and historical allusions. 7 Interestingly, Will’s relationship with Viola later prompts him to transcend gender boundaries of his own when he poses as her chaperone, “Miss Wilhelmina,” during Viola’s audience with Queen Elizabeth at Greenwich. 8 As Kauffman notes, Viola’s surname may seem, at first glance, to be a bit of a mystery in itself: “Is it some sort of private joke that the authors chose the family name of the man who, 300 years later, built the Suez Canal and attempted one in Panama?” he asks (26). Yet Norman and Stoppard’s seemingly ephemeral historical allusion resonates with Viola’s role in Shakespeare in Love as the human conduit via which Will reconnects with his muse. As with the French engineer Ferdinand de Lessups of her namesake, Viola metaphorically opens up new worlds for Will. 9 Quite obviously, Shakespeare could not have composed Twelfth Night (16011602) immediately following the first theatrical production of Romeo and Juliet (1595-1596) as Norman and Stoppard’s narrative suggests. See G. Blakemore Evans’s “Chronology and Sources” for additional discussion regarding the early history of each play’s composition and production (51, 54). As a postmodern metanarrative in which linear notions of history and culture become elastic, however, Shakespeare in Love eschews chronological facticity in order to highlight the indeterminacy of language and the multivocality of authorship.

Works Cited Bakhtin, Mikhail M. The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays. Ed. Michael Holquist. Trans. Caryl Emerson and Holquist. Austin: U of Texas P, 1981. Bauman, Zygmunt. Postmodern Ethics. Oxford: Blackwell, 1994. Bertens, Hans. The Idea of the Postmodern: A History. London: Routledge, 1995. Brahms, Caryl, and S. J. Simon. No Bed for Bacon. New York: Crowell, 1941. Ermarth, Elizabeth Deeds. Sequel to History: Postmodernism and the Crisis of Representational Time. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1992. Evans, G. Blakemore. “Chronology and Sources.” The Riverside Shakespeare. Ed. Evans. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1974. 47-56. Graham, Trey. “Finding Laughs Between the Lines.” USA Today 10 January 1999: 5D.

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Harries, Martin. “Hollywood in Love.” Chronicle of Higher Education 45 (16 April 1999): B9. Hassan, Ihab. The Postmodern Turn: Essays in Postmodern Theory and Culture. Columbus: Ohio State UP, 1987. Hutcheon, Linda. “Beginning to Theorize Postmodernism.” A Postmodern Reader. Ed. Joseph Natoli and Hutcheon. Albany: State U of New York P, 1993. 243-72. —. A Poetics of Postmodernism: History, Theory, Fiction. London: Routledge, 1988. Jameson, Fredric. Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism. Durham: Duke UP, 1991. Kauffmann, Stanley. “Star-Crossed Lovers.” New Republic 220.1-2 (1999): 26-27. Kelly, Katherine E. Tom Stoppard and the Craft of Comedy: Medium and Genre at Play. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 1991. Klinkowitz, Jerome. Rosenberg/Barthes/Hassan: The Postmodern Habit of Thought. Athens: U of Georgia P, 1988. Madden, John, dir. Shakespeare in Love. With Gwyneth Paltrow, Joseph Fiennes, Geoffrey Rush, and Judi Dench. Miramax, 1998. McHale, Brian. Constructing Postmodernism. London: Routledge, 1992. Norman, Marc, and Tom Stoppard. Shakespeare in Love: A Screenplay. New York: Hyperion, 1998. Offman, Craig. “‘Neither a Borrower . . .’: Were Parts of the Hit Movie Shakespeare in Love Lifted from an Obscure 1941 Novel?” Salon Magazine 5 February 1999. . Scott, A. O. “Stoppard in Love: The Playwright’s Infatuation with Smart Fun . . . and with Himself.” Slate 20 March 1999. . Stoppard, Tom. The Invention of Love. 1997. New York: Grove, 1998. —. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. 1967. New York: Grove, 1991. —. Travesties. 1974. New York: Grove, 1989.

TOM STOPPARD, A.E. HOUSMAN, AND THE CLASSICS ALASTAIR MACAULAY

Viewed one way, The Invention of Love is perplexingly, maddeningly dense. A portrait of the scholar-poet A.E. Housman (1859-1936), it bristles with layers of complex information not just about the cultures of ancient Greece and Rome but about the scholarship that, over centuries, has been applied to them, some of which becomes central to the play’s exposition. If you had no prior knowledge of Theseus, Pirithous, Ligurinus, and the odes in which Horace includes them, if you had no clue about how the poems of Catullus were preserved, if you had no understanding of the textual criticism of ancient Greek and Latin texts, The Invention of Love soon plunges you deep into these matters. (And the study of Classics is just one aspect of the play, which also bombards its audience with passages of exposition about the Oxford dons of the midnineteenth century, about Oscar Wilde, aestheticism, and the Labouchère amendment.) Viewed from another perspective, The Invention of Love becomes a reflection of the ways in which a single character lives in terms of separate kinds of thought and feeling. Its overlapping memories form a deliberate, sensuous clutter, a memory-scape whose kaleidoscopic patterns keep returning, as if by accident, to certain themes. All members of the audience, whether steeped in the classics or ignorant of them, will find themselves asking: What parts of all this information matter, and why? These are core questions with Stoppard. Most or all Stoppard plays are about epistemology—about the various ways in which our brains apprehend and address the world, the range of possibilities whereby experience and thought become knowledge. (Carnal knowledge is very much one possibility.) And the nature of knowledge—what has been lost, forgotten, mistaken?—is an abiding theme. The study of the ancient world—of which so much has been lost, so much misunderstood— provokes some of the finest scenes in Arcadia and Rock ‘n’ Roll. But it is in The Invention where Stoppard’s fascination with knowledge of the

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classics is most sustained and most eloquent. Epistemology is anyway a core area of Greek philosophy, recurring in Plato’s dialogues (not least The Republic), and in The Invention, more than any other Stoppard play, epistemology becomes drama. The very title of The Invention of Love is a quintessential Stoppard paradox. Love is miraculous, eternal, universal, all-powerful—and yet it’s an inherited cultural artefact, something invented and refined by civilized man. The love that Housman feels for Moses Jackson, his friend since their days as contemporary Oxford undergraduates, is the overpowering emotion of his life—“Oh, Mo! Mo! I would have died for you but I never had the luck!”1—but it’s also a species of conformism. His colleague Chamberlain tells him about its characteristics without Housman’s telling him (“You want to be brothers-in-arms, to have him to yourself… to be shipwrecked together, (to) perform valiant deeds to earn his admiration, to save him from certain death, to die for him—to die in his arms, like a Spartan, kissed once upon the lips…”). 2 This attitude to love is a formula, going back to Plato. In the Jowett translation of Plato’s Symposium that Housman knew, Phaedrus says: I know not any greater blessing to a young man beginning life than a virtuous lover, or to the lover than a beloved youth. For the principle which ought to be the guide of men who would nobly live—that principle, I say, neither kindred, nor honour, nor wealth, nor any other motive is able to implant so well as love. Of what am I speaking? Of the sense of honour and dishonour, without which neither states nor individuals ever do any good or great work. And I say that a lover who is detected in doing any dishonourable act, or submitting, through cowardice, when any dishonour is done to him by another, will be more pained at being detected by his beloved than at being seen by his father, or by his companions, or by anyone else. The beloved, too, when he is seen in any disgraceful situation, has the same feeling about his lover. And if there were only some way of contriving that a state or an army should be made up of lovers and their loves, they would be the very best governors of their own city, abstaining from all dishonour; and emulating one another in honour; and when fighting at one another’s side, although a mere handful, they would overcome the world. For what lover would not choose rather to be seen by all mankind than by his beloved, either when abandoning his post, or throwing away his arms? He would be ready to die a thousand deaths rather than endure this. Or who would desert his beloved or fail him in the hour of danger? The veriest coward would become an inspired hero, equal to the bravest, at such a time; love would inspire him. That courage which,

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Even when Housman says to Jackson, “You’re half my life,” he’s reiterating a way of talking that goes back to the Greeks, in particular both to the poems of Theocritus (“Half my life lives in thine image”) 4 and Plato’s Symposium (with the famous theory advanced there by Aristophanes that humans seek to find their other halves). The Greeks and Romans were there first. The Invention keeps teasing us with the idea that at some point certain things may have been actually new. Who invented the love lyric? Who invented the attitude that love was slavery and war and catastrophe? Who invented the loved one? Who invented love as an emotion? As you proceed through the play, the answers keep changing, dizzyingly. In an early conversation, Housman, Jackson, and A.W. Pollard—Oxford undergraduates and close friends— are seen together, speaking of, among other things, Catullus (who, a younger contemporary of Julius Caesar, died around 54BC at about the age of thirty). Pollard tells Jackson, a scientist, that Catullus invented the love poem. Like everything else, like clocks and trousers and algebra, the love poem had to be invented. After millenniums of sex and centuries of poetry, the love-poem as understood by Shakespeare and Donne, and by Oxford undergraduates—the true-life confessions of the poet in love, immortalizing the mistress who is actually the cause of the poem—that was invented in Rome in the first century before Christ.5

(Jackson replies “Gosh”—the same response Pollard made a minute earlier when Jackson told him “Oh—love! You’re just ragging me because you’ve never kissed a girl…. Kissing girls is not like science, nor is it like sport. It is the third thing when you thought there were only two.”6) A central device of the play is that the dying Housman and the young one are played by separate actors: Stoppard names them AEH and Housman respectively. The senior one sometimes watches the junior, and in two important scenes he converses with him—though the younger man never realizes to whom he is speaking. In a later scene, young Housman tells elderly AEH that Propertius was “the first of the Latin love elegists.”7 His point is that, though Catullus came first as a love poet, Propertius was the first to make the elegiac couplet a standard genre for love poetry. (Virgil, Horace, Propertius, Tibullus, and Ovid, all born between 70 and 43 BC, were the foremost of the glorious generation of poets who added deathless lustre to the cultural regime of Octavian under the second

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Triumvirate and later when Octavian became the emperor Augustus. Virgil, Horace, and Propertius were all protégés of the celebrated patron Maecenas, who effectively became Octavian’s minister of culture. Propertius probably wrote in the years 25-19 BC. Tibullus and Ovid soon followed—though some sources suggest Tibullus, probably the older, preceded Propertius as a love elegist. Quintilian, writing in the next century, considered Ovid the last of the Latin love elegists.) But was Propertius first? It’s characteristic of a Stoppard play that there’s always another answer. When AEH meets Housman again in Act Two, he tells him how the first of the Roman love elegists, strictly speaking, was not Propertius but Cornelius Gallus (c.70-26BC), all of whose poetry was considered lost in Housman’s day.8 (A few lines have been discovered since.) AEH also makes here the larger point that this wave of Roman poets invented a new idea of love: “Oh yes, there’d been songs… valentines— mostly in Greek, often charming…. But the self-advertisement of farce and folly, love as abject slavery and all-out war—madness, disease, the whole catastrophe owned up to and written in the metre—no, that was new.”9 This reminds us of Horace’s Ligurinus poem (Carmina IV, 1) that recurs throughout the play; in the speech closing Act One, AEH discusses its view of love as warfare in the word “bella.”10 And though AEH does not say so, Housman also took knew that Horace took a comparable pride in invention. A Horace poem, mentioned in the play by both AEH and Housman, includes this boast: …of me it shall be told, That, grown from small to great, I first Of all men subtly wrought Aeolian strains to unison With our Italian thought.11

It is unclear, admittedly, why Horace (who probably began publishing poetry around 30BC) felt he had done something his predecessor Catullus had not. Meanwhile Virgil, a few years senior to Horace, had already been at work since 43BC in dactylic hexameters, the genre employed in Greek by Homer and other poets. Ovid, their junior but their contemporary, in due course became so much the master of love poetry that his collections include the Heroides (twenty-one poems, in elegiac couplets, each impersonating a celebrated mythological heroine afflicted by love), the Amores (three books about love, partly didactic, in elegiac couplets), and

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the Ars Amatoria (three more books in elegiac metre, taking an entirely didactic approach to love). And is it true that the Roman poets really invented the idea that love was “abject slavery and all-out war—madness, disease, the whole catastrophe”? Again and again the play refers to the precedent of the Greeks, whose view of erotic affliction seems far more substantial than AEH’s description as “songs, valentines… often charming.” AEH tells Housman of how Aeschylus introduced Eros into the love of Achilles for Patroclus. Charon, the ferryman of the dead, and AEH have already quoted Achilles in Aeschylus’s Myrmidons: “Does it mean nothing to you, the unblemished thighs I worshipped and the showers of kisses you had from me?”12 —an extraordinary statement of passion. In Act One, AEH quotes from Sophocles’s play The Loves of Achilles, “Love is like the ice held in the hand by children”13 and in Act Two, Oscar Wilde refers to the same line (“the piece of ice in the fist you cannot hold or let go”14). In the play’s final scene between Housman and Jackson, Jackson reads aloud the English rhyming couplets of “Blest as one of the gods is he” and asks Housman if he wrote it. Housman’s reply is “Well, Sappho, really, more or less.”15 Stoppard does not make Housman spell out that the most famous translation of this Sappho poem was in Latin by Catullus (“Ille mi par esse deo videtur”) 16, but this is certainly another moment when we feel the Greeks invented everything about love that the Romans later inherited. Perhaps most movingly of all, AEH quotes two lines of Greek verse in the play’s closing minutes. He does not say they are by Theocritus, but he then gives them in English: “When thou art kind I spend the day like a god; when thy face is turned aside it is very dark with me.”17 What’s original? (“Am I the first to have thought of this?” is a question that recurs throughout Arcadia.) In that last scene with Housman, Jackson goes on to ask, “Where’s the one again where I’m carving her name on trees?” Most English listeners might at once think he is referring to Orlando in Shakespeare’s As You Like It; but Housman replies, “Propertius.”18 Both Orlando and Propertius were using what was already a literary trope. Something that was no literary trope, however, was the Sacred Band of Thebes, the troop of one hundred and fifty pairs of male lovers who fought together and epitomized the heroic side of Greek male love, and they become another theme throughout The Invention. AEH in Act One19 quotes the most celebrated account of the Band from Plutarch20; Frank Harris, however unreliable an eyewitness, gives in Act Two testimony of the grave at Chaeronea where their bodies were found. Much work has

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been done on this area since Housman’s day; Stoppard’s version subtly catches how it must have struck Victorian sensibilities. On first acquaintance with several of Stoppard’s later plays, it often seems that he needed to show off how much homework he has done in his chosen area. Live long enough with them and the reverse proves true. Gradually, it becomes apparent that The Invention refers to, or draws from, many works it never mentions. One of these is surely John Addington Symonds’s book A Problem in Greek Ethics (1883), which has subsequently won renown as the earliest published defence of homosexuality in the English language and which Housman is most likely to have come to know. Symonds’s book begins with a study of how Greek literary treatments of the love of Achilles and Patroclus developed over the centuries; it then goes onto include, among other accounts from “semilegendary history,”21 this account by Plutarch. It also dwells on the Megara of Theognis22 —to whom AEH refers, telling Wilde “You should have lived in Megara when Theognis was writing and made his lover a song sung unto all posterity.”23 And Symonds discusses and quotes the same fragments of Aeschylus and Sophocles about the love of Achilles and Patroclus as AEH.24 When Symonds suggests that the attitude to same-sex male love in Greece was far more generous than the one that followed in Western civilization, he encourages us to feel that Greek civilization was a bygone ideal. Housman takes this up. When he tells Oscar Wilde “You should have lived in the Megara of Theognis,” we find another favourite Stoppard idea: the invocation of an idyllic lost realm (Arcadia and the Native State, in the plays that bear those names) that proves subject to dispute. One of the play’s many satisfying perfections is that it begins with the extraordinary image of its protagonist waiting for the ferryman Charon by the Styx, the river of the dead. A.E. Housman was a divided character— others before Stoppard remarked on how he separated the sides of him that were poet and scholar—but poet and scholar had both met in the Underworld long before he died. Housman the scholar often revisited the Styx and the Underworld; these zones occur, after all, in Homer, Aristophanes, Virgil, Horace, and other poets. The most celebrated vision of Charon, the Styx, and the Underworld is that of Virgil in Aeneid VI, which AEH is soon quoting: tendebantque manus ripae ulterioris amore25

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The shades of the dead “stretched out their hands in love of the further shore.” In Latin, the line has often been held up as one of poetry’s greatest; in his lecture “Poetry for Poetry’s Sake,” A.E. Bradley devotes a paragraph to its connection of sound and meaning and its resistance to English translation.26 Housman’s beloved Horace, the poet whom Housman and many others admired most of all, addresses the Underworld more than once, notably in the closing lines of “Diffugere nives.” The original, partly quoted in the play, is: infernis neque enim tenebris Diana pudicum liberat Hippolytum, nec Lethaea valet Theseus abrumpere caro vincula Pirithoo.”27

The young Housman of The Invention says the poem “goes through me like a spear.”28 The older Housman translated it, though leaving his version to be published posthumously.29 And the play’s great dialogue between the two Housmans includes the older one quoting the final lines of his translation: Night holds Hippolytus the pure of stain, Diana steads him nothing, he must stay; And Theseus leaves Pirithous in the chain The love of comrades cannot take away.30

Housman’s poems are famously deathlorn. He visited the Styx most specifically in this one: Crossing alone the nighted ferry With the one coin for fee. Whom, on the wharf of Lethe waiting, Count you to find? Not me. The brisk fond lack to fetch and carry, The true, sick-hearted slave, Expect him not in the just city And free land of the grave.31

It is always worth reading this poem with Randall Jarrell’s 1939 essay “Texts from Housman”32 as a companion; Jarrell greatly admired William Empson’s Seven Types of Ambiguity (1930)—and his essay, as a study of

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poetic ambiguity, out-Empsons Empson. The other Housman poem it addresses, equally concerned with a lover’s death, is this: .

It nods and curtseys and recovers When the wind blows above, The nettle on the graves of lovers That hanged themselves for love. The nettle nods, the wind blows over, The man, he does not move, The lover of the grave, the lover That hanged himself for love.33

Jarrell observes that “The lover of the grave” suggests not just that the lover was in the grave but that it was the grave—death—with which he was in love when he killed himself. The triumph at being in the grave, one with the grave, prepares us for the fact that it was the grave, not any living thing, that the lover loved, and hanged himself for…. For the lover to have killed himself for love of a living thing would have been senseless; but his love for her was only ostensible, concealing—from himself too—the ‘common wish for death,’ his real passion for the grave.34

I mention this point here because this death wish is likewise implied by both Virgil’s line “ripae ulterioris amore” and Stoppard’s play. The ghosts in Virgil feel “love” (“amore”) for the realm of the dead, the shore on the far side of the Styx. And the realm of the dead has long been the only place where AEH has expected to find fulfilment—he who, as the play reminds us, left instructions that, after his death, some of his most remarkable work was to be burnt. Interviewed about The Invention in 1998, Tom Stoppard remarked that all his plays really were about the same thing: “the man who was two men.”35 In Arcadia, he turns the duality into a joke about Ezra Chater. (Bernard: “Ezra wasn’t a botanist! He was a poet!” Hannah: “He was not much of either, but he was both.”36) Other two-for-one examples abound in Stoppard’s plays. It’s tempting to interpret Stoppard’s remark as casting light on the playwright and his divided natures: both Czech and English, autodidact and scholar, joker and philosopher, with lives both private and public. More important, however, is to recognize that pluralism and ambiguity are central to Stoppard’s thought. His plays—The Invention is a virtuoso example—abound in remarks or questions that have two or more

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different but equally valid answers, in puns and paradoxes, in multiple layers that tell us of the complexity of humanity. But the point about “the man who was two men” could only have come so explicitly to the surface of even this playwright’s mind at the time of his having recently made The Invention. No other Stoppard protagonist is so split—and therefore no other Stoppard play is more remarkable in terms of psychodrama. Housman kept his lives as poet and scholar so apart from each other that many writers before Stoppard spoke of him as a split being. C.O. Brink, one of his successors as Kennedy Professor of Latin at Cambridge, noted that, while the observer might see how Housman’s gifts as poet and scholar “came out of one root … a quite extraordinary sensitivity and alertness that allowed him to touch, as it were, the very quick of language,” Housman himself nonetheless “kept the two gifts as separate as possible.”37 John Berryman, writing of Housman the “absolutely marvellous minor poet” and “Housman the “great scholar,” remarked, “You are dealing with an absolute schizophrenic.”38 Stoppard makes the man’s duality a central point of the play—funnily so in the opening scene. Charon the boatman thinks he is waiting not for one person but two: “A poet and a scholar is what I was told… It sounded like two different people.” AEH replies wryly, “I know.”39 Stoppard gives us at least two other splits in A.E. Housman. Soon we see the younger man as well as the old, a device from which meanings flow. Housman and AEH embody the French motto “Si la jeunesse savait; si la vieillesse pouvait.” (“If youth knew; if old age could.”) Housman does not know he will never fulfil all his potential; AEH is more than resigned to it. But the play takes a long time before showing us another dualism: that between Housman and Oscar Wilde. Age does not separate these two; Wilde was less than five years senior, overlapping for a year (1877-78) at Oxford, where both read Classics. Wilde, however, fulfilled or pursued the homosexual desires that Housman merely suggested in his verse, and Wilde engaged with the modern world as Housman did not. In The Invention, Wilde serves the same function that Hamlet does in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead and Byron in Arcadia: mainly, he is a celebrated figure offstage of whom others speak, a force that makes the play’s central character or characters seem as if they themselves are only playing supporting roles, a Godot for whom they wait. Wilde and AEH do meet and converse here, though; and some of the play’s most ambiguous existential points arise from this one late meeting. AEH says:

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Your life is a terrible thing. A chronological error….You should have lived in Megara… and not now! when disavowal and endurance are in honour, and a nameless, luckless love has made notoriety your monument.40

Wilde, in his flamboyant reply, rejects Megara; he is proud to have lived when he did and to have lived in the age of “the New Drama, the New Novel, New Journalism, New Hedonism, New Paganism, even the New Woman. Where were you when all this was happening?” AEH replies, “At home.”41 Even more than Housman’s younger self, Wilde makes us ask how much the older Housman has lived at all. Ask but not answer. The word “monument” is a motif. In Act One, Housman asks AEH, “How am I to leave my mark?” and quotes the magnificent “Exegi monumentum” poem42 (“I have raised a monument”) in which Horace boasts he will live forever because his verse will endure —“a monument more lasting than bronze as Horace boasted, higher than the pyramids of kings, unyielding to wind and weather and the passage of time?”43 The older Housman takes time before he remarks, with wonderful irony, “If I had my time again, I would pay more regard to those poems of Horace which tell you you will not have your time again.”44 AEH continues: Life is brief and death kicks at the door impartially. Who knows how many tomorrows the gods will grant us? Now is the time, when you are young, to deck your hair with myrtle, to drink the best of the wine, to pluck the fruit. Seasons and moons renew themselves but neither noble name nor eloquence, no, nor righteous deeds will restore us.

This passage compresses the Epicurean sentiments that recur throughout Horace’s Odes and then settles down into “Night holds Hippolytus the pure of stain…” 45: the great close of Diffugere nives, the poem Housman translated. We are, in fact, addressing here a division in Horace’s thought as well as in Housman’s. Horace’s poem Diffugere nives recurs throughout the play. Housman in Act One says to AEH, “Horace must have been a god when he wrote ‘Diffugere nives’”46; in Act Two, a few years later, he speaks of it to Pollard and adds: Nobody makes it stick like Horace that you’re a long time dead—dust and shadow, and no good deeds, no eloquence, will bring you back. I think it’s the most beautiful poem in Latin or Greek there ever was; but in verse 15 Horace never wrote “dives” which is in all the texts and I’m pretty sure I know what he did write. Anyone who says “So what?” got left behind five

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So Housman has been applying himself to what he recognizes as a great cause after all. And here and in a few other points, he comes far closer to the Wildean spirit than when he and Wilde meet in person. Here he praises useless knowledge above useful knowledge. (The rejection of mere utility was a key tenet of Wildean aestheticism.) In Act One, when Pollard quotes Wilde’s famous line, “Oh, I have worked hard all day—in the morning I put in a comma, and in the afternoon I took it out again!,” Housman accepts it as a serious statement, not hearing it as a joke.48 And we know why he reacts that way. Not long before, he has told his younger self “There is truth and falsehood in a comma”49—and then illustrates precisely, with reference to a single Latin line in Catullus’s long poem The Marriage of Peleus and Thetis, 50 “By taking out a comma and putting it back in a different place, sense is made out of nonsense in a poem that has been read continuously since it was first misprinted four hundred years ago.”51 What Wilde presented as funny becomes, with Housman, work of passionate seriousness. When he says to Wilde, “The first conjecture I ever published was on Horace. Six years later I withdrew it,” 52 he sounds both far from Wilde’s spirit and close to it: far from Wilde’s flamboyance and humour, close to his fastidious aestheticism and absurdity. (The play touches53 only fleetingly on Housman’s most brilliantly absurd feat, the “Fragment from a Greek Tragedy” pastiche, which hilariously catches the locutions and conventions of Greek drama in the original.) Housman fulfilled himself neither as Moses Jackson’s lover nor as a definitive Propertius scholar. And yet Stoppard does not tell us that his life has been ill spent. One could argue that Wilde and AEH are two opposite kinds of tragic hero: the one suffers for having lived as he did, the other for not having lived at all. The play, though, offers them both as alternative figures of pathos rather than tragedy; and it’s worth noting how Stoppard continually makes Housman funny. We come closest to tragedy when Jackson brushes aside Housman’s love in their final scene, and when Housman, left alone and quoting his own poem, then says I shook his hand and tore my heart in sunder And went with half my life about my ways.54

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Half my life: again the echo of Theocritus and Plato. The Invention is, it’s important to recognize, an astonishingly compassionate account of homosexual repression. Whereas the fulfilled Wilde is all of a piece, the partly unfulfilled Housman is a split soul. Existential questions arise behind the play’s dualism. Which life is better? How is life best lived? And the play accumulates a great interest in the unlived life—which connects to the many aspects of loss in the play. Though Housman tells Jackson “You are half my life,” we can hardly miss that the other half is devoted to ancient texts—and that Housman is as passionate about the lost lines of Aeschylus as he is about Jackson. When Housman parts with Jackson that last time, we are as near to crisis as anywhere in the play. And the next speech for AEH begins “Am I asleep or awake?”55—which sounds like an expression of trauma. But the scene that follows is comedy, with scholars dealing with AEH’s excoriating remarks about their own poor scholarship. The change of tone is an extraordinary feat. Further themes in The Invention are the frustrations of translation and lost literature. AEH says to Charon, “I would join Sisyphus in Hades and gladly push my boulder up the slope if only, each time it rolled back down, I were given a line of Aeschylus.”56 As soon as the elderly AEH quotes four lines from his version of Horace’s Diffugere nives, the young Housman just remarks “—yes, it’s hopeless, isn’t it?”—a line to which Stoppard gives the expressive direction “cheerfully.”57 Many followers of Stoppard’s work will know that these issues are not exclusive to this play. An unforgettable scene in Arcadia begins with Thomasina translating to Septimus from Latin an account that (Septimus reveals) is the famous one of Cleopatra’s barge58: famous to us because of the version spoken in English verse by Enobarbus in Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra. But Enobarbus’s account—though Stoppard’s characters do not point this out—is remarkably close to the words used in Plutarch’s Greek life of Antony; Shakespeare, again, was unoriginal. And so we’re dealing with a translation of a translation of a translation (English from Latin from English from Greek.) Variants on this idea of literary recycling recur throughout The Invention of Love, two of them subtly implicit in quick succession in the final scene between the young Housman and his beloved Moses Jackson: Sappho wrote the poem we also associate with Catullus, Propertius wrote the image (writing the name of the beloved on trees) we associate with Shakespeare’s Orlando. In Arcadia, the mere mention of Cleopatra prompts Thomasina into a lament for the vast quantities of Greek literature that were lost when the

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library at Alexandria was burnt. Septimus’s consolatory reply is beautifully philosophical: what’s lost will be re-made. But Stoppard, who has said his sympathy is with Thomasina, 59 returns to the theme of lost classics in The Invention of Love. Housman to Pollard: Have you ever seen a cornfield after the reaping? Laid flat to stubble, and here and there, unaccountably, miraculously spared, a few stalks still upright. Why those? There is no reason. Ovid’s Medea, the Thyestes of Varius who was Virgil’s friend and considered by some his equal, the lost Aeschylus trilogy of the Trojan war… gathered to oblivion in sheaves, along with hundreds of Greek and Roman authors known only for fragments or their names alone—and here and there a cornstalk, a thistle, a poppy, still standing, but as to purpose, signifying nothing. 60

In an early scene in Rock ‘n’ Roll, Eleanor takes a student, Gillian, through a Sappho poem.61 We’re shown the painstaking hard work involved in understanding the words and constructions of another language, especially a dead one. We’re also shown the extraordinary penetration of Sappho’s thought, emerging from the Greek to speak of passion with an intensity and immediacy still remarkable today (“Eros is amachanon, he’s spirit as opposed to machinery. Sappho is making the distinction. He’s not naughty, he’s—what? Uncontrollable, Uncageable.”)62 Sappho’s distance from us and her nearness to us grow simultaneously. And this is Fragment 130 of Sappho. Fragments are a motif of The Invention. In one of its most bittersweet jokes, AEH tries to lead Charon into remembering lines from Aeschylus’s Myrmidons (one of his lost trilogy of the Trojan war), but the only bit Charon recalls—“Does it mean nothing to you, the unblemished thighs I worshipped and the showers of kisses you had from me?”63—is, of course, what has already come down to posterity as a fragment. AEH quotes64, and Wilde refers to65, the fragment from Sophocles’s Loves of Achilles—“Love is like the ice held in the hand by children.” What can the rest of these plays have been like? What matters, and what does not? The remark or question that has more answers than one—a device so dear to Stoppard—comes up more than once in the play’s use of the scholarly phrase “point of interest.” When Jackson, Pollard, and Housman have been talking about kissing girls and Catullus’s famous poem V about kisses and the invention of the love poem, Housman, reverting to a line in Catullus, suddenly remarks: “Basium is a point of interest. A kiss was always osculum until Catullus.” Pollard: “Now, Hous, concentrate—is that the point of interest in the kiss?” Housman: “Yes.”66 When AEH and Housman touch on Catullus 99,

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the scholarly AEH remarks, “vester for tuus is the point of interest there.” The idealistic young Housman, however, replies, “No, it isn’t! ... The point of interest is—what is virtue?, what is the good and the beautiful really and truly?”67 This seems like a rebuke to the pedantic, dryasdust, side of Housman. But AEH’s reply returns to the loves of Achilles and Patroclus, of Theseus and Pirithous, to the fragments of Aeschylus and Sophocles and the lost Pirithous of Euripides, and so, via Plato’s Phaedrus, to the Sacred Band of Chaeronea. And his speech begins: You think there is an answer: the lost autograph copy of life’s meaning, which we might recover from the corruptions which made it nonsense. But if there is no such copy, really and truly there is no answer.68

And the play lets us find no answer. In the superb speech that ends Act One, AEH begins with the high comedy of tutorial work in translation— comic because he seems so indifferent to the pain he causes his students. But the beauty and feeling in the Horace poem that he and they are translating69 brings him up short—or rather leads him into dream soliloquy: But, sed—cur heu, Ligurine, cur—but why, Ligurinus, alas why this unaccustomed tear trickling down my cheek?—why does my glib tongue stumble to silence as I speak? At night I hold you fast in my dreams, I run after you in the field of Mars, I follow you into the tumbling waters, and you show no pity.70

As he speaks, AEH sees (as does the audience) the athlete Moses Jackson running. And AEH takes twelve words (“I follow you into the tumbling waters, and you show no pity”) to translate Horace’s final five (“te per aquas, dure, volubilis”71). In particular, with “dure,” he takes five words to draw out its meaning (“and you show no pity”). Latin is famously concise, stunningly so here. (“Dure” is “hard” in the vocative—“you hard— muscularly solid, emotionally obdurate—man.” “Volubilis”—applied to “aquas,” “waters”—means “revolving,” “mutable.” The oxymoron achieved by juxtaposing these two adjectives is one of Horace’s characteristic masterstrokes.) Housman’s English version has, by contrast, an especially lingering quality. When faced with the force of Eros—amachanon—even his scholarship pales away beside feeling. And so this monologue leads the play back to the central emotion of Housman’s life: the amorous trauma that that divides him into two people. Yet in quoting Horace, his

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two halves—lover of Jackson, lover of Latin literature—are once again reconciled.

Notes 1. Tom Stoppard, The Invention of Love, Grove Press, New York p.5 2. Ibid, pp.64-5. 3. Plato, Symposium, translated by Benjamin Jowett, quoted by John Addington Symonds, A Problem in Greek Ethics—Studies in Sexual Inversion, University Press of the Pacific, Honolulu, Hawaii, reprinted from the 1928 edition, section VII, p. 9. 4. Symonds, op. cit., p. 20. Symonds does not identify this as Theocritus, but subsequent scholars have identified it as his poem 29 or as from the Paidika attributed to him (“probably an Aeolian poem of much older date” http://rictornorton.co.uk/symonds/greek.htm). 5. The Invention, p, 13. 6. Ibid, p.11. 7. Ibid, p. 32. 8. Ibid pp. 98-99. 9. Ibid, pp. 98-99. 10. Ibid, pp.47-48. 11. Horace, Carmina III, 30, as translated in 1869 by British Prime Minister W.E. Gladstone. Horace in English, edited by D.S. Carne-Ross and Kenneth Hayes with an introduction by D.S. Carne-Ross, Penguin, UK, 1996, pp.229-30. 12. The Invention, p.28. 13. Ibid. p.43 14. Ibid, p.95. 15. Ibid, p.73. 16. Catullus, LI. 17. Symonds, op. cit, p.20. This is a continuation of the same poem cited in note 4. 18. The Invention, pp. 73-4. 19. Ibid. p.42. 20. Plutarch, Pelopidas, 18, quoted by Symonds, IX, pp.24-25, 35, 77. 21. Symonds, IX, p. 24 22. Ibid, pp. 37ff. 23. The Invention, p. 96 24. Symonds, XII, pp.43-5. 25. The Invention, pp. 5, 100. Virgil, Aeneid VI, l.314. 26. A.E. Bradley, Oxford Lectures on Poetry, Macmillan and Co. London, 1930, pp.20-1. 27. Horace, Carmina, IV, 7, ll. 25-28. Quoted in The Invention, pp. 5, 39. 28. The Invention, p. 71. 29. A.E. Housman, More Poems V, “The snows are fled away.” 30. The Invention, p.39

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31. Housman, More Poems, XXIII. 32. Randall Jarrell, Kipling, Auden, & Co., Carcanet Press, UK, 1981, pp.20-8. 33. A.E. Housman, A Shropshire Lad XVI. 34. Jarrell, op. cit, p. 27. 35. Stoppard, interview with Alastair Macaulay, The Financial Times, “The man who was two men,” October 1998. 36. Stoppard, Arcadia, Faber and Faber, UK, 1983, p.89. 37. C.O. Brink, quoted by Christopher Ricks, Introduction, A.E. Housman, Collected Poems and Selected Prose, Penguin, 1989, p. 7. 38. John Berryman, quoted by Ricks, ibid, p.8. 39. The Invention, p.2 40. Ibid, p.96. 41. Ibid, pp. 96-7. 42. Horace, Carmina, III, 30. 43. The Invention, p. 35. 44. Ibid, p. 39. 45. Ibid, p. 39. 46. Ibid, p. 40. 47. Ibid, p. 71. “Dives,” meaning “rich” and applied to Tullus, is still, however, given in most texts. But Housman’s translation avoids “rich,” translating lines 1416 as Come we where Tullus and good Ancus are, And good Aeneas, we are dust and dreams. James Michie (The Odes of Horace, Penguin, UK, 1964, p.243) has We, who, when once we have gone Downwards to join rich Tullus and Ancus and father Aeneas, Crumble to shadow and dust. (ll. 14-16) Guy Lee (Horace, Odes and Carmen Saeculare, with an English version in the original metres, published Francis Cairns, UK, 1998, p.177) substitutes “pius” for “pater” (about “Aeneas”) and writes: We having gone down to join Aeneas the true-hearted and millionaire Tullus and Ancus, Then are but dust and a shade.” (11.14-16) 48. Ibid, p. 47. 49. Ibid, p. 37. 50. Catullus LXIV, l. 324. “Emathiae tuatmen, Opis carissime nato.” Housman’s emendation is acknowledged in the notes to the 1958 Oxford Classical Texts edition. 51. The Invention, p. 38. 52. Ibid, p. 95 53. Housman, “Fragment of a Greek Tragedy,” first published in The Bromgrovian, 8 June, 1883 and reprinted several times in Housman’s lifetime. See A.E. Housman, Collected Poems and Selected Prose, Penguin, UK, 1989, pp. 236-8. Its opening line, “O suitably attired in leather boots” is referred to by AEH in his last long monologue, The Invention, p.101.

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54. Housman, Additional Poems, VII. Quoted in The Invention, p. 78. 55. The Invention, p. 78 56. Ibid, p. 27. 57. Ibid, p. 41. 58. Stoppard, Arcadia, Scene Three, pp. 35-9. 59. Stoppard, 1998 interview with Alastair Macaulay. 60. The Invention, pp. 71-72. 61. Stoppard, Rock ‘n’ Roll, Faber and Faber, 2006, pp. 22-23. 62. Ibid, p. 23. 63. The Invention, p. 28. 64. Ibid, p. 43. 65. Ibid, p.95. 66. Ibid, p. 13. 67. Ibid, p. 41. 68. Ibid, p. 41. 69. Horace, Carmina IV, 1. 70. The Invention, p. 49. 71. Horace, op. cit., l. 40.

Works Cited Bradley, A.E. Oxford Lectures on Poetry. London: Macmillan and Co., 1930. Carne-Ross, D.S., and Kenneth Hayes, eds., Horace in English. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1996. Catullus, Gaius Valerius. Carmina. Edited by Sir Roger Mynors. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1958. Housman, A.E. Collected Poems and Selected Prose. Edited by Christopher Ricks. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1989. Jarrell, Randall. Kipling, Auden, & Co. Manchester: Carcanet, 1981. Lee, Guy, ed. Horace. Odes and Carmen Saeculare, with an English version in the original metres. London: Francis Cairns, 1998. Macaulay, Alastair. “The man who was two men.” The Financial Times, October 31/November 1, 1998. Michie, James, ed. The Odes of Horace. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1964. Plato. Symposium. Translated by Benjamin Jowett. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1956. Stoppard, Tom. Arcadia. London: Faber and Faber, 1983. —. The Invention of Love. New York: Grove, 1998. —. Rock ‘n’ Roll. London: Faber and Faber, 2006 Symonds, John Addington. A Problem in Greek Ethics—Studies in Sexual Inversion. Honolulu: UP of the Pacific, 2002.

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—. “A Problem in Greek Ethics.” In the John Addington Symonds Pages, Compiled by Rictor Norton. 1997. http://rictornorton.co.uk/symonds/greek.htm

STOPPARD’S SHAKESPEARE: COLLABORATION AND REVISION MICHAEL DEAN

Tom Stoppard has long held a strong association with Shakespeare from his early career as a journalist and dramatic critic up to his current career as playwright and Hollywood writer. Moreover, much of his early success is largely due to his Shakespeare adaptation, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead (R & GAD), a play that garnered a poor reception among critics but would eventually be viewed as what Ronald Bryden described as “the most brilliant debut by a young playwright since John Arden.”1 While Stoppard has never been solely defined as a Shakespearian writer, his outlook and participation in contemporary drama owe a great deal to his involvement with arguably the most famous playwright in history. From his connection with Shakespeare, Stoppard navigates the necessary tension between a work of performance and its critical meaning, and while Stoppard continually endeavours to assert his own brand of authorial agency, his work must necessarily draw from quintessential aspects of the human experience and in doing so connect with his intellectual predecessors. Consequently, Stoppard’s relationship with Shakespeare demonstrates how an authentic expression of authorial intent is illusory and remains just beyond the stage and screen. But in providing those gaps, the writer entices future authors into successive acts of innovation and reinterpretation. “Is it true what they say about Shakespeare?” Tom Stoppard’s 1980 lecture to the International Shakespeare Association in Hamburg, attempts to isolate and define the intrinsic qualities of Shakespearean drama that ensure the dramatist’s long-lasting fame and popularity. This is an ironic goal for a dramatist so well known for his attempts to avoid being pinned down, so it should come as no surprise that, in typical fashion, Stoppard avoids clearly defining “it” for his audience. Instead, Stoppard points to the inherent struggle of realizing a work through performance and interpreting its meaning. In the case of Shakespeare, literary critics have always tried to isolate his distilled essence, at times by examining his

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identity—he was either the universal voice of humanity, a closeted homosexual genius, a brilliant man who’s really a woman, or even a playwright who’s not himself—at times by examining the textual discrepancies inherent in the work of one who never published his own drama, and at others adapting the Bard’s work through performance. As both a playwright and a critic, Stoppard stands somewhat outside this tradition; consequently, his remark that he was approaching the International Shakespeare Association as a man “stand[ing] before [them] wearing two hats” is a tacit admission of Stoppard’s unique role in Shakespeare studies.2 Nevertheless, the fact that Shakespeare is an inscrutable, multifaceted phenomenon of English drama has not stopped the critical world from attempting to distil the quintessential spirit of his literary work. Rather than declare definitively that one view trumps all others, the scholarly community has hedged him in, pin-pointing a theoretical place where Shakespeare must be in relation to where he isn’t. Similarly, Stoppard never offered to define Shakespeare for his Hamburg audience. Instead, he simply aimed “to parade some of [his] predilections before [them] in the hope that occasionally one of [his observations would] suddenly reveal itself to be a genuine opinion”3. Accepting his modesty as a form of scholarly caution, Stoppard offers a number of interesting insights not only on how Shakespeare should be received, but also on the extent that a production should revise or modify what is considered textually sacrosanct. In his lecture, Stoppard admits that two of his more memorable experiences with Shakespeare were not textual, but productions that reimagined the plays through inventive performance and staging. In one instance, Stoppard describes how The Tempest at Worcester College featured an Ariel who “ran skipping across the water [of a lake], just touching it… and as he disappeared… a firework, a rocket, zoomed into the air in a shower of sparks and blacked out in the heavens.”4 The other example, Peter Brook’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Took place in a high white-walled space, I might call it a gymnasium; it was really like the inside of a very large white circular hat-box. There was a moment in the production which found Titania sitting on a large red feather boa hanging from the flies on invisible wire, while below her, walking about on twelve-foot stilts, Puck, twelve feet in the air against that white wall, staggered about on his stilts, while the earthlings searched high and low for the playful and whimsical spirit that was interfering with their little lives.5

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For Stoppard, these performances represent the confluence of visual storytelling and the thematic content of the plays they adapted. In the case of Brook’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the peculiar staging clarifies the relationship between the “earthlings” and the “playful and whimsical spirit[s]” that are suspended above them. An audience member familiar with the major themes of the play would experience them redoubled in the drama playing out on stage, and while the language and narrative structure might be directly lifted from the text, the staging and performance act less as a reinterpretation and more as an extension of the spirit of the original. The visual metaphor acts as an innovation on the original work, removing the audience from something traditional or authentic by contracting their expectations. Normal expectations of Shakespearian performance are supplanted in favour of a bolder, more disruptive form of interpretation. Paradoxically, the act of disrupting the nominal authentic experience has a way of drawing the observer back to the subtext of the original work. If staging can represent an extension of the original, then playwrights may claim a great deal of leeway in their own productions of Shakespeare’s plays. For Stoppard, this is a positive, as someone “for whom Shakespeare means the living theatre … celebrate[s] the writer by celebrating his interpreters.”6 From this perspective, Shakespeare does not represent a singular artistic expression, but instead embodies a successive chain of redevelopment and contextualization, a process we can also trace in Stoppard’s drama. In Arcadia and the Invention of Love, for example, the theme of the continual march, one in which intellectuals of an age must gather the pieces of the past and move forward into new expressive forms, parallels the way in which Stoppard receives Shakespeare. The process here is not linear, but cyclical. As Septimus Hodge explains in Arcadia, “The missing plays of Sophocles will turn up piece by piece, or be written again in another language,” while “mathematical discoveries glimpsed and lost to view will turn up piece by piece.”7 Hodge exemplifies borrowing from the old to produce the new, all the while content that discovery is inevitable, that products of genius will see themselves unearthed, a function of the continued production of written art. Hodge’s argument, however, downplays the importance of individual acts of creation. Sophocles can offer little that future generations cannot discover through their own efforts, and comparatively, William Shakespeare can provide little for a Tom Stoppard. But unlike his characters, Stoppard is unwilling to entirely dispense with the importance of the author. He believes that Shakespeare possesses an undeniably unique gift. In the closing lines of the Hamburg lecture, Stoppard explains:

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Glendower boasts: “I can call spirits from the vasty deep.” And he earns the wonderful riposte: “Why, so can I, or so can any man; but will they come when you do call for them?” Those lines always put me in mind of Shakespeare the man, the playwright, because he, too, calls spirits up from the vasty deep, spirits which manifest themselves into a paradigm of human emotion, action, and expression, and when he calls them up they come.8

Undoubtedly, Stoppard’s description puts him at odds with Hodge’s belief in the universality of expression. On the one hand, a work can never be tied down to the original intentions of its author. On the other hand, a work can never be disconnected from the mystique and influences of its creator. The role of drama, from Stoppard’s perspective, exists in the nebulous space between performance and author. Thus, it is entirely fitting that Stoppard views Shakespeare as something more akin to an elemental force, something that might be known theoretically or felt intuitively when the right conditions are met, but which is indefinable under most circumstances. Stoppard, a fellow practitioner of the arts, seeks nothing more than to call forth the same spirits as Shakespeare, a goal he reaches over the course of his career. Along these interpretive lines, I view Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead not as an individual play that features elements of Hamlet, but rather as an extensive series of staging changes to the latter. As Stoppard describes, “Hamlet I suppose is the most famous play in any language, it is part of a sort of common mythology.”9 This by no means excludes Stoppard’s vital involvement with the project, though. His decisions to shift the narrative focus away from the protagonist and to thrust minor characters into the spotlight is a unique deviation from the parent work. Nevertheless, Stoppard works collaboratively with the patterns set down by Shakespeare. New characters emerge and peculiar side conversations are added, but the central story, Hamlet’s apparent madness and the eventual death of Ros and Guil, are unarguably Shakespearean in spirit.

R & GAD—Staging and Themes In contrast to the inspirational plays that Stoppard described in his Hamburg lecture, the staging of R & GAD can be best termed as minimalistic. At times the props, costumes, and staging are quite extensive, but nevertheless, Stoppard’s original concept stressed dialogue and performance over the physical space of the stage. In this fashion, Stoppard’s interpretation of Hamlet follows what has previously been seen

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as the markings of Shakespearean drama. The environment and setting, for example, are aspects conjured by the action of narrative and description. As the Prologue of Henry V offers, “let us, ciphers to this great account,/ On your imaginary forces work” (I.i.17-18).10 Consequently, any action on behalf of the players becomes all the more intimate because of its direct connection to the audience, a border town between the reality of the performance and the realms of imagination. But Stoppard’s choice to limit the décor of his play has less to do with a purity of vision than it does with conforming to conventions of visual storytelling. As the stage directions suggest at the opening of the play, “Guil gets up but has nowhere to go. He spins another coin over his shoulder without looking at it, his attention being directed at his environment or the lack of it.”11 The absence of surroundings underscores Ros and Guil’s confinement to their roles in Hamlet and embellishes the role of the props that do exist. The famous flipped coin becomes a chilling focal point for Guil as he lets his mind contemplate the void around him. The central tension of the play—whether Ros and Guil avoid their fates— revolves around their ability to step off the stage and escape the narrative. The two are prevented from doing so because they have nowhere else to go. Images of confinement are portrayed differently in the film version of Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead. An endless void is replaced with a craggy and featureless landscape. The two protagonists ride on horseback, but Guil still warily eyes his surroundings as if searching for some meaning in them. Even the castle in Elsinore consists of little more than vacant rooms with painted reliefs and flat statuary. In contrast to the stage version, Stoppard’s film offers the illusion of setting, only to strip it of value. Accordingly, Ros and Guil are never invited to move beyond the confines of the Hamlet plot. When left to their own devices, they exhibit no interest other than contemplating the task at hand, and the mysterious absence of that urge haunts the landscape. This absence of meaning—simultaneously the “spell” and “scientific phenomenon” according to Guil—represents the authorial presence of Shakespeare.12 When Stoppard controls the action of the play, Ros and Guil posture, but offer no narrative agency. When Hamlet or Claudius enters, the opportunity is lost. Victor Cahn describes the situation best when he notes that “the two are but spectators at a performance of Hamlet, given no information and expected somehow to discern the secret of Hamlet’s character and the significance of his actions.”13 Except that Stoppard’s spectators are occasionally swept up into the action, capable of seamlessly blending in with the play, only to be dropped out of the narrative once again and left to puzzle over what just happened. Cahn’s

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assertion that Ros and Guil are meant to be spectators of Hamlet suggests that Stoppard wishes to reveal the futility of dramatic interpretation. When the film focuses attention on Stoppard’s narrative, though, the audience is treated to the witty, sometimes nonsensical exchange of two men, far removed from plights of their native story. Ros and Guil exhibit strange anachronisms, a knowledge of concepts far beyond their schooling in Wittenberg. They are as displaced in Stoppard’s story as they are from Shakespeare’s. Moreover, as the film showcases, Ros is capable of making peculiar leaps in scientific discoveries that are immediately lost when Guil redirects his attention. Unlike Arcadia, the film version of R & GAD suggests that great discoveries are made all the time, but also that no one ever knows because those intellectual advancements are lost to the whims of chance. In this way, Stoppard cannot help but wonder what unknown circumstances rise and fall just beyond the edge of our perception. In terms of Stoppard’s relationship with Shakespeare, the narrative gaps in R & GAD furnish Stoppard with an opportunity to explore what unknowable mysteries have played out in Hamlet. While Hamlet can be described as a revenge plot complicated by the workings of a Renaissance mind-set, the plot occurring behind the scenes is of vital importance.14 That is, the hidden story of Ros and Guil explains what happens when inquisitive and worthy people are caught up in something they cannot understand. How humanity understands its role in the universe, and how science, philosophy, and art have prepared humanity for facing the terminus of its existence defines the struggles of Hamlet as well as Ros and Guil. Eventually, though, both the shown and hidden narratives arrive at the place where man and nature, seemingly separate, [then] meet in the final shadowy mystery of ecstasy, violence, and silence.15 For Hamlet, his death is the culmination of a series of chained events and choices. His struggle has been of principle interest to Western society as an emblem of the philosopher-poet, facing death as “the undiscovered country from whose bourn/No traveller returns. (Hamlet III.i.81-82)16

By contrast, Stoppard criticizes that aggrandizing view of death with the example of the Player: The TRAGEDIANS watch the PLAYER die: they watch with some interest. The PLAYER finally lies still. A short moment of silence. Then the

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Stoppard’s Shakespeare: Collaboration and Revision TRAGEDIANS start to applaud with genuine admiration. The PLAYER stands up, brushing himself down. PLAYER (modestly). Oh, come, come, gentlemen—no flattery—it was merely competent —17

The heroic moment of Hamlet’s death is recreated by proxy—the apparent murderer, Guil, providing the soliloquy and the death throes provided by the enthusiastic Player—as an audience looks on with full approval. The Player’s faux modesty sharply contrasts the building desperation in Guil, who struggles to understand why the Tragedians treat death so flippantly. Guil’s struggle for an escape marks Stoppard’s preoccupation with interpretive liberty. As Neil Sammells explains, “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead asserts itself within the design of Hamlet; it probes the possibility of freedom while acknowledging the fact of constraint.”18 This situation relates to Stoppard’s desire to break free from the “common mythology” of Hamlet, wherein the implied audience attempts to understand the play’s inscrutable nature. Nevertheless, in Stoppard’s attempt at “prob[ing] the possibility of freedom,” he inevitably reasserts Shakespeare’s unassailable expression of death and finality. Guil struggles with the Tragedians treatment of death because Guil sees death as neither performance nor as a meaningful transformation. Instead, his viewpoint conforms with Absurdist values, where “human life is not sacred, and the world is insensible to death.”19 Guil wants fervently to convince the Tragedians that their glib attitudes are at the heart of the world’s problems and that death should not be falsified. Nevertheless, when trying to articulate a true experience of death, he fails to find appropriate words of expression. Guil (tired, drained, but still an edge of impatience; over the mime). No… no… not for us, not like that. Dying is not romantic, and death is not a game which will soon be over… Death is not anything… death is not… It’s the absence of presence, nothing more… the endless time of never coming back… a gap you can’t see, and when the wind blows through, it makes no sound…20

If Hamlet represents the poetic death where “ecstasy, violence, and silence” coalesce, then Guil upholds the crueller, more jaded belief in a view of death stripped of artistic or religious comfort. Death is not a place or a state of being; it is an absence, a void beyond the perceivable world and one that can be questioned but never understood. The fact that the Tragedians falsify and commercialize a universal truth is abhorrent while

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Ros and Guil face the ends of their respective ropes. The “climactic carnage, by poison and steel” has its appeal for everyone except for the characters on the receiving end.21 However, at the end of the play, Guil offers false hope in his contention that “there must have been a moment, at the beginning, where we could have said—no.”22 The belief being that perhaps if Ros and Guil had ignored the messenger that sent for them (or unlocked the mental turmoil of their troubled friend Hamlet) they might have escaped their death in England. But for the time being, he consoles himself with the thought that they’ll “know better next time.”23 This cryptic line seemingly undercuts Guil’s earlier description of death as the “endless time of never coming back” and even suggests that their lives are more cyclical or artificial than previously argued. On one hand, Guil’s comment reinforces the construct of the performance they inhabit, calling to attention the fact that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern have died many times in the countless productions of Hamlet. On the other hand, Guil voices the kind of gallows humour than infuses many of Stoppard’s works. Some critics have interpreted the death scene as an instance where Stoppard finally reconnects with the intentions of the Shakespearean drama. William Gruber argues that this moment shows where Stoppard “is redefining and reasserting [the story’s] tragic validity” and goes on to explain that “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead proves that Shakespeare had it right after all.”24 Stoppard’s attempts to circumnavigate the Shakespearian drama only manage to reinforce its underlining themes. Ros and Guil are swept away into nothingness and the stage is overtaken with the culminating scene of Hamlet story arch. Gruber suggests that Stoppard—along with Shakespeare—view Ros and Guil as an intriguing, but unenviable footnote in a greater drama. Letting them die would offer “visible proof that they had lived” and “convince an audience of their dramatic substance.”25 As I will explore, Stoppard’s play can go far afield, but it can never break from Shakespeare’s overall structure.

R & GAD—Narrative Integrity In the Giles Gordon interview, Stoppard explains that Ros and Guil are “more than just bit players in another play. There are certain things which they bring on with them, particularly the fact that they end up dead without really, as far as any textual evidence goes, knowing why.”26 Stoppard’s attention to the “textual evidence” shows a dedicated aim for accuracy and reveals how Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead is not separate from Hamlet, but merely an extension of it.

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As a result, critics such as Helene Keyssar-Franke have argued that the play is both derivative in theme and concept and merely a recasting of Hamlet in Absurdist theatre. “The reasons for the effectiveness of Stoppard’s play seem[s] elusive,” Keyssar-Franke notes, adding, “the script is, after all, blatantly derivative, not only in its reliance for frame on Hamlet, but in its collage of themes and theatrical devices so clearly drawn from an assortment of major modern playwrights.”27 But while Stoppard admittedly shares commonalities with other playwrights of his generation, Keyssar-Franke’s observation avoids Stoppard’s intentional use of Shakespeare, not as a framing device as previously described, but as a living narrative to conceptualize. In an interview with G. Gordon, Stoppard confesses that “the play Hamlet and the characters Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are the only play and the only characters on which you could write my kind of play. Being asked politely,” he adds, “whether I will write about the messenger in Oedipus Rex… misses the point.”28 In this way, the appropriation of Hamlet is far from arbitrary, and the derivative nature of R & GAD is a necessary by-product of a choice. Throughout the narrative of R & GAD, Shakespeare’s play is always given authority over the additional elements added by Stoppard. Ros and Guil, despite their seamless transition from Stoppard’s plot to Shakespeare’s, are overwhelmed by what’s happening and are trying their best to keep up. After Ros and Guil have agreed to investigate Hamlet for Claudius and Gertrude, the two are left to ruminate over their roles in the larger scheme. Ros lamely states, “I want to go home,” and Guil chides him, “Don’t let them confuse you.”29 The two must persist in their endeavour to “draw [Hamlet] on to pleasures—glean what afflicts him” because Rosencrantz and Guildenstern must do so.30 Stoppard must work within the tight confines of Shakespeare’s narrative to faithfully tell the story of two helpless rubes caught in a drama beyond their measure. To deviate from that pattern would be to overwrite Shakespeare rather than participate in his tradition.

Shakespeare in Love In Shakespeare in Love, Stoppard transcends collaboration with Shakespeare’s drama and instead opts to re-appropriate the semi-mythic playwright as a character of unique design. Stoppard’s comfort with convincingly portraying a creatively frustrated, but whimsically eccentric, Shakespeare reveals Stoppard’s growth as an older writer. As Katherine Kelly notes in the introduction to the Cambridge Companion to Tom Stoppard, “his later work has not only extended his early preoccupation

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with memory, uncertainty, and ethics but also deepened the sense of human consequence growing from ethical conflict and intellectual doubt.”31 While film reviewers have categorized Shakespeare in Love as a romantic comedy, Stoppard’s take on the genre poses questions about the nature of inspiration and the relationship between authorship and performance. Nevertheless, examining Shakespeare in Love as a purely Stoppardian work is challenging in that Stoppard—who directed the film adaptation of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead—assumed a more collaborative role, working with individuals such as director John Madden and co-writer Marc Norman. At the risk of overshadowing the accomplishments of other individuals at play, Shakespeare in Love is still a Stoppardian reinterpretation of Shakespearean drama and a continuation of his work in R & GAD. While Stoppard might not have been responsible for every creative choice in the film, the film itself exhibits a creative style compatible with Stoppard’s previous work. Thus, just as any theatrical production is tempered by actors, producers, stage hands, and other critical roles, a film follows a similar if not more involved pattern.

Shakespeare in Love—Staging and Themes The staging of Shakespeare in Love is particularly interesting when contrasted with the minimalist style of the film version of R & GAD. The opening sequence features a vacant Rose Theatre in a rolling continuous shot that seems both nostalgic and whimsical. Unlike the drab and lifeless sets of R & GAD, the environment of Shakespeare in Love is sunlit and welcoming, a historical space that has been home to the kind of magic that an audience experiences in the theatre. Props have been left scattered about the stage, and a discarded playbill—“the Lamentable Tragedie of the Moneylender Revenged”—reinforces the feeling of being transposed into another place and time, but also foreshadows the immediate conflict in the film.32 This opening sequence captures the essence of visual storytelling in that it delivers—through no overt device—the central motifs of the film, the highly romanticized world of drama juxtaposed with the harsh realities of life (and the entertainment business). As the film continues, the viewer finds Philip Henslowe—Geoffrey Rush—bound with his feet suspended over a fire and living out the tragic consequences of the “Moneylender Revenged.” The discomfort of hearing Henslowe’s anguished cries is quickly dispelled when Stoppard’s witty dialogue interjects itself. The immortal Shakespeare is unknowingly being drafted to write his latest masterpiece, Romeo and Ethel, the Pirate’s

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Daughter. When being pressed for information on the new play, Henslowe replies, “It’s a crowd tickler… mistaken identities, shipwreck, a bit with a dog, and love triumphant.”33 But while the title is a clear departure from anything Shakespearean, the elements that Henslowe promises are not. Shakespeare was always interested in pleasing crowds, whether affluent patrons or dirt-covered groundlings. Nevertheless, the dialogue sharply contrasts the implied audience’s expectations concerning who Shakespeare is and the longstanding tradition concerning his immortal genius. The disconnect between expectation and fictionalized reality demonstrates Shakespeare’s inherent humanity. In other words, the audience is reminded that Shakespeare is not so different from the struggling playwright today. Continuing with this comparison, later moments in the film toy with the relationship between the entertainment industry and the gritty reality hidden behind a painted facade. Business deals are negotiated while a man has sex. Playwrights collaborate over drinks and actors enforce their own ideas on the plays. During their many rehearsals, Shakespeare and Viola act out a scene of endearing romance only to slip behind the stage an instant later for a passionate make out session. These elements coincide with Stoppard’s assertion that the dramatic world is an altogether messy place and that the textual purity of a play may actually be the result of random factors. As Stoppard explains, “the precise content of a scene is liable to be influenced by the physical limits of a stage, the fire regulations in British theatres, the difficulty of changing the set from a room to a car park and back again.”34 Even though Stoppard primarily refers to the technical limitations of putting on a play, he affirms the fact that stagecraft is a messy affair, one at the mercy of a variety of forces. This perfect storm of creative chaos places Shakespeare at the centre of an evolving drama. Stage and off-stage blend into a singular space as the lines from Romeo and Juliet intertwine with Shakespeare and Viola’s pillow talk. The two make love simultaneously as the actors practice the unfinished production, and from the standpoint of the film’s staging, the story’s implicit tension arises from the collapsed boundaries between fancy and actuality. Shakespeare yearns for the fulfilment of a life of poetry, but he is powerless to influence the contextual restrictions of his time. Thus, his creative works have less to do with imaginative freedom than they do with the constraints imposed on him. Admittedly, however, Stoppard’s characterization of Shakespeare in the film problematizes the depiction found in the Hamburg lecture. Shakespeare in Love reveals the intense pressures of a creative life, and

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ultimately, the powerlessness of the author to foster significant change in the world around him. On one occasion, Stoppard explained: I think that art ought to involve itself in contemporary social and political history as much as anything else, but I find it deeply embarrassing when large claims are made for such an involvement: when, because art takes notice of something important, it’s claimed that the art is important. It’s not. We are talking about marginalia—the top tiny fraction of the whole edifice. When Auden said his poetry didn’t save one Jew from the gas chamber, he’d said it all.35

The inability of the artist to affect social, political, or even personal changes in the world bites into the theatrical magic of the performance. As seen with the closing images of Viola washed ashore on some remote and exotic island, Shakespeare’s ability to cope with his life comes in the form of a fantasy. The tragedy of Romeo and Juliet reflects the tragedy of his forcefully divided love with Viola, and the comedy of Twelfth Night is a false construct used to help him cope with his loss. To the extent that Shakespeare in Love represents a less mythologized version of the poet, the film primarily seeks to show how human anxieties and emotion impact theatrical performance. As noted by Nicholls, “Shakespeare in Love presents a group of notable stage personalities trying to put on a play, as opposed to simply playing it effortlessly before us.”36 The enjoyment of the film comes from not—as Nicholls continues —allowing the audience “the opportunity of dreaming itself into the company of players,” but by also allowing the audience an intimate view into the creative process, one that is marked by constant revision and reinterpretation.37 What starts off as a ridiculous and lowbrow play, Romeo and Ethel, the Pirate’s Daughter, becomes the most well-known tragedy in the world. By contrast, Queen Elizabeth I’s appearance in the film demonstrates a capacity for understanding the power of drama while at the same time acknowledging its limitations. “As a female monarch,” argues Nicholls, “she plays one role twice over, denying freedom as a private person and as a woman.”38 The performance that Elizabeth maintains to assure her power constrains her freedom in society but also ensures that she can manipulate others who inhabit the same social system. As shown in the film, when Elizabeth confronts Viola she notes that “yes, the illusion is remarkable” and explains that the Queen would not be present for any indecent performance; hence, to avoid an undesirable situation with Viola while society maintains the ruse that “Thomas Kent” is a boy actor to

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preserve the status quo. These situations harken back to Stoppard’s earlier work, R & GAD, where the veneer of drama falls short of authentic truth. Though Shakespeare in Love appears considerably more light-hearted than R & GAD, the film still reasserts a sense of existential confinement. When leaving, Elizabeth declares that “those whom God has joined in marriage not even I can split asunder.” Viola may have found temporary respite in the liminal space of the theatre, but the immutable facts of life remain. 39 “Master Kent,” she continues, “Lord Wessex, as I foretold, has lost his wife in the playhouse. Go make your farewell and send her out. It’s time to settle accounts.” 40 For the film, “settl[ing] accounts” relates to the world where the hard realities of death, loss, and alienation, cannot be bypassed, either through artistic expression or the intellectual pursuits of science. In the end, humanity is left in the same position as Guil in R & GAD, awaiting an unavoidable death and wondering what could have been done to change it.

Conclusion Stoppard has always enjoyed an evolving relationship with Shakespeare. While Stoppard undoubtedly counts Shakespeare as one of his greatest inspirations, his perspective oscillates between collaboration and stark revision. Universal themes such as human mortality, the duplicity of art and performance, as well as the restrictions of the creative process, have been expanded and explored from Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead through Shakespeare in Love. Often coined the “modern-day Shakespeare,” Stoppard possesses an almost singular mastery of the comedic and macabre, offering up strange experiences, twisted turns of fate, and bits with dogs in them as evidence of the peculiarities of existence. If Stoppard still holds to belief that Shakespeare’s work calls up the spirits from the vasty deep, then the haunting and contemplative writing of Stoppard’s hand is not far behind.

Notes 1

"Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, Edinburgh 1966 | Stage | The Guardian." Guardian.co.uk, last modified August 6, 2003, http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2003/aug/06/theatre/. 2 Tom Stoppard, “Is It True What They Say About Shakespeare?” (Presentation, International Shakespeare Association, Hamburg. 12 April. 1980). 3 Ibid.

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Ibid. Ibid. 6 Ibid. 7 Tom Stoppard, Arcadia (London: Faber and Faber, 1993), 42. 8 Tom Stoppard, “Is It True What They Say.” 9 Tony Bareham, Tom Stoppard: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, Jumpers, Travesties (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1990), 64-65. 10 William Shakespeare, The Norton Shakespeare, ed. Stephen Greenblatt, Walter Cohen, Jean E. Howard, Katharine Eisaman Maus, and Andrew Gurr (New York: W.W. Norton, 1997.), 1455. 11 Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead (New York: Grove, 1967), 12. 12 Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead, directed by Tom Stoppard (1990; New York City, NY: Cinecom Pictures, 2005), DVD. 13 Victor Cahn, Beyond Absurdity: the Plays of Tom Stoppard (Rutherford: Fairleigh Dickinson UP, 1979), 49. 14 Paul Cantor, Shakespeare, Hamlet (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1989), 15. 15 P.J. Aldus and William Shakespeare, Mousetrap: Structure and Meaning in Hamlet (Toronto: University of Toronto, 1977), 10. 16 William Shakespeare, The Norton Shakespeare, 1706. 17 Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead, 123. 18 Neil Sammells, Tom Stoppard: The Artist as Critic (London: Macmillan Press, 1988), 38. 19 Victor Cahn, Beyond Absurdity, 20. 20 Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead, 124. 21 Ibid. 22 Ibid., 125. 23 Ibid., 126. 24 Tony Bareham, Tom Stoppard, 91. 25 Ibid. 26 Ibid., 65. 27 Helene Keyssar-Franke, "The Strategy of ‘Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead.’," Educational Theatre Journal 27, no. 1 (1975): 85. 28 Tony Bareham, Tom Stoppard, 65. 29 Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead, 37. 30 Ibid., 36. 31 Katherine E. Kelly, Introduction, The Cambridge Companion to Tom Stoppard (Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 2001), 10. 32 Shakespeare in Love, directed by John Madden (1998; New York City, NY: Miramax Films, 1999), DVD. 33 Ibid. 34 Tony Bareham, Tom Stoppard, 32. 35 Ibid., 35. 5

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36 Mark Nicholls, “Brush Up Your Shakespeare: Performance Anxieties in Shakespeare in Love,” Journal of Film and Video 54, no. 4 (2002): 5. 37 Ibid. 38 Ibid., 6. 39 Shakespeare in Love, directed by John Madden. 40 Ibid.

Works Cited Aldus, P. J., and William Shakespeare. Mousetrap: Structure and Meaning in Hamlet. Toronto: University of Toronto, 1977. Print. Bareham, Tony. Tom Stoppard: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, Jumpers, Travesties. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1990. Print. Cahn, Victor L. Beyond Absurdity: the Plays of Tom Stoppard. Rutherford: Fairleigh Dickinson UP, 1979. Cantor, Paul A. Shakespeare, Hamlet. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1989. Kelly, Katherine E. Introduction. The Cambridge Companion to Tom Stoppard. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 2001. Keyssar-Franke, Helene. "The Strategy of ‘Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead.’." Educational Theatre Journal 27, no. 1 (1975): 85-97. Nicholls, Mark. “Brush Up Your Shakespeare: Performance Anxieties in Shakespeare in Love.” Journal of Film and Video 54, no. 4 (2002): 3 – 15. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. Directed by Tom Stoppard. 1990. New York City, NY: Cinecom Pictures, 2005. DVD. "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, Edinburgh 1966 | Stage | The Guardian." Guardian.co.uk. Last modified August 6, 2003. http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2003/aug/06/theatre/. Sammells, Neil. Tom Stoppard: The Artist as Critic. London: Macmillan Press, 1988. Shakespeare in Love. Directed by John Madden. 1998. New York City, NY: Miramax Films, 1999. DVD. Shakespeare, William, Stephen Greenblatt, Walter Cohen, Jean E. Howard, Katharine Eisaman Maus, and Andrew Gurr. The Norton Shakespeare. New York: W.W. Norton, 1997. Stoppard, Tom. Arcadia. London: Faber and Faber, 1993. —. “Is It True What They Say About Shakespeare?” International Shakespeare Association, Hamburg. 12 April. 1980. Lecture. —. Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead. New York: Grove, 1967.

INSECURITY, FRUSTRATION AND DISGUST IN TOM STOPPARD’S FICTION TIM HENDRICKSON

In a 1993 interview with John Fleming, Tom Stoppard, commenting on a supposed lack of intentional thematic continuity in his work, states, “I am not consciously playing this hand of cards at all. Every play seems a new start to me, and then somebody quite like you points out that here are all these cross references in them. But then that is what you would expect because there is one person there with a pen in his hand.”1 Stoppard’s claim is interesting for a number of reasons, not the least of which is his conclusion that thematic similarities in his works are a product of the unconscious. The more important implication, though, is that there are other, nonauthorial forces at work, in this case literary critics, in the meaningmaking process. While Stoppard’s view of the mutability of texts is neither ground-breaking nor surprising—either theoretically or practically, especially in light of the organic nature of dramatic productions—the result is a paradoxical struggle between an artist whose style is so distinctive as to be easily recognizable and works that are uncontrollable and thus threaten the very distinctiveness that marks Stoppard as unique.2 Stoppard the dramatist seems comfortable with ceding an element of control (or at least he accepts the role of chance), as scenes from Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead display.3 In addition to images of pages blowing in the wind, the following exchange bears this acceptance out: Guil: Where are you going? Player: Ha-alt! Home, sir. Guil: Where from? Player: Home. We’re traveling people. We take our chances where we can find them. Guil: It was chance, then? Player: Chance? Guil: You found us.

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Insecurity, Frustration and Disgust in Tom Stoppard’s Fiction Player: Oh, yes! Guil: You were looking? Player: Oh, no. Guil: Chance, then.4

The exchange ends with Guil laughably asserting “influence,” though, and the majority of the play is widely read as Ros and Guil’s struggle with both their lack of agency and other existential concerns.5 However, the Player, the one character in the play most attuned to the dramatic, knows better than to assume any such thing, assuring Guil that he “has no control.”6 Thus, for all of Ros and Guil’s agonizing over a coin that always comes up heads, their place in the world, and what they are supposed to be doing, the character most like Stoppard—at least professionally—seems much more at ease with simply letting life happen. While detachment may be a stated goal of Stoppard’s drama, his fiction (a novel and three short stories) tells a slightly different story. Unfortunately, though, there is almost no critical attention paid to Stoppard’s fiction when compared to his plays.7 Additionally, the lion’s share of critical work on his fiction seeks only to establish patterns for understanding the later drama. Richard Corballis, for example, approaches Lord Malquist and Mr Moon8 and Rosguil as “sister” works.9 Tim Brassell notes that Stoppard’s fiction “certainly deserves to be read and studied, not least for the interesting light it sheds on his subsequent development as a playwright,”10 and Ira Nadel argues that “the [short] stories’ themes would unite Stoppard’s later work.”11 Victor Cahn, George Riley, C. W. E Bigsby, and others have also made similar arguments; thus, a vacuum exists in that critics rarely engage Stoppard’s fiction independently of his drama. This is both interesting and problematic, for critics are quick to notice how Stoppard’s intellectual depth and philosophical leanings provide something new for Broadway and the West End,12 all the while ignoring the prosaic nature of Stoppard’s stage writing. While Stoppard’s fiction certainly examines (as his drama does) issues of chance, fate, destiny, and control, his prose characters seem far less accepting—and far more doubtful—than the Player in Rosguil, despite the fact that the fiction and the play are contemporaries. Indeed, both Lord Malquist and Stoppard’s short stories revolve around characters whose default reactions to their own lack of control are doubt, frustration, disgust, and even self-loathing. Some critics, most notably Peter Rabinowitz in The Cambridge Companion to Tom Stoppard, credit these differences in characterization to generic concerns,13 a viewpoint that

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Stoppard seems to endorse in a 1974 interview with Ronald Hayman. In response to a question on the imagery of Rosguil, Stoppard answers: Speaking as a playwright—which is a category that must have its own boundary marks, because a novelist couldn’t say what I am about to say—I thought “How marvellous to have a pyramid of a people on a stage, and a rifle shot, and one member of the pyramid just being blown out of it and the others imploding on the hole as he leaves.”14

But while the transition from stage writing to prose writing may indeed be an issue for Stoppard, his fictional characters also reflect more honestly, and less academically, his own real world insecurities and concerns at a time when he was perhaps less loathe to share them. As such, there is value in approaching Stoppard’s fiction on a stand-alone basis. In his short analysis of “The Story,”15 one of three short stories by Stoppard to appear in Introduction 2: Stories by New Writers, Tim Brassell notes not only the autobiographical content of the piece, but also a sense of authorial detachment he claims is Stoppard’s attempt at examining himself “at a remove, testing his universe as if by refraction from a neighbouring planet.”16 Brassell identifies what he considers a “bare, factual manner”17 and a deadpan style in the text that allows Stoppard to avoid emotional investment, despite his own experience as a journalist.18 While this may indeed have been Stoppard’s intent, portions of the text leave different impressions. In the opening paragraph of “The Story,” for example, Stoppard makes the comparison between Jack and Diver clear by duplicating the phrase “got rid of it,” one spoken in the first sentence by Jack and in the last by Diver. The clear difference in tone between the two duplicates, however, is contextual. In the first sentence, Jack reflects on a past episode—the death, by suicide, of a man convicted of improper contact with a young girl—telling readers how long it took to “finally” get the experience out of his mind.19 Additionally, we learn that while he thought constantly of the episode for about week, Jack would later think of it “in bed or on a bus.”20 Indeed, the narrative action of the story is a flashback (brought on by the sight of Diver) to the very event that the journalist has had such a hard time forgetting. On the other hand, Stoppard makes clear that Diver does not share the same scruples, noting, “If he had ever thought about it in bed he had got rid of it all right.”21 Consequently, it is clear that Jack continues to struggle with the event, and perhaps this is why Nadel claims that “The Story” is the most affecting and emotional of Stoppard’s three short stories.22

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There is also a sense that the journalist in “The Story” is invested in both the story he reports and the effects it may have, despite Rabinowitz’s suggestion that the decisions both to write and publish the story are casual ones.23 The decision whether to run the story aside, Jack writes the story in three different ways for three different publishers. For the Press Services version, the first we read, the journalist includes only the barest facts, noting the allegation of inappropriate contact, the circumstances, the fine, and an apology from the accused.24 In the second version of the story, however, we get not only more information, but also information of a different sort. While the story no longer alleges the act—rather, it is now a committed offense—the second version of the story includes the defence lawyer’s explanation of the episode as “completely out of character” and “that it might ruin Blake’s career.”25 Importantly, readers also learn (from Jack, not Blake’s lawyer) that Blake is a first time offender. In the final version of the story, a personal apology “for [Blake’s] utter folly” replaces the lawyer’s explanation; additionally, Blake assures readers that it will never happen again.26 The changing nature of the reporting, and the addition of the details mentioned above, suggests a journalist who is unsure about the implications of his work. At the very least, the explanation by Blake’s lawyer in the second (and Blake’s apology in the third) evidences a concern for both the truth and fairness. Indeed, the second and third versions both contain more detailed information on Blake’s response to his fine than the incident itself. Perhaps the strongest source of insecurity in “The Story,” however, is unease toward breaking a promise. As Blake leaves his own trial, he awkwardly approaches the journalist he knows can ruin him, hoping for a favour from the latter. In response, Jack assures Blake that “We’re not touching it.”27 Later on, when Jack is explaining his reasons for his decision not to run the story, he mentions his promise to Diver. It is worth noting that if anyone is acting in a casual manner here it is Diver, who in response to Jack’s qualms about breaking his word asks, “Well, hell. What’s special about him?”28 Jack is unsure about breaking faith here, but Diver brushes those concerns aside. While Jack’s willingness to abandon so quickly his doubts may reflect negatively on his character, the tension here works counter to a sense of detachment that any “off hand, matter-of-fact prose” establishes.29 In fact, the prose style of “The Story” may just be a reflection of Jack’s coping mechanism—an attempt to sound casual in the face of serious implications—that reveals just how deeply he feels about the situation. It is two years later, after all, and he still has not completely “got rid of it.”

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While “The Story” plays on the margins of control, helplessness, and guilt, “Reunion” engages these issues in a more obvious way. Here there is no matter-of-fact diction, no attempt to desensitize the fiction by simplifying the prose, and no ambiguity about the speaker’s feelings. It is ironic, then, that the most important word, the one used most frequently throughout the story, is the unattached “it.” Six times in the first paragraph, Stoppard employs “it” without any clear referent. He writes, “He couldn’t stop it coming. It kept coming like the sea, never falling back as far as it came, and each time it came close he started counting till it went away, and then it went away and he was still there, untouched.”30 What the “it” is Stoppard never really makes clear, but I am not sure that matters much. While the whole of “Reunion” would point to “it” being the pain of a failed romance, it could easily represent any kind of ache or pain.31 More importantly, Stoppard’s ambiguity here focuses the reader’s attention on how ineffectual his character is. Unable to even pinpoint the problem in more detail than just “it,” how can he be expected to exercise control? The effect of Stoppard’s use of language here is a sense that the speaker knows that something is wrong but feels helpless on his own to do anything about it. Perhaps he can fight the “it” off temporarily, but his pleading later in the story makes clear that he cannot do it alone, and therein is the problem, as his estranged lover is married to another man. The same impression, that there is something unreachable just under the surface, is perhaps more pronounced towards the end of the story. Here the speaker proposes that a single word can “nudge the universe into gear.”32 Stoppard continues: You understand me, it would have to be shouted in some public place dedicated to silence, like the reading room at the British Museum, it must violate it, a monstrous unspeakable intrusion after which nothing can be the same for the man who does it… No one else will notice anything except that a dreadful piece of band manners has been committed, and they will order him, in whispers, to leave the premises. But he won’t hear them. His world will have shuddered into a great and marvellous calm in which books will be written and flowers picked and loves complimented.33

The characters can see the vague outline of the solution, but they can never quite grasp it, no matter how close it seems. While “Reunion” seems to offer great potential, ultimately it provides nothing more than frustrated hopes and desires. Not only does the speaker fail in his attempt to reconnect with his estranged wife, they also fail, together, to find the word that will set the world aright. In addition to these failures, there is a sense that that the attempts were always destined

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to come up short. In his own words, the speaker in “Reunion” proposes that you cannot find the word by searching for it; rather, you must stumble upon it randomly. All the while, though, he is using the conversation to actively search, concluding one thought by asking his ex-lover what she thinks the word may be.34 Finally, at the conclusion of the story, the speaker suggests that everything has been in vain, as “the hollow ballooned, shaking emptily, his body connecting and the sea coming up fast … where only murder would stop it now, and it took a long time, stairs and streets later, before he got a hold on it again, without, as always, having murdered anybody.”35 Whatever relief the speaker finds, then, the “it” will always find a way back. That “the word” remains hidden—there but not there, just out of reach—mimics the prose style of “Reunion,” as the speaker’s repeated attempts to find a way into a deeper conversation through small talk, whether that be about the proper way to entertain a guest or how nice the weather is, highlight the difference between what floats on the surface and what that surface hides just below. Stoppard employs “banal surface conversation,” Rabinowitz argues, to conceal a “seething, but unexpressed, psychological anguish.”36 It takes several attempts, however, to find a way into a more meaningful conversation, and the result is that the woman’s “empty remarks… act as a counterweight to his self-pity; so that the man’s sentimental agony builds under continual outside pressure like a coiled spring.”37 In the sense that “Reunion” highlights the struggle to fix something that defies fixing, it is a natural companion to “The Story.” In “The Story,” Stoppard contemplates how the seemingly innocent actions of a single character can have far-reaching, existential consequences for someone the character barely knows. The narrative forces the reader to wonder whether Jack is at all culpable for Blake’s suicide, simultaneously asking more general questions about the extent to which we, as humans, have any control over either our own fate or the destiny of others. “Reunion” reflects more deeply the doubts of “The Story,” for the main character more specifically confronts the same thematic concerns. In the latter, doubt creeps in. In the former, the main character admits, in the end, that even “the word” cannot fix what is wrong with the world. In effect, the progression here is from doubt to resignation, a move that amplifies early Stoppard’s tendency towards characters with a “dislocated feeling that things are terribly out of joint and that the power to rectify them must be somewhere close at hand.”38 Doubt and resignation are also important to a third short story, Stoppard’s “Life, Times: Fragments,” which opens in a similar vein as

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“The Story,” albeit with alternating first and third person narrators. In it, yet another young journalist remembers yet another journalistic mistake. This time, assuming that a car crash had taken the life of a woman, the reporter writes the story as if the woman has already died, only to find that she was still alive when it ran. More important here, though, is the reporter’s reaction. Stoppard writes: When they told me I felt terrible. I remember I went into the lavatory and tried to make it not have happened but when I came out it was still there. They were very nice about it but I felt scared and sick all day and in bed I felt so bad I started praying.39

Also following “The Story,” none of the narrator’s co-workers seem to share his concerns, only reinforcing a sense of his being young, naive, insecure, and generally out of the loop.40 The narrator’s decision to pray at once cedes control while simultaneously grasping for it. On one hand, recognizing that only a higher power could rectify his mistake, the narrator prays for something very specific, almost as if the simple act of willing something different, of course to the right entity, would indeed make it so. In short, the narrator invokes God to influence the writing. By the end of the text, however, the narrator (first person) understands journalism and God in the same terms, even going so far as to frame the Lord’s Prayer in decidedly journalistic terms—“Give us this day your daily press, and forgive us our intrusions into private grief.”41 Done praying to God, the narrator devotes his life to getting published. The narrator’s new god, however, is just as ineffective as the old one, as “Life, Times: Fragments” ends with images of powerlessness, so that eventually we find the initial intimations of insecurity insufficient. Stoppard writes: But one day when he received his one-hundred-and-twenty-seventh consecutive rejection slip, he truly saw the Light. Falling on his knees, he cried out, joyfully, “Dear Lord, I have seen the Light. Forgive my former pride and witness my humility. I cast off my worldly aspirations, and offer myself, Dear Lord, wholly to your eternal service.”42

To this point, the narrator seems to be doing nothing more than making a last gasp effort to control his own destiny. Long removed from the attempt to make a mistake disappear, the narrator makes one final push to validate an entire life’s worth of “praying at his typewriter.” God’s response, though, completes the story and puts to rest any semblance of the narrator’s

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ability to control his own existence: “And the Lord heard him and He sent an angel to the writer as he knelt, and the angel said, ‘The Lord thanks you for your contribution but regrets that it is not quite suitable for the Kingdom of Heaven.’”43 The story ends abruptly with no response to yet another rejection, and we are left to wonder how this makes the narrator feel. Perhaps this is emblematic of what Michael Billington views as Stoppard’s tendency to hide feelings below the surface of his work (one that mirrors Brassell’s observations on Stoppard). He writes, “… it was often hard to tell where he himself stood on any single issue or what lay behind the mask of cleverness.”44 This may be true, but only when one reads “Life, Times: Fragments” outside of the context of the rest of Stoppard’s fiction. When, however, we examine “Life, Times” alongside “Reunion” and “The Story,” the attempt both to hide from and ignore one’s ineffectiveness is revealed as part and parcel of the emotional content of all of Stoppard’s short fiction. That is, an undeniable sense of doubt and helplessness clearly pervades all three of Stoppard’s short stories to the reader who considers them both individually and as a unit. One could easily argue here that these short stories work to strengthen the notion that fiction is, for Stoppard, nothing more than a testing ground for his later drama. Indeed, Stoppard’s short stories, taken alone, operate in exactly this manner, despite Rabinowitz’s assertion that none of them were “particularly ambitious, rarely exhibiting the literary characteristics for which Stoppard is known.”45 (For what is more Stoppardian than the gallows humour of the conclusion of “Life, Times: Fragments?”) However, I argue that the short stories more properly lead to Lord Malquist, a novel whose characters move from doubt and frustration to disgust and selfloathing. In a very real way, Lord Malquist both follows from Stoppard’s stories and predicts his plays. To experienced readers of Stoppard, familiar themes and imagery abound in the novel,46 perhaps none more so than the feeling that reality is just outside of our reach.47 The text of Lord Malquist bears this out, particularly in the second section of “A Couple of Deaths and an Exit.” Consider Moon’s comments to O’Hara and the narrator’s response: “I cannot commit myself to either side of a question,” Moon said. “Because if you attach yourself to one side or the other you disappear into it. And I can’t even side with the balance of morality because I don’t know whether morality is an instinct or just an imposition.” Moon felt that he was within reach of a statement by which he could stand and to which he

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would return again and again. When he tried to overtake it the only thing that came into his head was a joke he had once heard about an actor… “There was this actor,” Moon beseeched him. He pushed against the coach, rocking it. “An actor… I haven’t got myself placed yet, O’ Hara,” he cried. “I haven’t got myself taped, you see. So I’ve got no direction, no momentum, and everything reaches me at slightly the wrong angle.”48

Moon’s sentiments here, especially at the end of the selection above, mirror the same concerns of the narrator in “Reunion,” as the futile search for “the word” fits nicely with Moon’s suggestion that while he is “within reach of a statement by which he could stand,” everything reaches him at “slightly the wrong angle.” The idea of momentum is also an important component of both Stoppard’s prose and his drama. According to Neil Sammells, for instance: [In Rosguill,] the pressures of collectivism are stylized in the dilemma faced by the courtiers—whether to resist or accede to the momentum of the action that threatens to sweep them away. Guildenstern is repeatedly ambushed by his terrified sense of the sheer inevitability of what is happening around him.49

Sammells’s claim, then, furnishes another way to approach Lord Malquist’s place in the Stoppard canon, as the failure of Moon’s bomb at the end of the novel —it produces nothing more than a balloon with some obscenities written on it—echoes the desire in “Reunion” for the word that will fix anything. At the same time, the irony of Moon’s accidental death by bombing, this time with one that works, parallels Rosguil’s sense of inevitability. The main characters in Lord Malquist also appear, at first viewing, to develop along the same lines as those in Stoppard’s early plays (after all, Night and Day deals with the ethics of journalism). Moon, for example, is “overwhelmed by the mass of things that surround him,” “has a sexual problem with his wife who gives off the appearance that she is unfaithful to him,” and constantly gets things mixed up, as when Malquist’s utterance “cosmic accuracy” becomes “comic inaccuracy.”50 All of these traits or circumstances make an appearance, or appearances, in Stoppard’s drama. Additionally, Lord Malquist’s theory on history also seems to dovetail well with Guildenstern’s advice to Rosencrantz “to relax and let the logic of the action unfold.”51 Furthermore, in his Tom Stoppard, Ronald Hayman presents Lord Malquist as primarily an exercise in style, one in which Stoppard is able to challenge himself by presenting only flashes of disparate events and

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seeing whether he can weave them all into a coherent story by the end; that is, Stoppard tries to “stylishly create a chaos he can tidy up.”52 In the strictest sense, Hayman appears on solid ground; after all, Lord Malquist features a bomb, a dog, affairs, Churchill’s funeral procession, and Englishmen playing cowboys. The invocation of chaos and style53, then, draws the conversation away from the content of the writing and towards the technical ability of the writer, all while paving the way for a discussion of how those abilities are more refined and evident in Stoppard’s plays. Such a move, though, ignores an important development in the text that marks the novel as distinctive, as something different than the plays that would follow. In the second section of “Spectator as Hero,” Moon both begins and consummates a relationship with Lord Malquist’s wife Laura. The beginnings of the scene are recognizable enough, with most of the dialog centred on Moon’s attempt to write a history of the world. In words evocative of Rosguil, Moon explains that while historical events interest him, finding patterns in history is his real goal. He explains, “Well, it’s not exactly the history, it’s the patterns of it, getting at them, you see. I’m trying to collect all the things which have made things turn out the way they have today, to find out if there is a pattern.”54 Laura comments, in response, that all of the events Moon is interested in are out of order, to which Moon answers: Yes, that’s it—when I’ve got everything I can put it all together in the form of a big chart, all over a wall … so you can see where things cross and where they join up, so you can relate to each other, and this great map will be a skeleton key to my book—like a diagram of everything that counts, so it might be possible to discover the grand design, find out if there is one, or if it’s all random.55

The ensuing back and forth between Moon and Laura—Moon defends his motives and Laura questions the meaning of life if she can systematize and explain events—quickly transitions from the theoretical to the actual, from Moon’s general concerns to Laura’s specific problems. While Moon worries about patterns and meaning, Laura gets more and more drunk, eventually resorting to whiskey she has hidden in a perfume atomizer, the stock she calls her “emergency rations.”56 The tone of the conversation then turns intensely personal (albeit while keeping to the theme of why things happen) with Laura reflecting on being unhappy at the Ritz and unsatisfied in marriage. She laments, “He does love me, Bosie, and he’s never unkind, but he won’t attend, even when it’s all collapsing round him

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he won’t … It’s all a bit grim, Bosie, the music is going to stop.”57 That Laura can see Lord Malquist’s impending financial ruin highlights the fact that the Lord either does not know or does not care. While this could be enough to explain Laura’s past behaviour, there is clearly something more personal bothering her. Readers quickly learn that one of Laura Malquist’s real problems is that she has no children. Of the troubles she lets slip, the only one that makes her upset enough to cry is that “there are no more Malquists literally, anywhere. The ninth and last, the end of the line. Everybody out.”58 What follows, however, is the most important line in the entire novel in terms of expressing difference between Stoppard’s fiction and his drama. In response to her tears, Laura states, “Look at that, Bosie. Pure alcohol. I disgust myself.” 59 While critic after critic notes the thematic similarities between Lord Malquist and Rosguil, here the novel contains an element of self-loathing that the play does not, despite that we cannot tell for sure what disgusts Laura about herself. Whether Laura hates that she does not have a child or that she deals with this lack by drinking too much is of little consequence, for even the hint of self-blame is enough to distinguish the novel from Stoppard’s early drama. In comparison, neither Rosencrantz nor Guildenstern, even during the realization that they are about to die, express disgust at what they have done. Instead, Rosguil ends with both a complaint—“Ros: We’ve done nothing wrong. We didn’t harm anyone, did we?”—and oddly detached reflection—“Guil: … there must have been a moment, at the beginning, where we could have said no. But somehow we missed it.”60 If there is disgust in Rosguil, it is with an inability to decode the pattern of events and the logic behind the string of coincidences that lead both main characters to their death. Lord Malquist could not be more different in this regard, as the object of Laura’s ire is not an unfair or unknowable system, but rather herself. As such, Lord Malquist completes a cycle begun in Stoppard’s short stories, one that does not seem to develop as far in his early drama. At once doubtful and insecure, Stoppard’s prose characters progress first to frustration and finally to disgust. In and of itself, this uniqueness could be enough to justify a more complete critical handling of Stoppard’s fiction. However, his fiction is also interesting because it provides glimpses of Stoppard’s own life and character that he has become more and more adept at hiding. To that end, that some of the narrative events and attitudes of his prose seem to fit with the narrative events of Stoppard own life is another reason to examine seriously his fiction.

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Stoppard is famous for playing fast and loose with biographical facts. This is clear in his plays, his public statements, and the extent to which he invents history throughout his career. According to Nadel: Tom Stoppard has always invented lives … Stoppard has even invented, if not encouraged, a certain playfulness with the narrative of his own life, promoting an indifferent attitude towards his own personal past while discounting any autobiographical links between his life and his work.61 62

Nadel’s arguments on Stoppard’s reticence are borne out by Stoppard himself. He argues, “Well, I don’t see any special virtue in making private emotions the quarry for the statue I’m carving. I can do that type of writing, but it tends to go off, like fruit.”63 Additionally, Stoppard’s attempt to dictate the terms of his own story extends to him maintaining strict control over the publication of much of his personal correspondence. As Fleming notes, Stoppard, after seeing some of his correspondence with Anthony C. H. Smith published in 1996, “refused further permission on the grounds that he intended the letters a private correspondence not meant for public consumption.”64 At the same time, though, Stoppard has become more open to seeing himself in his work. In a 2008 interview with Maya Jaggi, for example, Stoppard claims: A writer ought to be the best possible source about their work … but the writing instinct does not come out of self-examination. That part of your work is expressed willy-nilly, without your cooperation, motivation or collusion. You can’t help being what you write and writing what you are.65

This comes from a writer well-practiced at blurring the lines between story and history, and one who finds such blurring more easily accomplished on the stage. Perhaps we see this in play most memorably in Travesties, where “the fundamental structure of sameness and difference is essential to the design of the play.”66 For Pearce, this sameness and difference is not only structural, however, but also metaphorical, so that Travesties engages the interplay between dream and reality. He writes, “The mirror image posits sameness and difference. It is, of course, tied up with the traditional topos of theatre-dream … Life and dream reflect one another with sameness and flow into difference.”67 Howard Pearce suggests here that Stoppard’s drama is concerned with “life becoming dream and dream becoming reality,” but Stoppard’s fiction is less accomplished in this regard. Thus, the line between the real and the invented in Stoppard’s fiction is less clear, and this is one of the reasons why it is so valuable.

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While Stoppard the famous dramatist may be able to exercise control over how he writes himself, Stoppard the fiction writer does not seem to make nearly as much of an attempt to conceal the personal, despite his own assertion that his later work evidences “some loss of selfprotectiveness.”68 For example, instances of Stoppard’s own real-world concerns leaking into his fiction are readily obvious in all three short stories. Prior to publishing “The Story,” “Reunion,” and “Life, Times: Fragments” in 1964, Stoppard spent a year as the drama reviewer for Scene, an arts magazine, during which time he reviewed 132 shows. By the end of 1963, however, Scene had folded leaving Stoppard “essentially unemployed.”69 Here the aforementioned letters to Smith would be valuable, as he was a source of financial support to Stoppard during this time. What we have, though, are Stoppard’s letters to Isabel Dunjohn, one of which speaks specifically to his lack of both work and money. It reads, “There isn’t much work waiting for me in the next fortnight. I must earn. I am in debt to my friends and my brother and my bank and my government and no one owes me a cent.”70 Additionally, we know one of Stoppard’s reasons for accepting the Ford Foundation fellowship in 1964 was the “[distraction] from his financial difficulties.”71 The above taken into account, “The Story” and “Life, Times: Fragments” both acquire a more immediate and personal meaning, as the narratives explore both the amount of effort writing requires and what a journalist is willing to risk for a paltry sum of money, the spending of which is quickly forgotten.72 “The Story” and “Life, Times: Fragments” also predict Stoppard’s uncomfortable relationship with the British Left in the 1960s,73 one that is wrapped up in a distaste for conflating political art with good art. Looking back at 1968, Stoppard is able to say, “I was impatient with the sloppy use of the language of human rights. I resented people elevating themselves to the position occupied by people who really had to worry about being jailed for what they wrote.”74 75 While “The Story” comes close to expressing such a view, the opening paragraph of “Life, Times: Fragments” almost completely mirrors this attitude. That is, the opening paragraph of the text tells the story of a reporter who is nervous about the possible repercussions of making a mistake. Stoppard’s romance with Isabel Dunjohn, a relationship that had him “constantly [thinking] up ways to get back to Bristol or for her to stay with him in London,”76 also coincides both chronologically and thematically with the publication of his fiction. In Stoppard’s letters to Dunjohn, we see unguarded reflections on writing, romance, and life that clearly influence his prose. Against the backdrop of the romantic angst of “Reunion” and Lord Malquist, Stoppard’s positive impression of a

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relatively painless ending of a relationship is revealing. He writes, “Thank god for an unmessy break which does not leave glass splinters lying around so that you cut your feet every time you approach the scene of the accident.”77 Clearly, Stoppard desires the kind of ease that his fictional characters question, suggesting a tension between what he wants and what he knows is possible. “Reunion” not only amplifies Stoppard’s desire for the kind of break that cleans up its own mess, it also demonstrates a tacit admission not only that we do not always get what we want, but that at times we have no control over the course of our lives and relationships. Very shortly, with his interest in Jose Ingle on the wax, Stoppard would face the real-world application of “Reunion.” Lord Malquist, in addition, brings together both the biographical and thematic elements of Stoppard’s fiction, blending romantic desires and frustration (Moon/Laura, Lord Malquist/Jane, and Stoppard’s desire for clean breaks), the argument over whether the world can be systematized (Moon’s “skeleton key” vs. Laura’s faith in randomness), and the role of biographer (Moon and Lord Malquist). Simultaneously, the novel introduces an element of disgust that we rarely see again, if at all, in Stoppard’s drama. It is the culmination of Stoppard’s career as a writer of prose fiction, but it also marks the end of a more open, emotionally exposed Stoppard. As Brassell notes, after Stoppard’s dramatic career takes off, “the autobiographical resonances disappear almost entirely … (at least until The Real Thing).”78 Instead, Stoppard’s plays reflect a long practiced attempt at “disguising his identity and concealing his emotions.”79 On the other hand, Stoppard’s fiction (at least his short stories, less the ending of “Life, Times: Fragments”) addresses serious concerns in a forthright manner, representing a marked departure from his drama. Again, Brassell argues, “there are very few examples in his subsequent work where he is prepared to confront emotional crises of this nature without recourse to parody or humorous deflection in some form or another.”80 At the same time, the fiction exposes the difference between being in the writing and actively writing yourself. Therefore, Stoppard’s fiction, despite its usefulness as a thematic introduction to his later drama, deserves to stand alone, if for no other reason that it gives readers a hint of a Stoppard the plays may not.

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Notes 1 John Fleming, Stoppard’s Theatre: Finding Order amid Chaos (Austin: U of Texas P, 2001), 7. 2 Ibid., 6. According to Fleming, “Stoppard views the play text as but one of many production elements, and he has sometimes altered his writing to fit a particular production consideration. This view of the text as a kinetic object has resulted in plays that have evolved over the years and through different productions.” 3 Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead (New York: Grove, 1967). Hereinafter referred to as Rosguil. 4 Ibid., 25. 5 For the argument that the play represents the influence of chance, see Richard Corballis’s Stoppard: The Mystery and the Clockwork (New York: Methuen, 1984). For the argument that Rosguil posits an overarching, logical system of why things happen, see William Gruber’s “Artistic Design in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead (Comparative Drama 15, no .4, 1981-2). 6 Stoppard, Rosguil, 26. 7 A helpful, albeit non-scientific, exercise helps bear out this claim. A search for “Stoppard” coupled with “drama” in the MLA International Bibliography database yields 355 results from 1980 through 2010. A similar search, replacing “drama” with “fiction,” yields 12 results from the same period. Of those results, half reference a specific Stoppard play, the word “drama,” or the word “theatre” in their title. 8 Tom Stoppard, Lord Malquist and Mr Moon (New York: Grove, 1966). Hereinafter abbreviated as LM for citation purposes. 9 Richard Corballis, Stoppard: The Mystery and the Clockwork (New York: Methuen, 1984), 17. 10 Tim Brassell, Tom Stoppard: An Assessment (London: Macmillan, 1985), 7. 11 Ira Nadel, Tom Stoppard: A Life (New York: Palgrave, 2002), 116. 12 Stephen Hu, Tom Stoppard's Stagecraft (New York: Peter Lang, 1989), 6. 13 Peter Rabinowitz, “Narrative Difficulties in Lord Malquist and Mr Moon,” in The Cambridge Companion to Tom Stoppard, ed. Katherine E. Kelly (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001). According to Rabinowitz, Stoppard struggles, in his prose writing, with the differences between narrative audience and authorial audience, a problem he does not have when he transitions exclusively to drama later in his career. 14 Ronald Hayman, Tom Stoppard (London: Heinemann, 1977), 4. 15 Tom Stoppard, “The Story,” in Introduction 2: Stories by New Writers (London: Faber and Faber, 1964). For citation purposes, “The Story” will be abbreviated as TS. 16 Brassell, Tom Stoppard: An Assessment, 7. 17 Ibid. 18 Ibid., 8.

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Stoppard, TS, 131. Ibid. 21 Ibid. 22 Nadel, Tom Stoppard: A Life, 117. 23 Rabinowitz, “Narrative Difficulties in Lord Malquist,” 65. 24 Stoppard, TS, 134. 25 Ibid., 135. 26 Ibid. 27 Ibid., 133. 28 Ibid., 134. 29 Anthony Jenkins, The Theatre of Tom Stoppard (Cambridge: Cambridge U P, 1987), 27. 30 Tom Stoppard, “Reunion,” in in Introduction 2: Stories by New Writers (London: Faber and Faber, 1964), 121. 31 Jenkins, Theatre of Tom Stoppard, 24. 32 Stoppard, “Reunion,” 123. 33 Ibid. 34 Ibid. 35 Ibid., 125. 36 Rabinowitz, “Narrative Difficulties in Lord Malquist,” 65. 37 Jenkins, Theatre of Tom Stoppard, 25. 38 Brassell, Tom Stoppard: An Assessment, 9. 39 Tom Stoppard, “Life, Times: Fragments,” in Introduction 2: Stories by New Writers (London: Faber and Faber, 1964), 126. For citation purposes, “Life, Times: Fragments” will be abbreviated as LT. 40 Ibid., 126. Stoppard writes, “I thought I'd had it for sure. I was still on probation. Nobody else seemed much bothered but I didn't get rid of that terrible sick feeling until she died properly the next day.” 41 Ibid., 129. 42 Ibid. 43 Ibid. 44 Michael Billington, Stoppard: The Playwright (London: Methuen, 1987), 10. 45 Rabinowitz, “Narrative Difficulties in Lord Malquist,” 65. 46 Rabinowitz, “Narrative Difficulties in Lord Malquist,” 56. “Second, the novel introduces the prototypes of many of Stoppard’s favourite shticks and characters. The unnoticed corpse, for instance, which serves centrally in Jumpers and The Real Inspector Hound, turns up in the novel as well; the infinite regresses familiar from many later works are presaged in the picture on the cans of pork and beans (a cowboy holding a tin with a picture of a cowboy holding a tin) and in the image of Moon looking at infinite reflections in a hinged mirror (p. 81); the game of charades, which serves as a cover for erotic engagement in Jumpers (and its prototype Another Moon Called Earth) appears in the same way here, too.” 47 Nadel, Tom Stoppard: A Life, 170. 48 Tom Stoppard, LM, 54. 20

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49 Neil Sammells, “The Early Stage Plays,” in The Cambridge Companion to Tom Stoppard, ed. Katherine E. Kelly (Cambridge: Cambridge U P, 2001), 109. 50 John Hart, “Stoppard’s Lord Malquist and Mr Moon: The Beginning,” in Tom Stoppard: A Casebook, ed. John Hart (New York: Garland, 1988), 6. 51 Sammells, “The Early Stage Plays,” 109. 52 Hayman, Tom Stoppard, 50-1. 53 Ibid., 50. “Nobody knows better than Stoppard that anything can be made convincing if it is made sufficiently stylish.” 54 Stoppard, LM, 139. 55 Ibid. While John Hart makes a considerable effort to link Stoppard’s Moon with Joyce’s Bloom, a more apt comparison in this instance may be George Eliot’s Casaubon, specifically in the latter’s futile attempt to find the “key to all mythologies.” 56 Ibid., 140. 57 Ibid., 141. 58 Ibid. 59 Ibid. 60 Stoppard, Rosguil, 125. 61 Ira Nadel, “Tom Stoppard and the Invention of Biography.” Modern Drama 43, no. 2 (2000): 157. 62 See Stoppard, The Invention of Love (New York: Grove P, 1997), 96. “The artist must lie, cheat, deceive, be untrue to nature and contemptuous of history … I had genius, brilliancy, daring, I took charge of my own myth.” 63 Kenneth Tynan, Show People (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1979), 64. 64 Fleming, Stoppard’s Theatre: Finding Order amid Chaos, 257. 65 Maya Jaggi, “You can't help being what you write,” The Guardian, Sept. 5, 2008. 66 Howard D. Pearce, “Stage as Mirror: Travesties,” in Tom Stoppard, ed. Harold Bloom (New York: Chelsea House, 1986), 59. 67 Ibid. 68 Jaggi, “You can't help being what you write.” 69 Fleming, Stoppard’s Theatre: Finding Order amid Chaos, 12-3. 70 Nadel, Tom Stoppard: A Life, 114. 71 Ibid., 125. 72 Tom Stoppard, TS, 136. A biographical connection to Shakespeare in Love is also apt here. See Delaney in The Cambridge Companion to Tom Stoppard. 73 Michael Billington, Stoppard: The Playwright, 169-170. Billington cites Kathy Itzen and her claim that British stage productions of the late 1960s were specifically concerned with radical politics. At the same time, though, Stoppard was outside this tradition. It is not only that Stoppard had doubts about the value of overtly political art, but also that he was writing plays that were very different from what others were producing at the time. Billington writes, for example, “He wrote about attendant lords at Elsinore, theatre critics, a Boswellian historian, a

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moral philosopher and a disintegrating wife at a time when other dramatists were more concerned with the state of the nation than individual souls.” 74 Maya Jaggi, “You can't help being what you write.” 75 Janet Watts, “Tom Stoppard,” March 21, 1973. It is important to note, though, that while Stoppard, as he ages, becomes more overtly political; he does not believe that makes his drama any better. According to Stoppard, “I think that art ought to involve itself in contemporary social and political history as much as anything else but I find it deeply embarrassing when large claims are made for such involvement: when, because art takes notice of something important, it's claimed that art is important. It's not.” 76 Nadel, Tom Stoppard: A Life, 114. 77 Ibid. 78 Brassell, Tom Stoppard: An Assessment, 11. 79 Nadel, Tom Stoppard: A Life, xii. 80 Brassell, Tom Stoppard: An Assessment, 9.

Works Cited Billington, Michael. Stoppard: The Playwright. London: Methuen, 1987. Brassell, Tim. Tom Stoppard: An Assessment. London: Macmillan, 1985. Corballis, Richard. Stoppard: The Mystery and the Clockwork. New York: Methuen, 1984. Fleming, John. Stoppard’s Theatre: Finding Order amid Chaos. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2001. Hart, John. “Stoppard’s Lord Malquist and Mr Moon: The Beginning.” In Tom Stoppard: A Casebook, edited by John Hart, 1-19. New York: Garland, 1988. Hayman, Ronald. Tom Stoppard. London: Heinemann, 1977. Hu, Stephen. Tom Stoppard's Stagecraft. New York: Peter Lang, 1989. Jaggi, Maya. “You can't help being what you write.” The Guardian, Sept. 5, 2008. Jenkins, Anthony. The Theatre of Tom Stoppard. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987. Kelly, Katherine E., ed. The Cambridge Companion to Tom Stoppard. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001. Nadel, Ira. Double Act: A Life of Tom Stoppard. London, Methuen, 2002. —. Tom Stoppard: A Life. New York: Palgrave, 2002. —. “Tom Stoppard and the Invention of Biography.” Modern Drama 43, no. 2 (2000): 157-70. Pearce, Howard D. “Stage as Mirror: Travesties.” In Tom Stoppard, edited by Harold Bloom, 59-74. New York: Chelsea House, 1986.

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Rabinowitz. Peter J. “Narrative Difficulties in Lord Malquist and Mr Moon.” In The Cambridge Companion to Tom Stoppard, edited by Katherine E. Kelly, 55-67. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001. Sammells, Neil. “The Early Stage Plays.” In The Cambridge Companion to Tom Stoppard, edited by Katherine E. Kelly, 104-19. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001. Stoppard, Tom. The Invention of Love. New York: Grove Press, 1997. —. “Life, Times: Fragments.” In Introduction 2: Stories by New Writers, 126-9. London: Faber and Faber, 1964. —. Lord Malquist and Mr Moon. New York: Grove Press, 1966. —. “Reunion.” In Introduction 2: Stories by New Writers, 121-5. London: Faber and Faber, 1964. —. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead. New York: Grove Press, 1967. —. “The Story.” In Introduction 2: Stories by New Writers, 131-6. London: Faber and Faber, 1964. Tynan, Kenneth. Show People. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1979. Watts, Janet. “Tom Stoppard.” The Guardian, Mar. 21, 1973.

THE INAUTHENTIC TRANSLATIONS IN THE INVENTION OF LOVE MELINA PROBST

From some critics’ views, Tom Stoppard’s game in The Invention of Love appears to be using actual people as pieces to emphasize the importance of love, or sexuality1; however, the complexities of the play do not warrant only those conclusions. Rather, the intricate scenes with characters who appear to be actual people prompt audiences to examine more closely the art of Stoppard. An alternate, or at least additional, subject of the play is that actual people are figments of another actual person’s imagination, to which audiences can never have full access. All the characters in the play are based on historical figures; however, there are five that appear only in the first act and are meant to interact with one another. Mark Pattison, Walter Pater, John Ruskin, Benjamin Jowett, and Robinson Ellis are important figures in art and/or scholarship in the Victorian period. Stoppard makes the five accomplished men in their own right intersect in the play, which is in A.E. Housman’s, or AEH’s, imagination. What is interesting about these five figures, these scholars, in the play is that they met with some disappointment. Stoppard’s creations, for they very much are creations as much as they are dramatized historical figures, serve important purposes in concerns of authorship and the artistic impulse and scholarly tradition of analysing art. In spite of some scholars’ jadedness in the first act, Housman decides to pursue his scholarly career with more devotion than to follow other passions that men such as Pater and Oscar Wilde would equate with a successful life. These decisions turn him into AEH, the older, dead version of himself who reflects on the seemingly conflicting impulses. Stoppard presents these concerns by juxtaposing the five relatively diverse individuals, one, Benjamin Jowett, apparently having a stronger influence on Housman in the play than any other. The actual people who are figments of AEH’s imagination are also imagined characters in Stoppard’s own mind; thus, Stoppard’s act of writing the play mirrors AEH’s exploration of his past. The artists and scholars who rely on the past and reconstruct it for their craft are central to

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The Invention of Love, and the peripheral characters of Act One are actually central to this Stoppardian theme. The translation of actual people does not produce them in their live, authentic form; instead, Stoppard translates them with creativity, transplanting them in the memory of AEH, a faulty human faculty. The themes of The Invention of Love would naturally consist of love, and maybe more specifically romantic love. Even the topic of sexuality should garner much attention in reading or viewing the play; after all, A E Housman had a strong, unwavering romantic attachment to his dear heterosexual friend, and Oscar Wilde’s infamous trial and Labouchère’s Amendment are more than just background material in the second act. Oscar Wilde is a living person interacting with AEH in the concluding scene and Henry Labouchère, who propelled the amendment that would persecute Wilde, takes the form of a character in the play. Still, some critics have been dismissive and reductive in their examinations of the play. John Fleming explains that one critic finds the play “touches” on the matters of love, the Aesthetic Movement, Oscar Wilde’s trial, and textual criticism.2 But indeed, such estimation is unfair, for Stoppard certainly does not just touch on textual criticism, or even the other matters; instead, Stoppard ascribes complexity to the practice and describes the personal devotion of scholars to it. To others, the play may appear to be about just one person, an in-depth character study, but there are more complexities to its constructions to reduce the play to that one main goal, however noble a goal that may be otherwise. Fleming cites Stoppard’s own views of the play to explain the subject: Stoppard notes how this play’s origin and execution differ: “It is characterbased, isn’t it? I’ve always started with an idea before, often quite separate from whoever was in the play. This time I’ve started with whoever is in the play. The idea came exponentially, as the play grew.”3

From what Stoppard admits, it seems that the play is topic-based and more concerned with the people involved, a statement which must be true on some level; nonetheless, the play’s topics are too complex for the play’s concern to be mainly an in-depth psychological portrait, and the characters are too complex for the play to be merely topical. Commentary on scholarship and art is a complex topic Stoppard more than touches on in the play. Walter Pater’s Studies in the History of the Renaissance was one of the most influential works on young Aesthetes, including Oscar Wilde, but did not penetrate the mind of A. E. Housman;

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still, Stoppard uses some of Pater’s language, which shall be discussed at greater length later. The themes in Pater’s seminal essay are relevant to Stoppard’s play: how ideas mingle and are engaged, at one time and across generations. Pater explains the amalgamation that makes up intellectual thought: The various forms of intellectual activity which together make up the culture of an age, move for the most part from different starting points, and by unconnected roads. As products of the same generation they partake indeed of a common character, and unconsciously illustrate each other; but of the producers themselves, each group is solitary, gaining what advantage or disadvantage there may be in intellectual isolation.4

Pater identifies the ideas that run together to create a culture’s identity; however, he separates the authors from one another, those who are actually producing intellectually engaging works. They are understood in light of one another, but their production does not occur because of one another, for they will interpret and create from their own predilection. Stoppard is familiar with this essay and even quotes it, though not this specific passage, but Stoppard complicates these ideas. The scholars at Oxford infiltrate AEH’s mind, though their influences on his ideas vary in degree; for example, though Pattison and Pater were influential men, their ideas do not weigh on Housman in his youth, but he does finally consider them when he is aged. Still, it is Housman alone who translates out of his own understanding and singular attention to a work; in other words, one’s translation, or production, depends on the person primarily. Thus, there can be only idiosyncratic translations, however pure their intentions for accuracy may be and however strong the influences may be. The perspectives in The Invention of Love are variegated and complicated by dividing the personality of the main character, both into two phases of Housman’s life and into thoughts of men influential to varying degrees during and after their lifetimes. Of course, Housman attracts much attention; therefore, understanding Stoppard’s treatment of the protagonist should give light to his methods with the five men in Act One. Sylvia Tomasch uses The Invention of Love to demonstrate palinodic discourse in the process of editing, extending it beyond the typical form, or poetry. Tomasch explains the extension: [P]alinodic discourse compounds its mourning for the lost original with mourning for its own inability to redress that loss. This too is what editions do. In their discoveries and reconstructions—in their inventions of love—

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they voice the loss of the text (often compounded as the loss of the author) as well as of their inevitable failure of full and perfect remediation.5

Thus, for Housman, textual scholarship breeds life into art and into his body; however, the pursuit can also result in his failure of attaining the original, Tomasch would note. As a scholar, he upholds the text, trying to correct and purify sullied readings, all in the pursuit of the original author’s ideas, though the ideas may not be attainable. Fidelity to the original is part of Housman’s profession; however, it is an act of translating. Housman’s own idea of failure in scholarship comes later in life, apparent in AEH’s jaded sentimentality. Housman is a spirited young scholar when he first arrives at Oxford, insistent on the accuracy of the text in a reading; indeed, Housman has a passion for his pursuit of textual scholarship. Explaining to his older self (though he is visibly unaware of his conversational partner’s actual identity), Housman describes the outrages of editing texts (and also reveals romantic standards at Oxford): Oh, I know very well there are things not spoken of foursquare at Oxford. The passion for truth is the faintest of all human passions. In the translation of Tibullus in my College library, the he loved by the poet is turned into a she: and then when you come to the bit where this “she” goes off with somebody’s wife, the translator is equal to the crisis—he leaves it out. Horace must have been a god when he wrote “Diffugere nives”—the snows fled, and the seasons rolling round each year but for us, when we’ve had our turn, it’s over!—you can’t order words in English to get near it—.6 (40)

Housman’s passionate discourse with AEH reveals his devotion to classical authors and their ideas, expurgating subsequent editions of their impurities. Housman objects to the treatment of an original text that revises, essentially translates, the ideas and language to suit an audience. For example, the language or the idea, or sometimes both, is less appropriate for an English audience based in the Victorian public standard for morality; therefore, editors who translate texts to suit the understanding and expectations of the English audience may be disregarding the intention of the author. Housman takes up issue with the practices he has noticed in his study and views his position in the scholarship as one of the most importance: he will purify ideas as he cleanses translations, essentially. Housman’s strong ideas are interesting to his later self, AEH; however, AEH has a realistic perspective on the feasibility of a truthful textual translation. An accomplished scholar, AEH has not lost his idealism

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entirely; he is not as certain as he once was, though. AEH rebuts Housman’s indignation: You think there is an answer: the lost autograph copy of life’s meaning, which we might recover from the corruptions that have made it nonsense. But if there is no such copy, really and truly there is no answer. It’s all in the timing. In Homer, Achilles, and Patroclus were comrades, brave and pure of stain. Centuries later in a play now lost, Aeschylus brought in Eros, which I suppose we may translate as extreme spooniness.7

Part of what AEH is doing here is to impress his former self with knowledge that could spare him the ideas of failure he could face later in life if he realizes his idealism is unrealistic. There is not necessarily “truth” in what people uncover, for there may not be an original from which to compare the translation. Scholarship of producing the most accurate translation of a text may be ineffectual if there is no way of knowing what the original is meant to be. Furthermore, AEH explains an impossible re-creation of a text through a translation by the influence of an audience’s expectations. A text that may not provide answers scholars look for can lead to translations that ultimately suit the audience’s expectations. The time in which a scholar is translating influences the final text, the choices the scholar makes to include in a translation. AEH notes that the presence of comrades in Homer might have different implications for the Victorians; there are different contexts from the original to the translation, and AEH emphasizes that there are parts that are lost and that the scholar cannot regain absolutely. AEH and Housman have different views towards the process of translation and the reasonable outcomes of the pursuit. Tomasch would agree that Stoppard presents these two characters as part of this palinode metaphor. Their ideas not only present a progression in thought throughout one’s lifetime, but they show how one re-translates one’s idea’s later in life. AEH acknowledges the enthusiasm of Housman but from his wisdom politely counters some of the unbridled perceptions. Especially as more time passes from the original and as cultural expectations change, the original is less attainable than Housman believes, hence his indignation at corruptions. AEH retracts his earlier ideas; however, he cannot entirely rub those thoughts away for Housman persists, in his mind and even in their “interactions.” Stoppard creates a sense of loss in AEH over what cannot be recovered, for he retracts his ideas but feels disappointment in his mature

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and darkened view of the world. AEH, as a later version of Housman, expresses some regret at his revised ideas, but still acknowledges the transitory, relative exactness in editing and translating. When AEH “meets” Wilde in Act Two, the older, wiser version of the aspiring scholar narrates his own tentativeness in his scholarship: My life is marked by long silences. The first conjecture I ever published was on Horace. Six years later I withdrew it. Propertius I put aside nearly fifty years ago to wait for the discovery of a better manuscript, which seemed to me essential if there were the slightest hope of recovering the text. So far, silence. Meanwhile I defended the classical authors from the conjectures of idiots, and produced editions of books by Ovid, Juvenal and Lucan, and finally of Manilius, which I dedicated to my comrade Moses Jackson, and that will have to do, my sandcastle against the confounding sea.8

AEH accounts for his accomplishments as silences, or studies and corrections that could be ephemeral or no closer to the truth than other translations. AEH waited for “a better manuscript” to arrive at Propertius’s truth, but that was fruitless; he remained in silence, for he never obtained a manuscript. AEH’s commitment to his work meant he would avoid the “conjectures of idiots” in textual editing, something he appreciated so strongly from his studies in his youth. Indeed, his own “conjecture” on Horace clearly proved inadequate by his standards and he regretted his scholarly move, for he withdrew the work just several years later. Although he acknowledges some conjectures are safer than others, he is apprehensive over where they can lead. He does not assert their influence or their validity; rather, he compares his work to sandcastles, structures on weak foundations that ultimately cannot resist the influences of the environment. There will always be an environment directing the translation, which indicates the original is unattainable. AEH’s and Housman’s differing views come from their different stations in life, of course; Housman was not disappointed in the system or pursuit as AEH could be explained. The conflict between Housman and AEH demonstrates Stoppard’s own editions of the same person; AEH is a character unlike Housman in many ways, a translation that cannot capture the essence of the original. The unreliability of the translating practices is emphasized in this fragmented personality. AEH cannot recapture all that his original self-felt, nor can Stoppard as the playwright exactly create two versions of one historical figure as they would have precisely appeared; the original, as the living, breathing person, is not attainable, of course, so for Stoppard, like AEH, the process of translation loses something.

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Furthermore, AEH does not try to recapture scenes as they exactly occurred in his past; in other words, he is not attempting the most faithful translation of his former life. Such a task would be impossible, for he has the knowledge from a life more tested, and he has had to brook disappointment. The Housman character the audience sees is filtered through AEH’s mind, essentially, and is thus tainted by the experiences of a life lived, or a life lived safely. Thus, there is never a completely pure retelling of the original regardless of the text, Stoppard seems to assert. The fragmented mind and person are not just evident in the interactions between AEH and Housman, but AEH’s mind holds fragments of other men, people he tries to rewrite to relate them to his experiences. How the men are depicted is interesting in light of translations losing the sentiments, ideas, and intention of the original. Five of the characters Stoppard writes into the first act of The Invention of Love are indeed representations of AEH’s own feelings, but they also represent the concerns with translation already discussed in this paper. Fleming even notes: Written in dream-memory form, the play is an impressionistic biography. Stoppard carefully notes: “It’s not biographical. Things happen that never happened. The whole thing never happened—it all goes on in Housman’s head. In real life Wilde and Housman never met, for example.”9

Whether this is meant to be a biography, albeit an impressionistic one, or not, Stoppard insists on the intentional inaccuracy and the creative element. As a playwright adapting real people to fit within a drama, Stoppard is translating these characters for the stage, and in a sense creating them; although they are real people, his methods of fictionalizing them makes them his creations, however much he appropriates their words. Stoppard deliberately integrates them into Housman’s fictionalized past, each serving a specific function in discourse on scholarship and editing. These seemingly ancillary characters, then, also represent the point about translation that AEH explains to Wilde in the second act. And some of the characters are more recognizable, by name and by their quotes, than Housman, which could detract from the main focus, if this play were merely to be an in-depth character study; instead, the play examines A E Housman and some of the supporting figures in relation to themes, particularly textual criticism and translation. For example, John Ruskin or Walter Pater could garner more attention in the first act because their accomplishments and names have more recognition than Housman’s. Thus, the play is not merely meant to laud one man’s accomplishments,

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but because these historical figures appear in AEH’s memory, they are parts of his translation—they are not actually themselves, though; they are rewritten versions of themselves. When these characters interact, it does not quite seem to be a dialogue; rather, it is their estimation of the current situation and their memory of a happier time in their life. They just seem to be interruptions of one another; there are different streams that persist in AEH’s mind. These thoughts, then, appear disconnected, as if the characters are figments of AEH’s imagination, different sectors of his imagination. They share the same stage and are part of AEH’s mind, but their ideas and speeches are not always connected. When Ruskin and Jowett enter the play, they follow a disjointed scene where Pattison is playing croquet and Pater is conversing with a student. Ruskin and Jowett have these monologues, though they appear on stage together: RUSKIN: I was seventeen when I came up to Oxford. That was in 1836, and the word ‘Aesthete’ was unknown. Aesthetics was newly arrived from Germany but there was no suggestion that it involved dressing up, as it might be the London Fire Brigade; nor that it was connected in some way with that excessive admiration for male physical beauty which conduced to the fall of Greece. It was not until the 1860s that moral degeneracy came under the baleful protection of artistic licence and advertised itself as aesthetic. Before that, unnatural behaviour was generally left behind at school, like football … JOWETT: Alas, I was considered very beautiful at school. I had golden curls. The other boys called me Miss Jowett. How I dreaded that ghastly ritual!—the torment!—the humiliation!—my body ached from the indignities, I used to run away whenever the ball came near me …10

Ruskin and Jowett leave after their brief monologues that do not connect the two directly together, though their idea would be part of a stream of AEH’s consciousness. The aesthetic controversy becomes of central importance to this play, and essentially Ruskin’s and Jowett’s individual musings are by their association with or introduction to the idea of an aesthete, so there appears to be a continuous thought in the conversation, but the characters are actually lost in their own recollection, within AEH’s reverie, to complicate the situation. Moreover, because these scholars are providing recollections of their experiences, their translations cannot be trusted as authentic as the situations that occurred, which of course no one has access to. Their introductions to Oxford came at similar ages in their lives, but the points that either of them raise do not flow as they would in a real

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conversation. Ruskin enters the stage reminiscing of his own days at Oxford, near the time Jowett matriculated into Oxford, but that point does not connect them to one another. Nonetheless, these scholars are relevant to a play about scholarship and one scholar/poet’s romantic and professional disappointments. Ruskin is concerned with the dandy-like, foppish behaviour of men known as Aesthetes, but Jowett attaches himself to Ruskin’s last statement, which the ellipses indicates he did not finish. After Ruskin’s ellipses, Jowett does not pick up where Ruskin left off; rather, he understands the topic to be merely about appearances and football, so his mind wanders to his experiences with those at school. Ruskin makes a statement about the indecency of the Aesthetic movement, but Jowett picks up few cues and does not respond directly to the ideas. Jowett offers a superficial understanding of the rules of the conversation; he does not allow the conversation to move in any sort of direction because his ideas are not integrated with Ruskin’s. Moreover, Stoppard demonstrates their incoherency by the ellipses and exits them from the stage after those brief monologues. The language is not part of a dialogue between the two; instead, the characters are lost in their own reverie, oddly so because they are part of another character’s reverie. It seems appropriate then to discuss the other scholars mainly individually then, for their presentation in the dialogue is disjointed, at least cursorily. Mark Pattison serves as a force trying to deflate the youth of their idealism; Walter Pater’s ideas bred the passion that led Oscar Wilde to live for his art, while Ruskin is the opposing view to Pater’s view one art; and Benjamin Jowett’s character interacts with young Housman more than any of the five Oxford men. Ruskin and Robinson weigh in on the issues that scholars face with their translations and interpretations of art. These men show how there are differing ideologies in AEH’s retrospection, and the ideology, or the translation of the ideas, that Housman follows ultimately sets him apart from other notable contemporaries. Housman rejects certain views towards scholarship and art to follow his ideals, but he still faces a “realism” that he had not foreseen but is present in his memory. The first character of these five men who make Housman reflect on his philosophy from his early Oxford days is Mark Pattison. Pattison is then 64 years old, a Rector of Lincoln College, and a classical scholar, by Stoppard’s character list. Pattison’s scholarship set an example of serious pursuit, serious enough to devote all aspects of his life to it. In the early part of the 19th century, Pattison’s admirers considered him the singular classical scholar in Oxford who really understood learning.11 By several accounts, Pattison appears to have set a standard for classical scholarship

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at Oxford, but Oxford was changing course; there were movements to include English and Modern languages more heavily into the undergraduate curriculum, which set forth debate over the Classics and modern subjects.12 Indeed, the distinction between students of the Classics and students of modern subjects became the difference of generalists and specialists.13 Pattison’s ideal education, then, would be a liberal one, an education that gave an individual a strong background in language, literature, philosophy, and ancient history. Pattison’s introduction in The Invention of Love only highlights his emphasis on the Classics and his growing dissatisfaction with the Oxford education. Housman, Pollard, and Jackson are mingling before Pattison appears to address Housman and Pollard, though his address could be directed to a general audience as he expresses his disapproval with the system. Housman has just met Jackson and Pollard, and Housman and Jackson’s respective interests in language and science highlight some of the brief exchanges here. Pattison’s remarks come out of thin air, almost, with no logical transition to relate his ideas directly to the conversation into which he has entered. Housman and Pollard briefly explain themselves and where they went to school; Pattison comments on nothing the young men were discussing. Instead, Pattison seems to launch into a tirade about the problems of the education system: “My young friends, I am very grieved to tell you that if you have come up to Oxford with the idea of getting knowledge, you must give that up at once. We have bought you, and we’re running you in two plates, Mods and the Finals.”14 Although the discourse of the young men touched upon the Ancients, Pattison is clearly not aware of the turns of the conversation; he appears out of thin air, though with a croquet mallet, almost like Housman’s thought wandered to another occasion. Pattison is real, and his ideas, at least by his brief introduction, appear consistent with the man he actually was. Still, AEH and Stoppard are translating Pattison to make him relevant to their ideas. AEH remembers back to his early years at Oxford when he had such strong inclinations to his professional scholarly interests, and Pattison would be an appropriate figure for the two young men to encounter after their first meeting. The young men (Housman at least) are wide-eyed, ambitious students, and the first Oxford scholar they encounter, just a few pages into the play, is a jaded one. Pattison tries to shatter the illusions of the nobility of pursuing an education, for they belong to the university now, regardless of how adamant they are that their minds are free. Again, an older, wiser perspective is infiltrating the experiences of the youth; therefore, it would make sense for AEH (or Stoppard) to include Pattison in his first moments

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at Oxford. The memory bliss of meeting good friends is tainted by knowledge of what happens later, and Pattison’s interference in this scene makes the ideas less blissful than they were at the time. AEH and Stoppard appropriate Pattison to be this force against the optimism and passion of youth, which at the end of the play Wilde criticizes Housman for losing. Pattison tries to crush their spirits, which he feels are deluded by the inexperience of youth. He cautions, “A genuine love of learning is one of the two delinquencies which cause blindness and lead a young man to ruin.”15 Pattison’s not-so-subtle jabs at the fresh Oxford faces do not jar them in the ways he had hoped, though, for the two young men respond together with a “Yes, sir, thank you, sir.”16 AEH remembers a scene that did not exist and Stoppard writes in this scene in AEH’s memory, a scene that demonstrates the hopeful youthful spirit. Housman flatly, though respectfully, dismisses Pattison’s remarks, for they even play in AEH’s memory as sour, unhealthy perceptions of Housman’s ambitions. To clear the stage for Walter Pater, Pattison exits chasing his croquet ball, which is truly an idle pursuit unlike the academic pursuits in which he has lost faith. Pater is almost made a caricature of the main ideas from his prose pieces, but AEH, or Stoppard, has reduced these men to their greater accomplishments, or at least their more memorable ideas. Pater inspired many young Aesthetes, and his Studies in the History of the Renaissance (1873) was one of the most influential works for many young artists and, of course, his crowning achievement. According to one modern editor of Pater’s Studies in the History of the Renaissance, it was in this book that young students at Oxford “discovered their ‘golden book’” that “talked of the flux of life and of the necessity of experiencing with intensity the constantly fleeting impressions.”17 Pater’s ideas were not necessarily standard for his time, and thus the more radical choice; however, promising young artists found in Pater inspiration and a philosophy that upheld art. The Pater character in The Invention of Love is a memory, a translation, of his more salient features and influences on art. Pater was a figure whose work led a movement that included Oscar Wilde, the counterpart to AEH at the end of the play. Pater’s enthusiasm for art serves a fitting purpose in The Invention of Love, when Housman is still an aspiring poet/scholar. Wilde chose Pater’s philosophy and pursued it, serving as a contrast to the path that Housman did not follow. Pater’s influence on the younger generation is apparent from his introduction to the play, where he enters with a Balliol Student following:

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Pater enters attended by a Balliol Student. The Student is handsome is handsome and debonair. Pater is short, unhandsome, a dandy: top hat, yellow gloves, blue cravat. PATER. Thank you for sending me your sonnet, dear boy. And also for your photograph, of course. But why do you always write poetry? Why don’t you write prose? Prose is so much more difficult. STUDENT. No one has written the poetry I wish to write, Mr Pater, but you have already written the prose. PATER. That is charmingly said. I will look at your photograph more carefully when I get home. They leave. Ruskin and Jowett enter, playing croquet.18

Pater’s interaction with the student demonstrates an awe-inspiring persona that placed him on his students’ pedestals. The Student in this scene wants Pater’s feedback on his art, and the Student is tentative of himself, unsure of his capabilities, dabbling in various forms of art. The Student aims to please the influential critic, his occupation apparent by the student seeking Pater’s criticism. The audience is to imagine Pater as a man whose advice and approbation is worth seeking; however, he appears with this student in AEH’s memory as a reminder of who were and were not direct influences on Housman’s thinking or the formation of his scholarly goals. Housman is not the student following Pater; Housman does not seek Pater’s advice or introduce himself to the tutor. Indeed, it is after another exit of Pater’s later in the scene when Housman introduces himself to one of the scholarly men at all: Jowett. The men Housman merely observes but does not approach reflect his overall philosophy, and Housman’s ideas do not follow Pater’s. Pater’s final impression, another entrance and then quick exit, on AEH’s memory is towards the end of the first act when AEH and Housman get acquainted. Pater enters with the Balliol Student who was doting on him earlier, this time only as one fleeting moment in the conversation. Pater does not engage in the Housman-to-Housman conversation, but his entrance occurs as a brief interruption. Pater assures the Student, “That is charmingly said. I will look at your photograph more carefully when I get home,”19 and with that they are both gone. Pater’s action is separate from the intense intrapersonal dialogue between Housman and AEH, which indicates neither of them attached themselves to the man’s ideas or sought his approval as other young male students did. In fact, Housman’s strongest scholarly influence in the first act is

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Jowett, who “sacked” Pater’s protégé the year before Wilde won the Newdigate Prize.20 AEH has translated Pater as an influential man whose ideas did not weigh on him very heavily, but Pater’s presence at Oxford, like his presence in the play, was influential on some people, including Oscar Wilde. Pater’s artistic philosophy grew into an art for art’s sake movement, for he used those words in his “Conclusion.”21 Pater was still interested in moral development through art, though his ideas were translated to argue against morality in art.22 Pater focused on the moment and its impression on the individual’s senses. To lose these impressions is a failure, according to Pater. In his “Conclusion,” Pater posits his aesthetic ideas: To burn with this hard, gemlike flame, to maintain this ecstasy, is success in life. In a sense it might even be said that our failure is to form habits: for, after all, habit is relative to a stereotyped world, and meantime it is only the roughness of the eye that makes any two persons, things, situations, seem alike.23

Pater believes in originality, as long as people maintain their impressions by living in the moments. Two items can appear to be the same when all originality and the sharpened senses are ignored or dulled by habit. Translation, then, as a serious pursuit would limit success, for the new, original moment is unimportant next to the imitation. Pater’s ideas became closely associated with the Aesthetic movement, and were quite different from where Housman positioned himself. AEH translates Pater into his memory, where some of Pater’s language from his essay appears. Ruskin, Pater, Pattison, and Jowett are present onstage together, though they are spewing forth their own philosophies, almost digressions from a lively conversation, if there actually was one. Pater’s character through the frame of AEH’s mind recapitulates sentiments from the “Conclusion,” in a very similar language: Success in life is to maintain this ecstasy, to burn always with this hard gemlike flame. Failure is to form habits. To burn with a gemlike flame is to capture the awareness of each moment; and for that moment only. To form habits is to be absent from those moments. How may we always be present for them —to garner not the fruits of experience but experience itself?24

Pater’s character actually uses language from his published essay; of course, this is not language from a conversation in which AEH was a participant or even an observer. AEH translates Pater’s idea and language

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for his retrospection. Stoppard translates Pater’s language to convey the same sentiment; however, if Stoppard kept Pater’s original language intact, the character Pater would not be his creation or his translation. Just as Pater is Stoppard’s translation, AEH would have to translate Pater to make him a figment of his imagination; Pater would have to be believable, but he could not be real. In this scene, where Pater’s language is appropriated for AEH’s retrospective gaze, Ruskin presents his opposing philosophy of morality in art. Preserving and appreciating the past are essentially Housman’s professional goals and the ideas Ruskin propounds in the play. In The Stones of Venice, Ruskin talks about the goodness of an architectural structure, necessitating the morality of art, which presents a counter to the Pater character, the one which Housman ultimately rejects. Ruskin’s character, AEH’s translation of the prominent scholar, remarks, “There is nothing beautiful which is not good, and nothing good which has no moral purpose.”25 Ruskin’s ideas appear in AEH’s mind while four of the scholars, including Ruskin and Pater, are playing croquet. Just before Pattison’s comment on the purpose of a university prompts Ruskin’s response that is quoted above, Jowett interjects, “Mind the gap.”26 A rather humorous interjection and anachronism now referring to public transportation, suggests differences between Ruskin’s and Pater’s philosophies but also a discrepancy between the actual and the imagined, or the translated. Although Ruskin’s ideas amount to much of what AEH’s translation demonstrates, this is not the real Ruskin with his actual language or an actual interaction with him. Jowett’s comment is even more apt considering his own experience and ideas of translation and problems associated with the process. Jowett, from whom Pater differs significantly, has a most interesting translation into the play, for he has the most interactions with young Housman. The four others are not as influential and consequently do not have meaningful dialogue with Housman. According to Howarth, Jowett and his friends represented an educational system that held much power, and groups formed in the 1880s to oppose the “oligarchic hold” of Jowett’s clan on University government.27 Jowett did respond to shifting educational purposes and goals, though, urging for professional development to be part of the education at Oxford, which would result in more undergraduates. Jowett’s research pursuits would require more posts and resources that could be more accessible if there were more students.28 Jowett’s influence on Balliol College produced many young men who earned high accolades in other pursuits; he enacted much change and was thus an influential man to many young students.

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Jowett’s accomplishments, then, give him the position to interact more intimately with Housman than the other characters do, but the translation of his ideas are appropriate for the most intimate conversations, outside of the Housman-to-Housman dialogue, on art and scholarship in the first act. As mentioned earlier, Housman actually introduces himself to Jowett, getting acquainted with the scholar on a more personal level. The audience sees Jowett’s importance at Balliol when he responds to Housman’s introduction and his association with St. John’s: “Then I am at a loss to understand why I should be addressing you. Who is your tutor?”29 Jowett’s unconcern with Housman’s address comes from his eminence and stature, but he suddenly gains interest when he appears to mistake him for Oscar Wilde. Already engaged after he sees his mistake, Jowett humours Housman by asking questions of the book the student is holding. The book leads them into a discussion of the conjectures and translations of Catullus based on a scholar’s taste. Jowett sees of scholarship what Housman does not in his beginnings: JOWETT: … You are here to take the ancient authors as they come from a reputable English printer, and to study them until you can write in the metre. If you cannot write Latin and Greek verse, how can you hope to be of any use in the world? HOUSMAN: But isn’t it of use to establish what the ancient authors really wrote? JOWETT: It would be on the whole desirable rather than undesirable and the job was pretty well done, where it could be done, by good scholars these hundred years and more. For the rest, certainty could only come from recovering the autograph … Think of all those secretaries!—corruption breeding corruption from papyrus to papyrus, and from the last disintegrating scrolls to the first new-fangled parchment books, with a thousand years of copying-out still to come, running the gauntlet of changing forms of script and spelling, and absence of punctuation … 30

Jowett then explains that the play’s fifth accomplished scholar in the first act, Robinson Ellis, made his translation of Catullus weaker by ignoring a discovery of the foundation of the poems of Catullus. Also a prominent Classical studies scholar, Robinson Ellis translated the poetry of Catullus, creating an authoritative text for studies of Catullus. Ellis appears in The Invention of Love as a child with a lollipop, though he is not dressed as a child, according to Stoppard’s stage directions. He’s engaging Jowett in a “did/didn’t” volley over Ellis’s discovery of a German scholar’s edition of Codex Oxoneinsis, for Jowett exposes Ellis’s error in dismissing the discovery in his translation of Catullus: “Mr

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Robinson Ellis of Trinity College discovered its existence several years before but, unluckily, not its importance, and his edition of Catullus has the singular distinction of vitiating itself by ignoring the discovery of its own editor.”31 Beginning the volley, Ellis retorts, “Didn’t ignore it.”32 Stoppard infantilizes the prominent scholar and suggests, through Jowett, his work is not as complete as he argued; Jowett’s character emphasizes the points Jowett tries to impress upon Housman. Although Stoppard shows Ellis as missing an essential piece of translating Catullus authentically, an edition that appeared before, albeit in another language, Ellis insists his work is true to the original. Ellis defends his work in his A Commentary on Catullus that goes into detail on what he translated and the history of the manuscript’s editions and translations. In his preface to his commentary, Ellis speaks of his authenticity, “I say nothing of my own restitutions, though I believe myself to have divined the truth in LXXVI.11, perhaps in LXVIII.55.”33 Ellis believes his translations to hold the “truth,” following purely what Catullus wrote, something other scholars attempted at but did not succeed at doing. Ellis sees himself as an authority, and he was considered one of the great scholars, described in his early experiences as a private tutor to be one of “three eminent, or about to be eminent, persons.”34 Nonetheless, by Stoppard’s depiction of the successful scholar, Ellis’s translation ignores essential pieces in his process. After this exchange between Jowett and Ellis, AEH and Charon enter the scene again, upsetting the believability of the interaction between Housman and Jowett and emphasizing the authorship of the scene. Until then, the scene appears to be based on actual sentiments and principles. Jowett’s accomplishments and knowledge of the field supersede Housman’s idealism. Jowett delivers a very logical response to Housman’s simple question to Jowett, explaining that producing what the ancient authors actually wrote is mostly unfeasible, for what could be accomplished scholarly predecessors already discovered on the whole. Jowett knows there are impediments to re-creating the original in all its authenticity in a translation. There are corruptions that impede the scholar from accessing the text in its original form; furthermore, the translation is not free of the translator’s tastes or ideas. The corruptions of the text and the corruptions of the translator disallow a completely authentic translation. When AEH explains to Housman near the end of the first act that textual criticism is a science that is not very exact, he is not denigrating his practice; he is merely stating the realism of the study, what he has learned that scholars before had already discovered. In fact, the purest translation

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that precisely correlates to the original is not feasible, or even desirable, by Pater’s standards. AEH admits: Literature, however, being the work of the human mind with all its frailty and aberration, and of human fingers which make mistakes, the science of textual criticism must aim for degrees of likelihood, and the only authority it might answer to is an author who has been dead for hundreds or thousands of years.35

Ultimately, each act of textual criticism is an act of authorship, in which the critic re-creates a work by translating it, by trying to make it more precise. After all, it is a work informed by close study but also one’s own predisposition. What the three particular scholars in AEH’s memory show to AEH is that translating is a tentative task, an important one but one that cannot be held to unwavering idealism, especially at the cost of other passions. The characters in The Invention of Love as translations and translators demonstrate the ineffability of the authentic original, for their re-creations are variations but not exact replicas. The process of translating, then, implies there is a loss that cannot be recovered; however, people should not forsake the pursuit for it does bring audiences close to the original, just not touching the original. The human mind is imperfect, AEH would admit; therefore, it cannot construct a translation to be completely aligned with the original author’s intention, for the original author, who is the closest authority, is likely dead and also disposed to be imperfect.

Notes 1

Sharon Aronofsky Weltman, “Victorians on Broadway at the Present Time,” in Functions of Victorian Culture at the Present Time, ed. Christine L. Krueger. (Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 2002). 2 John Fleming, Stoppard’s Theatre: Finding Order amid Chaos (Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 2001), 226. 3 Fleming, Stoppard’s Theatre: Finding Order amid Chaos, 227. 4 Walter Pater, “From Studies in the History of the Renaissance,” Aesthetes and Decadents of the 1890s, ed. Karl Beckson (Chicago: Academy Chicago Publishers, 1982), 284. 5 Sylvia Tomasch, “Editing as Palinode: The Invention of Love and the Text of the Canterbury Tales,” Exemplaria 16, no.4 (2004): 459. 6 Tom Stoppard, The Invention of Love (New York: Grove, 1998), 40. 7 Stoppard, The Invention of Love, 41.

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8

Stoppard, The Invention of Love, 95. Fleming, Stoppard’s Theatre: Finding Order amid Chaos, 227. 10 Stoppard, The Invention of Love, 9-10. 11 Janet Howarth, “The Self-Governing University, 1882-1914,” in The History of the University of Oxford VII: Nineteenth-Century Oxford, Part 2, eds. M.G. Brock and M.C. Curthoys (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2000), 618. 12 Howarth, “The Self-Governing University, 1882-1914,” 612. 13 Howarth, “The Self-Governing University, 1882-1914,” 612. 14 Stoppard, The Invention of Love, 8. 15 Stoppard, The Invention of Love, 9. 16 Stoppard, The Invention of Love, 9. 17 Karl Beckson, Aesthetes and Decadents of the 1890s (Chicago: Academy Chicago Publishers, 1982), xxxii. 18 Stoppard, The Invention of Love, 9. 19 Stoppard, The Invention of Love, 45. 20 Stoppard, The Invention of Love, 35. 21 Beckson, Aesthetes and Decadents of the 1890s, xxxiii. 22 Beckson, Aesthetes and Decadents of the 1890s, xxxiii. 23 Pater, “From Studies in the History of the Renaissance,” 289-90. 24 Stoppard, The Invention of Love, 19. 25 Stoppard, The Invention of Love, 15. 26 Stoppard, The Invention of Love, 16. 27 Howarth, “The Self-Governing University, 1882-1914,” 625. 28 Howarth, “The Self-Governing University, 1882-1914,” 612. 29 Stoppard, The Invention of Love, 22. 30 Stoppard, The Invention of Love, 23-24. 31 Stoppard, The Invention of Love, 25. 32 Stoppard, The Invention of Love, 25. 33 Robinson Ellis, A Commentary on Catullus (New York: Garland Publishing, 1979), xiv. 34 W. H Walsh, “The Zenith of Greats,” in The History of the University of Oxford VII: Nineteenth-Century Oxford, Part 2, eds. M.G. Brock and M.C. Curthoys (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2000), 314. 35 Stoppard, The Invention of Love, 38. 9

Works Cited Beckson, Karl. Aesthetes and Decadents of the 1890s. Chicago: Academy Chicago Publishers, 1982. Ellis, Robinson. A Commentary on Catullus. New York: Garland Publishing, 1979.

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Fleming, John. Stoppard’s Theatre: Finding Order amid Chaos. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 2001. Howarth, Janet. “The Self-Governing University, 1882-1914,” In The History of the University of Oxford VII: Nineteenth-Century Oxford, Part 2, edited by M.G. Brock and M.C. Curthoys, 599-643. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2000. 599-643. Krueger, Christine L. Introduction to Functions of Victorian Culture at the Present Time. Edited by Christine L. Krueger. Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 2002. Pater, Walter. “From Studies in the History of the Renaissance,” In Aesthetes and Decadents of the 1890s, edited by Karl Beckson, 28091. Chicago: Academy Chicago Publishers, 1982. Stoppard, Tom. The Invention of Love. New York: Grove, 1998. Tomasch, Sylvia. “Editing as Palinode: The Invention of Love and the Text of the Canterbury Tales.” Exemplaria 16, no. 2 (2004): 457-76. Walsh, W. H. “The Zenith of Greats.” In The History of the University of Oxford VII: Nineteenth-Century Oxford, Part 2, edited by M.G. Brock and M.C. Curthoys, 311-326. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2000.

LOST AND FOUND: THE SEARCH FOR “TRUTH” IN ARCADIA AMANDA SMOTHERS

Stoppard once said in an interview, “I have a special take on historical accuracy, which is that all supposed historical truths are temporary, meaning they’re always there to be modified in the light of subsequent discoveries.”1 The search for the historical truth Stoppard mentions here is a theme that runs throughout his popular play Arcadia. Both the earlynineteenth-century and the late-twentieth-century characters attempt to discover and recover historical truths, as well truths and proofs in both science and love. However, the “truths” that they discover are incomplete, particularly the information that the twentieth-century characters discover about the nineteenth-century occupants of the country estate. The characters’ searches for historical information in Arcadia demonstrate that it is impossible to achieve complete veracity because different planes or perspectives are dependent on the limited vision of each character and the always shifting constitution of “truth.” The difference between historical truth and historical accuracy becomes evident throughout Arcadia. Historical truth involves sincerity, fidelity, substance, authenticity, and genuineness. In other words, historical truth is not overly-concerned with whether the actual words were said or a particular event happened in some exact way, but with whether the words or events are consistent with what could have been said or done. In other words, “truth” involves drawing conclusions based on information or clues, but the “truth” in question cannot be proven unequivocally. On the other hand, historical accuracy is concerned with facts that are provable or verifiable with direct, irrefutable evidence. As we see in the play, historical accuracy is extremely difficult to achieve because one may never have the complete “picture”—some of the pieces may be missing, letters may have been burned—whereas historical truth allows Hannah to deduce that Septimus was the hermit in the painting (the Sidley Hermit), for instance, even though she “can’t prove it.”2

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In the first scene of Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia, which takes place in the early nineteenth-century, Cambridge-educated tutor Septimus Hodge discusses with his thirteen-year-old pupil, Thomasina Coverly, Fermat’s Last Theorem: “Fermat wrote that he had discovered a wonderful proof of his theorem but, the margin being too narrow for his purpose, did not have room to write it down.”3 Thomasina, a few lines later, quips, “There is no proof, Septimus. The thing that is perfectly obvious is that the note in the margin was a joke to make you all mad.”4 Septimus, of course, has been trying to keep his pupil indefinitely engaged in an impossible task by instructing her to “find a proof for Fermat’s Theorem,” but Thomasina’s precocious genius is too clever for such occupation. What Thomasina points out, brilliantly, is that there is no way of knowing whether or not Fermat actually had “discovered a truly remarkable proof which this margin is too small to contain,” as he claimed in writing in the margin of his copy of Diophantus’s Arithmetic in the 17th century, and according to Michael Windelspecht, “it is unclear as to whether he actually proved it mathematically.”5 Later in the play, Hannah reads the notation that Thomasina has written in the margin of her primer in which she plays on Fermat’s note: “I, Thomasina Coverly, have found a truly wonderful method whereby all the forms of nature must give up their numerical secrets and draw themselves through number alone. This margin being too mean for my purpose, the reader must look elsewhere for the New Geometry of Irregular Forms discovered by Thomasina Coverly.”6 No such published work exists, however, because of Thomasina’s untimely death, but her ideas do survive in the form of her iterated algorithm.7 Thus, her marginal note is not necessarily accurate, but one could consider it “true.” She did discover a mathematical method for drawing irregular forms in nature (iterated algorithms resulting in fractals), the validity of which Valentine eventually confirms; she just did not get a chance to publish her findings. The mathematical method she records (fractals of natural forms) does not actually appear in the field until almost a century later with the Koch snowflake, and until Hannah and Valentine discover Thomasina’s algorithm and fractal of an apple leaf, the “truth” was that the Koch snowflake was one of the earliest fractal curves discovered.8 After their discovery, the “truth” becomes that Thomasina’s apple leaf algorithm is the first fractal of an irregular form in nature. The other characters in the play take a long time to figure out what Thomasina knew at thirteen, as is evident by her comments on Fermat’s theorem: the search for historical accuracy is futile, and historical truth is ephemeral. Thomasina’s search for truth begins at the start of the play, which seems fitting. The first line of the play is Thomasina’s question: “Septimus,

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what is carnal embrace?”9 Thomasina is not satisfied with Septimus’s facetious answer (“the practice of throwing one’s arms around a side of beef”10), and she persists in analysing and prodding until he finally tells her the truth (obviously, “sexual congress”11). Thomasina’s response is another question: “If you do not teach me the true meaning of things, who will?”12 It becomes apparent as the play progresses that Thomasina does not need Septimus to “teach her the true meaning of things.” In fact, Septimus eventually realizes (as the play jumps ahead three years) that it is he who must now become Thomasina’s pupil, which he indicates when the two discuss Thomasina’s primer toward the end of the play. In the last scene, Thomasina notices aloud that Septimus has her old primer, and he responds, “It is mine again .... It will make me mad as you promised.”13 Tragically, Septimus does not yet know how true this statement is. A scene earlier, Thomasina has read what Septimus refers to as “A prize essay of the Scientific Academy in Paris.” 14 Her response to this paper reaffirms her own theory: Well! Just as I said! Newton’s machine which would knock our atoms from cradle to grave by the laws of motion is incomplete! Determinism leaves the road at every corner, as I knew all along, and the cause is very likely hidden in this gentleman’s observation …. The action of bodies in heat.15

Whereas Thomasina understands the “prize essay” and links it to her own ideas about heat, Septimus does not completely understand what Thomasina has written in her own essay, which is a description of entropy in the Second Law of Thermodynamics (which was not established in the scientific community until nearly half-a-century after Thomasina’s death). He does, however, recognize that it is a sharp work of scientific scholarship, and he consequently gives her “an alpha in blind faith.”16 Yet, not everyone who reads Thomasina’s work is confident in her intellectual capability. An interesting question may be raised when considering Thomasina’s “genius”: what could Thomasina have accomplished had she lived? In a later section of the play that takes place in the twentieth-century, Hannah asks Valentine what the Coverly set (Thomasina’s equations) means, and he replies, “Not what you’d like it to.” Hannah asks, “Why not?” Valentine replies, “Well, for one thing, she’d be famous.”17 To counter his assertion, Hannah reveals that Thomasina burned to death on the eve of her seventeenth birthday, before she had the chance to become famous for her discoveries of Chaos theory and the second law of Thermodynamics.

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Thus, had Thomasina lived, she would have become famous, but would her life have been any easier or better as an intellectual? The answer to this question may be illuminated by a juxtaposition of Thomasina’s potential fate in the nineteenth century with Hannah’s reception in the scientific field in the late twentieth century. In an era when women were writing under male pseudonyms just to get published literarily (i.e. George Eliot, and Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell), the scrutiny and patronization Thomasina may have received in the academic and scientific communities—had she lived to develop and publish what she discovered—likely would have been met with scepticism and derision from male “experts” in the field. Similarly, Thomasina’s potential reception could be likened to the treatment that Hannah receives in the academic community over a century-and-a-half later in 1993. One example of her treatment is the review that Bernard wrote of her book about Caroline Lamb, which is summed up by Bernard in the second act thusly: Byron the spoilt child promoted beyond his gifts by the spirit of the age! And Caroline the closet intellectual shafted by a male society! ... You got them backwards, darling. Caroline was Romantic waffle on wheels with no talent, and Byron was an eighteenth-century Rationalist touched by genius.18

Bernard diminishes the intellectual and creative capacity of a female author of the early nineteenth century in favour of a famous male poet (with whom Lamb had a brief extramarital affair in 181219). Earlier in the play, Hannah tells Bernard (before she knows who he really is) that “[a]ll the academics who reviewed [her] book patronized it .... The Byron gang unzipped their flies and patronized all over it.”20 Unbeknownst to Hannah, Bernard is one of the “Byron gang.” Hannah’s book is not taken seriously both because she is a woman and because she challenges the prevailing conceptions of Lord Byron’s genius in favour of the genius of a female author. This is very similar to what Thomasina would have been doing if she had lived to publish her discoveries—challenging (scientific) “truths” developed by male researchers. Thus, she probably would have met with the same, if not worse, derision and dismissal by many, if not all, of her male contemporaries, unless she began publishing and corresponding using a pseudonym like another nineteenth-century female mathematician, Sophie Germain21. Even Valentine, in 1993, questions Thomasina’s mathematical prowess throughout the majority of the play. Regardless of the adversity she may have faced as a woman in a “man’s” domain, she probably would have made an impact on the field of mathematics, just as

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Germain became a prolific mathematician, becoming the first woman to win an Académie des Sciences award for a paper on “modes of vibration of elastic surfaces” in 181522 and making progress on a proof of Fermat’s Last Theorem!23 Throughout Arcadia, Valentine Coverly, Thomasina’s indirect descendant, insists that Thomasina “didn’t discover anything.”24 He pores over her primer and lesson book, insisting all the while that she was “just playing with numbers” and that she did not understand what she was actually doing.25 He bases his violent assertions that Thomasina lacked the mathematical wherewithal to “discover” Chaos theory 150 years before it was discovered or the Second Law of Thermodynamics decades prior to when it was developed on the fact that she was “a schoolgirl living in a country house in Derbyshire in eighteen-something” and nothing else.26 In fact, he does not want to believe that a mere girl would be able to formulate complex mathematical theories, especially not in the countryside in the nineteenth century. Additionally, Valentine debates whether the work in Thomasina’s primer may have really been Septimus’s genius theories, not Thomasina’s, because he (Septimus) was an educated male (at Cambridge), and she (“the girl”) “was his pupil, [and] she had a genius for her tutor.”27 For all of his devotion to science and mathematics, his deductions (or presumptions) are based on his prejudiced, sexist perspective. Valentine does not believe that Thomasina is a scientific genius because he does not want to, not because he has any evidence to contradict what is right in front of him in Thomasina’s primer and lesson book. He has shifted from a search for historical “accuracy” to assertions based on his conception of historical “truth,” meaning what would have been “probable” given the general circumstances but minus the details. Nevertheless, Valentine actually does not conform to conclusions based on historical truth because he does not deduce what is probable given all of the circumstances; he makes conclusions based on general probabilities (a girl in the 19th-century countryside, not this particular girl) and ignores the compelling information in front of him in favour of these generalizations. Eventually, Valentine must admit, begrudgingly and amazedly, that “she saw what things meant, way ahead.”28 As Valentine’s journey from disbelief to acknowledgement exhibits, truths are transient and mutable; what at one time may be asserted as incontrovertible could at any moment be proven otherwise, in both science and history as exemplified in Arcadia. While Valentine has preconceptions about Thomasina, Thomasina has her own perceptions of historical truth and knowledge, particularly in her discussion with Septimus about the “Egyptian noodle” Cleopatra who

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“made carnal embrace with the enemy who burned the great library of Alexandria without so much as a fine for all that is overdue.”29 Thomasina becomes distraught (“How can we sleep for grief?”30) over the loss of all that knowledge, “all of those lost plays of the Athenians.”31 Septimus argues that what is lost will be “found” again eventually: The missing plays of Sophocles will turn up piece by piece, or be written again in another language. Ancient cures for diseases will reveal themselves once more. Mathematical discoveries glimpsed and lost to view will have their time again .... I have no doubt that the improved steamdriven heat-engine which puts Mr Noakes into an ecstasy that he and it and the modern age should all coincide, was described on papyrus.32

Interestingly, Valentine later echoes Septimus’s comment about mathematical discoveries being rediscovered when Valentine realizes that Thomasina discovered Chaos theory. However, what Septimus did not acknowledge or realize (at this point) is that the “recovered” or “rediscovered” knowledge that has been lost will never be found in the same way or in the same state that it was before. In fact, it can never be fully recovered because what are lost are the unique perspectives of the originals. As Paul Edwards notes regarding Thomasina’s untangling of the Latin translation of Antony and Cleopatra, her “stumbling version proves that translation is a one-way process, and that what is once lost remains lost.”33 In other words, the translation will never be the same as the original text. In the end, Thomasina’s mathematical discovery matters to Septimus precisely because it is hers. The discovery is not just information to be lost and rediscovered; it is his last connection to Thomasina and his realization that what is lost—namely, Thomasina—can never be recovered. At least, this is true of Septimus if we can actually believe the information presented to the audience by the twentieth-century characters about the events that transpired in the nineteenth-century after Septimus and Thomasina’s waltz, but more on that later. While Septimus is a man of science, he also recognizes that truth is in the eye of the beholder and manipulates that fact in his dealings with Chater. Ezra Chater’s (the sometimes poet and botanist) search for “truth” about his wife’s affair with Septimus highlights an important aspect of the truth: we see what we want to see, and personal truth is what we choose to believe. In other words, the truth is different for each person because it varies depending on perspective and what one elects to accept as the truth. Chater at first believes that Septimus has slept with Mrs Chater (the aforementioned “carnal embrace”) in the gazebo, which Septimus has

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done, and consequently, Chater confronts him with the threat of a duel. Through Septimus’s beguilement and Chater’s willingness to believe, Chater manufactures the “truth” that his wife only slept with Septimus so that Septimus would give Chater’s book a good review. Thus, his wife is self-sacrificing, not disloyal. Although Septimus only alludes to this (“...when all is ready and I am calm in my mind. . .”), Chater follows the thought through and elects to believe it: “There is nothing that woman would not do for me!”34 Since Chater believes this reasoning, at least for the time being, it has become his version of the truth. Chater is not the only character to “will” something into truth, though. In addition to Chater’s unsubstantiated assurance in the truth of his wife’s magnanimity, Bernard Nightingale, a Byron scholar and don, does his own engineering of historical truth when he “investigates” Lord Byron at Sidley Park. Bernard has arrived at Sidley Park in an attempt to trace Byron’s steps at the manor, where he visited briefly in 1809. In the nineteenth-century scenes, Byron never actually appears onstage, but his actions are recorded by the characters’ onstage references (affairs with Mrs Chater and Thomasina’s mother—the lady of Sidley Park, Lady Croom; stealing credit from Thomasina’s younger brother Augustus for the hare he shot; “borrowing” Septimus’s book; etc.). What is amusing about Bernard’s proof of Byron’s existence at Sidley Park (the erroneous game book record) is that, as David Guaspari remarks: Its very existence is a double-bluff joke: the hare that Byron claimed was actually shot by Lord Augustus …. and if the shooting book had told the truth, the truth about Byron’s presence would have been lost.35

This illuminates the “danger” involved in drawing definitive conclusions about historical accuracy based on written records: how do you know these records are accurate? Bernard makes conclusions based on very little evidence that is also weak and circumstantial, and his investigation is doomed from the start because most of what happens in life is not recorded, and if it is documented, those “records” may be misleading or completely incorrect, as is the case with the game book entry about Byron. “Records” paint a deficient picture. Even what is recorded in the play regarding Byron is insufficient; even the audience is not given a complete representation and the other characters are limited by their own perspectives and egos. The Bernard situation calls into question whether or not the audience can or should trust what they are presented with after they see what happens

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when conclusions purported to be “accurate” are made based on very little information and the manipulation of what little information there is. Integral to Bernard’s speculations about Byron is his research into Chater while investigating Lord Byron’s presence at the estate. He finds Chater’s book marked up by whom he believes to be Byron, but as the audience sees, it was actually Septimus. Byron had borrowed the book from Septimus and had not returned it. The book contains scandalous letters36 from Chater and Mrs Chater to Septimus about what Septimus refers to as “a perpendicular poke in the gazebo with a woman whose reputation could not be adequately defended with a platoon of musketry deployed by a rota”37, letters which Bernard incorrectly assumes were written to Byron. This gives him all of the “evidence” he needs to leap to the conclusion that Byron had an affair with Mrs Chater and that upon discovering this betrayal, Chater challenged Byron to a duel, which was fought and during which Chater was killed by Byron. As the audience “knows,” the duel was never fought between Chater and the actual recipient of his letters, Septimus, much less between Chater and Byron, and Chater definitely did not die at Byron’s hand. As Enoch Brater points out, Bernard “deconstructs the past without ever considering the virtue or the wonder or the sheer impossibility of reconstructing it.”38 With such little information about what happened at Sidley over a century earlier, Bernard’s quest to reconstruct definitive conclusions is futile—so he elects to construct them instead. Moreover, Richard Hornby notes that Stoppard’s theory of the scientific method displays its vital connection with the imagination that thoughtful scientists from Einstein onward have recognized, that science is not just a matter of recording facts, but of constructing hypotheses and refining them until they fit the facts39

—not vice versa as Bernard does. The obvious and glaring problem with Bernard’s methodology is that he develops a thesis, and then looks only for evidence to support it or distorts the evidence he uncovers to fit his preconceived thesis, instead of drawing conclusions based on the evidence—he never considers the possibility of revising his hypothesis. Bernard’s divergence from legitimate scientific/scholarly methodology has serious implications later when evidence surfaces that discredits his hastily published “findings” about Byron. As Bernard invents his own version of history, Hannah Jarvis, another scholar and author, warns him that he is “like some exasperating child pedalling its tricycle towards the edge of a cliff” and that if he persists in going public with his “discoveries” about Byron, he will “end up with so

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much fame [he] won’t leave the house without a paper bag over [his] head.”40 Valentine also warns Bernard that his theory does not have enough supporting evidence: “Actually, Bernard, as a scientist41, your theory is incomplete.”42 Unfortunately for Bernard, he does not heed Valentine and Hannah’s warnings. He becomes somewhat of an amusing cautionary tale about the dangers of trying to mould the evidence to fit a predetermined theory and rushing to publish unsupported claims. Comically, Bernard explains a colleague’s embarrassing situation earlier in the play that faintly echoes (or foreshadows) the humiliation yet to come for Bernard himself: Well, by comparing sentence structures and so forth, this chap [one of his colleagues] showed that there was a ninety per cent chance that the [short] story had indeed been written by the same person as Women in Love. To my inexpressible joy, one of your maths mob was able to show that on the same statistical basis there was a ninety per cent chance that Lawrence also wrote the Just William books and much of the previous day’s Brighton and Hove Argus.43

This “chap” with the short story claims it was written by D.H. Lawrence because he has plugged the story into a computer program which spit out a statistic. Bernard’s colleague makes a mistake that Bernard also makes: looking for evidence to support his preconceived theory. Had the scholar compared the story with more than just Women in Love, he may have avoided the embarrassment of the mathematician debunking his claims, finding that there was the same statistical probability that Lawrence also wrote certain children’s books and a good deal of a very recent edition of a Brighton newspaper. Similar to this unnamed scholar, Bernard only looks so far for evidence, in spite of his exclamation that “you have to turn over every page”44 after he finds what he believes are lines written by Byron in Lady Croom’s copy of English Bards and Scotch Reviewers (actually written by Septimus): O harbinger of Sleep, who missed the press And hoped his drone might thus escape redress! The wretched Chater, bard of Eros’ Couch, For his narcotic let my pencil vouch! 45

When Hannah asks if the lines are in Byron’s handwriting, Bernard scoffs, and then gets defensive. Hannah says she wants proof, and Bernard retorts, “Proof? Proof? You’d have to be there, you silly bitch!”46 Bernard

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is determined to prove his theory right because it will make him famous. He declares that there must be something written somewhere about Byron at Sidley Park that will fit his theory: “Do you honestly think no one wrote a word? How could they not! It dropped from sight but we will write it again!”47 In one of the most telling statements of the play, Bernard highlights an important characteristic of his current Byron scholarship: if he cannot find conclusive evidence to support his theory, he will write it himself. This is not to say that he will doctor evidence; rather, he will look only for the evidence that fits his assumptions and mould that evidence to construct a version of events that does support his theory. Juxtaposed against the methodologies of the other characters, particularly Hannah, and the nature of history and scholarship in general, his conclusions do not seem quite as outlandish as the audience knows them to be. One way to understand the statement that Stoppard makes about scholarship in Arcadia is to compare the conclusions that each scholar makes based on the evidence to which s/he has access and the “truth” based on what Stoppard presents in the scenes that take place in the nineteenth century. Bernard does make erroneous conclusions—or leaps—based on incomplete evidence, yet Hannah also works under false assumptions in her search for information on the “Sidley hermit.” The difference between the two characters is that Hannah does not rush to publicize her hypotheses because she wants to wait until she has proof, whereas fame-hungry Bernard wants to go public with his speculative conclusions right away, proof be damned. Hannah is ultimately rewarded for her responsible scholarship by becoming the scholar who will discredit Bernard’s claims about Byron and Chater. Hannah’s original objective is to use the Sidley hermit as a “peg for the nervous breakdown of the Romantic period.”48 Humorously, she asserts to Bernard in their first meeting that the sketch of the hermit in Noakes’s drawing of the landscape is the “only known likeness”49; however, the audience knows that this is not a drawing of the actual hermit, but rather thirteen-year-old Thomasina’s sketch of a fictitious hermit in the hermitage, “for,” as she says, “what is a hermitage without a hermit?”50 Hannah’s conclusions about the hermit are humorous because the audience knows the truth about the drawing, but she has made logical conclusions based on the information she has at her disposal: Noakes’s sketch and Peacock’s essay on hermits, which mentions the “Sidley hermit” as “a savant among idiots, a sage of lunacy.”51 Her pursuit of more information on her “perfect symbol” of “the whole Romantic sham”52 eventually leads her to the “truth”: the Sidley hermit is actually Septimus Hodge, driven by his pupil-love’s premature death to spend his

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life in the hermitage working through her algorithms, or as Stephen D. Abbott describes it, “insanely trying to rescue his pupil through her own discoveries.”53 Hannah reads a letter written by Thomas Love Peacock about the “Sidley hermit” that illustrates Septimus’s vain but steadfast efforts “for the restitution of hope through good English algebra” in the face of his “melancholy certitude of a world without light or life . . . as a wooden stove that must consume itself until ash and stove are as one, and heat is gone from the earth.”54 (Guaspari explains Septimus’s fate as a “hunger to disprove ... a stark assertion of the pastness of the past and the permanence of loss.”55) Ultimately, the difference between Hannah and Bernard is that while she “knows” that Septimus is the hermit, since she cannot prove it, she will not publish until she has enough evidence, which Gus provides her at the end of the play in the form of a picture of Septimus and Plautus the tortoise drawn by Thomasina. Bernard does not have these scruples. His advice to her, even despite his own experience: “Publish!”56 Obviously, Bernard does not learn his lesson. He is still convinced that he “proved Byron was here and as far as [Bernard is] concerned he wrote those lines as sure as he shot that hare”57; he only laments that he emphasized the duel and the wild claim that Byron killed Chater when in fact Chater died of a monkey bite in Martinique in 1810.58 While Hannah does not have the evidence she needs about the hermit’s identity until the end of the play when Gus hands her the drawing that proves that Septimus was the hermit, she does find definitive evidence to refute Bernard’s claims about Byron and Chater. In fact, she intends to write a “very short, very dry, absolutely gloat-free”59 letter to The Times about her discovery in the garden book that proves that the “poet” Ezra Chater and the botanist Chater were one in the same, which means Byron did not kill Chater in a duel (as the audience already knows) because Chater actually died over a year after his and Byron’s simultaneous visits to Sidley Park. Prior to her discovery about Chater in the garden book, Hannah had explained an important point about academic and historical scholarship, which seems to sum up an important point Stoppard makes throughout Arcadia: “It can’t prove to be true, it can only not prove to be false yet.”60 She proposes this particularly in regards to Bernard’s “scholarship,” but it can be applied to scholarship as a whole. For instance, Aristotelian physics, the theories of which were accepted for approximately twothousand years, was superseded by Newtonian physics61 (the Newtonian world view is mentioned in Arcadia). A short time after her comment about the nature of scholarship, Hannah says, “If Bernard can stay ahead of getting the rug pulled till he’s dead, he’ll be a success.”62 What this

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indicates about historical truth versus historical accuracy is that historical accuracy is nearly impossible, and historical truth stands on a precipice. Bernard’s claims about Byron and Chater will be historical truth until they are proven false; if they had never been proven false, they would have remained historical truth as long as they went un-refuted, and Bernard would have been famous for his Byron scholarship, at least during his own lifetime. Interestingly, Bernard’s discovery of the letters in the book remains erroneously attributed to Byron at the end of the play, and they would probably continue to be attributed to him as there is no known evidence to disprove Bernard’s uncontested “scholarship.” This detail is another illustration of the difficulties inherent in the search for historical truth/accuracy. The notes and review of Chater’s book of poetry attributed to Byron, but actually written by Septimus, and the letters written “to Byron” by the Chaters (likewise intended for Septimus) will indefinitely remain historically inaccurate truths. One might question what is the purpose of “it all” if historical truth is transitory by nature. Hannah tells Valentine that there is no real “point” to any of “it”: It’s all trivial—your grouse, my hermit, Bernard’s Byron. Comparing what we’re looking for misses the point. It’s wanting to know that makes us matter. Otherwise, we’re going out the way we came in.63

In other words, the point is not to arrive at historical accuracy; it is the desire to discover historical truths, the journey a scholar takes to get there, and the integrity with which the researcher explores (and publishes) her scholarship that signify. Thus, while the play may seem to criticize scholarship, especially in the way that Bernard approaches it, Stoppard explains through Hannah that none of what we do really matters in the grand scheme (even writing plays), but we do it all the same because it makes us matter and it matters to us for however brief a period in time. Later, Valentine echoes Hannah’s words when speaking to Bernard. He tells Bernard that “it’s all trivial anyway,” and clarifies by stating that “who wrote what when” or “personalities” do not signify.64 Valentine argues that The questions [Bernard is] asking don’t matter, you see. It’s like arguing who got there first with the calculus. The English say Newton, the Germans say Leibnitz. But it doesn’t matter. Personalities. What matters is the calculus. Scientific progress. Knowledge.65

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Valentine, Hannah, and Bernard are not the only characters who participate in academic discourse. While Bernard and Hannah are engrossed in historical detective-work and Valentine analyses the life-cycles of grouse using historical game books, Valentine’s eighteen-year-old sister Chloe ruminates on Newtonian science. She points out that the mechanistic Newtonian world view of determinism does not factor in human agency. She muses that the universe wants to be deterministic, but “the only thing going wrong is people fancying people who aren’t supposed to be in that part of the plan.”66 The Newtonian world view stance that the conditions of the present determine the future can be connected to an examination of history as being already determined. History, by definition, has already taken place; it is established. Nonetheless, the details of history must be investigated and conclusions drawn based on the findings of historical investigation in order for historical facts to be discovered and revealed to the present world. Thus, the fundamental basis of historical scholarship is deterministic: it uses pieces of information from a particular point in time and determines the outcomes based on that information. What is missing, therefore, is the chaotic effect of human agency on courses of events. One can make conclusions based on facts or pieces of information, but reality is not nearly as cut-and-dry as these conclusions would suggest. Thus, historical accuracy is nearly impossible because one will never have the complete picture or all of the information necessary to draw a precise picture of any particular historical event, and historical truth is everchanging or changeable because each new piece of information adds to the mutability of our understanding of historical events. Moreover, there are always facts that will never be discovered, such as the truth of why Byron fled England as he may have explained in the letter he wrote to Septimus before leaving Sidley, which Septimus burned unopened, “a letter from Lord Byron never to be read by a living soul.”67 Thus, knowing that the past will never be fully revealed and acknowledging the incompleteness and precariousness of any conclusions that could be drawn about the past are significant responsibilities for the academic-historic scholar. Furthermore, Chloe echoes the idea postulated by her ancestor, Thomasina, who deduces earlier in time, though later in the play: Newton’s machine which would knock our atoms from cradle to grave by the laws of motion is incomplete! Determinism leaves the road at every corner, as I knew all along, and the cause is very likely ... [t]he action of bodies in heat.68

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Abbott notes that Thomasina’s pun is “certainly intended,” explaining the significance of Thomasina’s double-entendre as it refers to the second law of thermodynamics: “Contradicting everyone’s attempts to look backwards in time, the second law of thermodynamics states that the universe is a ‘one-way street.’”69 Thomasina articulates—much more eloquently than the prosaic Chloe—the problem with the Newtonian world view: fate is not determined; it is created by human agency and chance, which are interrelated. Additionally, the past is determined; it cannot be changed or even fully recovered. Yet while the past is unalterable, our understanding and knowledge of the past is mutable because we reconstruct history with the information that has been recorded—which imperfectly recounts but a fraction of what has taken place in history. While Chloe ties together the past and present with her contemplations on the Newtonian world view, her voluntarily mute brother Gus is a more literal bridge between the past and present as a “twin” of his nineteenthcentury ancestor Augustus. Gus connects the past and the present several times throughout the play, not to mention the connection already obvious in the double-casting of the same actor for the roles of Augustus and Gus. The first connection by Gus between the past and present is the apple that he picks from the garden for Hannah at the end of scene two, which is eaten by Septimus (nearly two centuries prior) in the next scene. The apple not only transcends time, but it also connects to two central concepts in the play: Newton’s physics and the search for knowledge (both in the academic and the Biblical senses of the word), or as Guaspari explains it, “the tragicomic pursuit of knowing and knowing—[and] the hope that it can, at times, temporarily, succeed.”70 The second past-present connection related to Gus is when Valentine explains to Hannah how Gus found “the foundations of Capability Brown’s boat-house ... on the first go” the previous year, despite an “expert” determining that it was somewhere else.71 The third instance is when Gus appears onstage during the conflation of past and present in the last scene when characters from both time periods appear on stage at the same time. Gus enters wearing Regency dress for a garden party his mother is hosting. According to the stage directions, “It takes a moment to realize that he is not Lord Augustus; perhaps not until Hannah sees him.”72 He has come to present Hannah with the evidence she needs to prove that the Sidley hermit is in fact Septimus (the drawing by Thomasina of Septimus and Plautus). Gus’s present (gift) is yet another connection between the past and present (time). The last connection Gus serves between the past and present is in his and Hannah’s awkward dance, which mirrors and happens “simultaneously”

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onstage with Septimus and Thomasina’s final waltz, the present echoing the past. The curtain closes on this tableau. Richard Eldridge argues that the silence (“absence of dialogue”) during the waltzing at the end of the play relates to Valentine’s comments earlier about there being “too much bloody noise” to continue his attempt to find an algorithm for the grouse population. In other words, Eldridge claims, “Too many unpredictable external factors induce deviations in the population that prevent any natural pattern from being evident.”73 Thus, the silence at the end of the play is an elimination of external “noise” so that the pattern Stoppard creates becomes evident. In this scene, Septimus’s assertion at the beginning of the play that all that is lost will be rediscovered becomes allthe-more poignant; Septimus loses Thomasina forever after their dance, but their dance is repeated—perhaps with a more hopeful outcome, though the audience will never know—in the present. As Hersh Zeifman remarks, this traditional comedic ending (a dance), “the symbol of order finally restored,” is more complex than the ending of a traditional comedy.74 This dance is not just a dance; it is “a dance not of innocence but of knowledge sorely gained, an act of grace in the face of unspeakable loss.”75 What has been lost has been found again, but this would probably be of little consolation to Septimus as he becomes driven mad with grief. This juxtaposition does, however, darkly echo the elements of humour in the play. The humour of Arcadia stems from the comparison of events of the 19th century with conclusions and conjectures in the 20th century. Specifically, it involves the juxtaposition of elements of the ridiculous and surprise when the characters onstage make conclusions or assumptions about the past that turn out to be wrong—either the audience has already seen what really happened in the scenes that take place in the 19th century, or those events are revealed in the next 19th century scene(s). Stoppard plays with the humour surrounding academic scholarship by revealing the absurdity of claims to historical accuracy. Complete historical accuracy is impracticable—making any claims of historical accuracy farcical—and historical truth is relative and fleeting—which makes any “conclusions” about historical truth amusing in light of new revelations and the audience’s knowledge that the characters in the present day will never know the truth about certain events or people of the past…and never the whole truth about any of the events or people. What makes this humorous as opposed to tragic is Stoppard’s presentation. Julius Novick humorously likens the twentieth-century characters’ attempts to “reconstruct the past” to “palaeontologists trying to envision a whole dinosaur on the evidence of a few odd bones.”76 While most of the

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play is comedic in tone, it does end on a bittersweet note. The humour in the play does not go too far, which keeps it realistic and helps it to avoid becoming a complete farce. Yet, the melancholy ending circumvents turning the play into tragedy through the perpetuation of the last dance; the audience only hears about Thomasina’s death and Septimus’s grief from Hannah, but as long as Septimus and Thomasina continue to dance, time will stand still and their fates will be suspended. Ultimately, the audience is left to conjecture at the end of the play: can we trust any of the conclusions or findings of the twentieth-century characters when we take into account that they have been proven wrong at various points throughout the play? Did Septimus really become the hermit after Thomasina died in the fire? Can we trust what the “modernday” characters discover about the truth of the past or will it change again when new information is unearthed? Enoch Brater contends that the characters in the present (twentieth century), “despite their personal computers, will not fare much better, though they, too, hardly know it. Limited by their time, their place, and their petty ambition, their fate is to know only a small part of the enormity that is the truth.”77 Moreover, as Guaspari points out, the tragedy of the play is “the fact that the past is both omnipresent and irrevocably, heartbreakingly lost.”78 The present characters search for causes in the past, and the characters of the past search for possibility in the future. Yet, they fail to recognize that the past was once a possibility. Ultimately, striving to recover the past or heal the wounds inflicted therein is human nature, albeit a futile venture. Given the nature of scholarship as Stoppard presents it in the play, the answers to the aforementioned questions are unknowable. Or, rather, any answers that can be deduced can never really be proven accurate; they can only not yet be proven false. Truth in Arcadia is not as definitive as one might wish it to be. There are things that will never be discovered, such as the letters that Septimus burns, both the Byron letter and the letters he wrote to Thomasina and Lady Croom. In addition, the events that went unrecorded or incorrectly recorded, such as the game book entry that states that Byron shot a hare that was actually shot by Augustus, will probably never be exposed. Even if Septimus had not burned the letters and they were eventually found by someone in the present day or future, they still would not offer a complete picture of history. Letters are restricted; they offer a limited perspective (that of the writer), and therefore cannot provide all of the information necessary to attain historical accuracy—although they may have painted a somewhat clearer picture of historical truth.

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Furthermore, each character has limited vision; they are limited by time, place, perspective, experience, and knowledge (or lack thereof), and also by their egos. The truth is always shifting, even in the present. This is because there is no one “truth.” In the end, attaining complete veracity is impossible because diverse planes or perspectives are dependent on the characters’ limitations and pride. The most alluring, and perhaps most alarmingly comical, aspect of scholarship in Arcadia is Bernard’s “discovery of two completely unknown Byron essays—and [his] discovery of the lines he added to ‘English Bards.’”79 While Bernard is proven wrong in his unsubstantiated claims about the Byron-Chater duelto-the-death, these “discoveries” will likely outlive him and bring him a certain amount of notoriety; although, whether the notoriety gained from these discoveries will be able to transcend the shadow cast by his public and professional mortification by Hannah’s letter revealing the evidence that refutes his Byron-duel claims remains uncertain, as the audience is not privy to the (non-existent) series of events “after” the play’s end. Ultimately, Bernard’s mortification exemplifies the nature of historical truth and accuracy as presented by Stoppard in Arcadia and perhaps indicates how much stock should (or should not) be placed in scholarship.

Notes 1

Sarah Lyall, “The Muse of Shakespeare Imagined as a Blonde,” New York Times, Dec. 13, 1998, http://www.nytimes.com/1998/12/13/movies/film-the-muse-ofshakespeare-imagined-as-a-blonde.html?src=pm. 2 Tom Stoppard, Arcadia (New York: Faber and Faber, 1994), 100. 3 Ibid., 10. 4 Ibid. 5 Michael Windelspecht, Groundbreaking Scientific Experiments, Inventions and Discoveries of the 17th Century (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2002), 66. 6 Ibid., 47. 7 For Valentine’s description of iterated algorithms and fractals, see Tom Stoppard, Arcadia, 47-48 and 51-52. 8 Kajsa Bråting and Johanna Pejlare, “Visualizations in Mathematics,” Erkenntnis 68, no. 3 (2008): 349-50. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40267362. 9 Tom Stoppard, Arcadia, 5. 10 Ibid. 11 Ibid., 7. 12 Ibid. 13 Ibid., 96.

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14 This likely refers to Jean-Baptiste Joseph Fourier’s paper/memoir Sur la Propagation de la Chaleur dans les Corps Solides (On the Propagation of Heat in Solid Bodies) delivered in 1807 to the Académie des Sciences in Paris. He submitted a rewrite to the Académie’s prize competition in 1811 and won. The Académie finally published Fourier’s essay as Théorie Analytique de la Chaleur (The Analytical Theory of Heat) in 1822 after he spent 15 years attempting to get the controversial work published. For more information, see D.H. Arnold, “The Mécanique Physique of Siméon Denis Poisson: The Evolution and Isolation in France of his Approach to Physical Theory (1800—1840): IV. Disquiet with Respect to Fourier's Treatment of Heat,” Archive for History of Exact Sciences 28, no. 4 (1983): 299-300, 302, 305-06, and 315. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41133694. Also see Timothy Gowers, ed., The Princeton Companion to Mathematics (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008), 755. 15 Tom Stoppard, Arcadia, 88. 16 Ibid., 100. 17 Ibid., 80. 18 Ibid., 64. 19 Caroline Franklin, “Lamb, Lady Caroline (1785–1828),” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004). 20 Tom Stoppard, Arcadia, 26. 21 Nick Mackinnon, “Sophie Germain: Or Was Gauss a Feminist?,” The Mathematical Gazette 74, no. 470 (Dec. 1990): 346. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3618130. 22 Vesna Crnjanski Petrovich, “Women and the Paris Academy of Sciences,” Eighteenth-Century Studies 32, no. 3 (Spring 1999): 384-85, http://www.jstor.org/stable/30053914. 23 J. H. Sampson, “Sophie Germain and the Theory of Numbers,” Archive for History of Exact Sciences 41, no. 2 (1990), 158-59. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41133883. Another interesting note is that certain prime numbers are called Sophie Germain primes today: if both p and 2p+1 are prime, then p is a Sophie Germain prime. See Timothy Gowers, ed., The Princeton Companion to Mathematics, 892. 24 Tom Stoppard, Arcadia, 69. 25 Ibid., 51. (emphasis mine) 26 Ibid. 27 Ibid., 83. 28 Ibid., 97. 29 Ibid., 42. 30 Ibid. 31 Ibid. 32 Ibid., 42-3. (emphasis mine)

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33 Paul Edwards, “Science in Hapgood and Arcadia,” in The Cambridge Companion to Tom Stoppard, ed. Katherine E. Kelly (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 179. 34 Tom Stoppard, Arcadia, 12-13. 35 David Guaspari, “Stoppard’s Arcadia,” Antioch Review, 54, no. 2 (Spring 1996): 228, http://www.jstor.org/stable/46133314. 36 A copy of “The Couch of Eros” (by Chater) once in Byron’s possession has underlined passages that correspond to a negative review written in Piccadilly Recreation on 30 April 1809, and it contains the following letters:

“Sir—we have a matter to settle. I wait on you in the gun room. E. Chater, Esq.” “My husband has sent to town for pistols. Deny what cannot be proven— for Charity’s sake—I keep my room this day.” Unsigned “Sidley Park, April 11th 1809. Sir—I call you a liar, a lecher, a slanderer in the press and a thief of my honour. I wait upon your arrangements for giving me satisfaction as a man and a poet, E. Chater, Esq.” (35) Additionally, the book is inscribed to Septimus: “My friend Septimus Hodge who stood up and gave his best on behalf of the Author.” See Stoppard, Arcadia, 34-35. 37 Tom Stoppard, Arcadia, 11. 38 Enoch Brater, “Tom Stoppard’s Brit/lit/crit,” in The Cambridge Companion to Tom Stoppard, ed. Katherine E. Kelly (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 211. 39 Richard Hornby, “Mathematical Drama,” The Hudson Review, 48, no. 2 (Summer 1995): 282, http://www.jstor.org/stable/3851825. 40 Tom Stoppard, Arcadia, 63. 41 Valentine is referring to himself here. In other words, as a scientist, Valentine finds Bernard’s theory deficient. 42 Tom Stoppard, Arcadia, 63. 43 Ibid., 23. 44 Ibid., 53. 45 Ibid. 46 Ibid. 47 Ibid., 54. (emphasis mine) 48 Ibid., 29. 49 Ibid. 50 Ibid., 18. 51 Ibid., 30. 52 Ibid., 31. 53 Stephen D Abbott, “Theorems into Plays,” Math Horizons, 7, no. 1 (September 1999): 10-11, http://www.jstor.org/stable/25678223.

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54

Tom Stoppard, Arcadia, 69. David Guaspari, “Stoppard’s Arcadia,” 237. 56 Tom Stoppard, Arcadia, 100. 57 Ibid., 94. 58 Ibid., 93. 59 Ibid. 94 60 Ibid., 78. 61 I. Bernard Cohen and George E. Smith, introduction to The Cambridge Companion to Newton, eds. I. Bernard Cohen and George E. Smith (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 2. 62 Tom Stoppard, Arcadia, 79. 63 Ibid., 79-80. 64 Ibid., 64. 65 Ibid., 65. 66 Ibid., 78. 67 Ibid., 75. 68 Ibid., 88. 69 Stephen D. Abbott, “Theorems into Plays,” 10. 70 David Guaspari, “Stoppard’s Arcadia,” 222. 71 Tom Stoppard, Arcadia, 53. 72 Ibid., 100. 73 Richard Eldridge, “Romanticism, Cartesianism, Humeanism, Byronism: Stoppard’s Arcadia,” Literature, Life, and Modernity (New York: Columbia University Press, 2008), 45. 74 . Hersh Zeifman, “The Comedy of Eros: Stoppard in Love,” in The Cambridge Companion to Tom Stoppard, ed. Katherine E. Kelly (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 192. 75 Ibid. 76 Julius Novick, “Rationality Regained,” The Threepenny Review, no. 63 (Autumn 1995): 29, http://www.jstor.org/stable/4384467. 77 Enoch Brater, “Tom Stoppard’s Brit/lit/crit,” in The Cambridge Companion to Tom Stoppard, ed. Katherine E. Kelly (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 210. 78 David Guaspari, “Stoppard’s Arcadia,” 225. 79 Stoppard, Arcadia, 94. 55

Works Cited Abbott, Stephen D. “Theorems into Plays.” Math Horizons 7, no. 1 (September 1999): 5-11. http://www.jstor.org/stable/25678223. Arnold, D.H. “The Mécanique Physique of Siméon Denis Poisson: The Evolution and Isolation in France of his Approach to Physical Theory (1800—1840): IV. Disquiet with Respect to Fourier's Treatment of

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Heat.” Archive for History of Exact Sciences 28, no. 4 (1983): 299320. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41133694. Brater, Enoch. “Tom Stoppard’s Brit/lit/crit.” In The Cambridge Companion to Tom Stoppard, edited by Katherine E. Kelly, 203-12. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001. Bråting, Kajsa and Johanna Pejlare “Visualizations in Mathematics.” Erkenntnis 68, no. 3 (May 2008): 345-58. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40267362. Cohen, I. Bernard and George E. Smith. Introduction to The Cambridge Companion to Newton. eds. I. Bernard Cohen and George E. Smith. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004. Edwards, Paul. “Science in Hapgood and Arcadia.” In The Cambridge Companion to Tom Stoppard, edited by Katherine E. Kelly, 171-84. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001. Eldridge, Richard. “Romanticism, Cartesianism, Humeanism, Byronism: Stoppard’s Arcadia.” Literature, Life, and Modernity. New York: Columbia University Press, 2008. 27-47. Franklin, Caroline. “Lamb, Lady Caroline (1785–1828).” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004. Timothy Gowers, ed. The Princeton Companion to Mathematics. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008. Guaspari, David. “Stoppard’s Arcadia.” Antioch Review 54, no. 2 (Spring 1996): 222-38. http://www.jstor.org/stable/46133314. Hornby, Richard. “Mathematical Drama.” The Hudson Review 48, no. 2 (Summer 1995): 279-86. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3851825. Lyall, Sarah. “The Muse of Shakespeare Imagined as a Blonde.” New York Times, Dec. 13, 1998, http://www.nytimes.com/1998/12/13/movies/film-the-muse-ofshakespeare-imagined-as-a-blonde.html?src=pm. Mackinnon, Nick. “Sophie Germain: Or Was Gauss a Feminist?” The Mathematical Gazette 74, no. 470 (Dec. 1990): 346-51. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3618130. Novick, Julius. “Rationality Regained.” The Threepenny Review, no. 63 (Autumn 1995): 28-9. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4384467. Petrovich, Vesna Crnjanski. “Women and the Paris Academy of Sciences.” Eighteenth-Century Studies 32, no. 3 (Spring 1999): 38390. http://www.jstor.org/stable/30053914. Sampson, J. H. “Sophie Germain and the Theory of Numbers.” Archive for History of Exact Sciences 41, no. 2 (1990): 157-61.

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http://www.jstor.org/stable/41133883. Stoppard, Tom. Arcadia. New York: Faber and Faber, 1994. Windelspecht, Michael. Groundbreaking Scientific Experiments, Inventions and Discoveries of the 17th Century. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2002. Zeifman, Hersh. “The Comedy of Eros: Stoppard in Love.” In The Cambridge Companion to Tom Stoppard, edited by Katherine E. Kelly, 185-200. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001.

WHO RULES THE EMPIRE? SCOTT STALCUP

Andrew Davies, the man responsible for bringing both the 1995 version of Pride and Prejudice and the 2005 version of Bleak House to film, spoke to Deborah Cartmell and Imelda Whelehan about the difference between his privileged position in creating adaptations for television and his lesser position in relation to film adaptations. Of the latter, Davies said, “[T]here will be a lot of people ahead of me, of whom Tom Stoppard and Christopher Hampton would be two.”1 He informed the two women, “Stoppard does masses, you know. He often doesn’t get a big credit for it.”2 Therein lays the problem that confronts scholars researching film adaptations by Tom Stoppard. Without the writers, neither cast nor crew have a film, but who gets the credit for having the film’s “vision” and bringing it to life? With rare exception, the actors and the director are the answer given, especially if the director in question is Steven Spielberg. Examining the film adaptation of J.G. Ballard’s semi-autobiographical Empire of the Sun exhibits, through its complicated production history and criticism of the work, the problem of determining not only where and when credit is given to Stoppard, but if the credit, when awarded, is the deserved amount. In The China Odyssey, the documentary of the film adaptation of Empire of the Sun, J.G. Ballard said, “It took twenty years to forget the events that took place in Shanghai and another twenty years to remember them. I had to shut out all memories of Shanghai.” On the cusp of adolescence, Ballard and his family were relocated from their home in China to a prisoner of war camp in Lunghua, following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Here they would remain until 1946 when Ballard, along with his mother and sister, relocated to England. His father would remain in China for another four years.3 Additionally in The China Odyssey, when discussing his time spent in the camp, Ballard said, “If I’m honest, when people say to me, ‘What was it actually like in the camp?’ I have to admit that I quite enjoyed myself.”

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He explained his stance further in Joseph McBride’s biography on Spielberg, saying: I have … not unpleasant memories of the camp …. I was young, and if you put [four hundred] or [five hundred] children together they have a good time, whatever the circumstances …. I know my parents always had very much harsher memories of the camp than I did.4

If one examines Stoppard’s early life in comparison to Ballard’s early life, uncanny parallels appear. The childhoods of both writers were marked by absent fathers, displacement due to war, and relocation to England at an early age. Until late January 1942, the Straüssler family lived in Singapore.5 During their relocation to India, Tom’s biological father, Eugen Straüssler, died when his ship was attacked by the Japanese fighter planes in the middle of February 1942.6 On 25 November 1945, the former Tommy Straüssler’s widowed mother remarried. Her new husband, Major Kenneth Stoppard, adopted Tommy and his brother Peter.7 Major Stoppard and his new family relocated from India to England, the same year Ballard’s family left Shanghai.8 According to Nadel, Stoppard’s experiences would find expression in his work on the screenplay to Empire of the Sun.9 The novel of Empire of the Sun went on to garner massive accolades for Ballard. He won the Guardian Fiction Prize in 1984 and was also nominated for the Booker Prize. Both were due to Empire. He was also nominated for the James Tait Black Memorial Prize the following year.10 “I got a lot of new readers for Empire of the Sun who promptly left … once they’d finished that book,” Ballard said.11 The text was a break from the ecological disasters like The Drowned World and present-day dystopian fictions like High-rise one typically associated with Ballard. Ballard stated, “[Empire of the Sun] create[d] a huge amount of interest which no other book of mine ever will, because I’ve gone back to writing imaginative fiction again.”12 At this same point in the mid-1980s, Steven Spielberg also wanted to break away from the type of productions for which he was known. Upon his receipt of the Thalberg Award in 1986, Spielberg gave a speech where he declared it “time to renew our romance with the word.”13 In a process of “branching out” that began with The Color Purple, Spielberg turned to J.G. Ballard and Empire of the Sun. However, he was not the first director attached to the project. Empire of the Sun’s problematic birth began with David Lean.

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Lean had originally been attached to the picture as director, with hope of Spielberg producing. As Lean progressed through the process of adapting Ballard’s novel for the screen, he felt it impossible to continue. He explained: I worked on it for about a year and in the end I gave it up because I thought, this is like a diary. It’s bloody well written and very interesting but I don’t think it’s a movie for me because it hasn’t got a dramatic shape.14

Ballard alleged another reason for Lean’s stepping down in Miracles of Life, the last of Ballard’s three attempts at an autobiography before he succumbed to prostate cancer in 2009. Lean declined because he could not work with the young actor, Christian Bale, who played Jim, the younger version of Ballard in the film.15 Ballard alleged, “Perhaps Jim was too aggressive and too conflicted for Lean, who liked his boy actors to be lisping and slightly effeminate.”16 Empire of the Sun was initially brought to Stoppard’s attention by Kenneth Ewing when Stoppard visited Los Angeles.17 A year after the publication of Ballard’s novel, Stoppard wrote to his parents that spring about the book. Stoppard considered the text “very good” but “rather depressing and close to home” due to the subject matter.18 It should be noted, however, that, unlike Ballard in the film, Stoppard was not separated from his family. At the end of the novel, when Jim must “face squarely up to the present, however uncertain,” this mentality, according to Ira Nadel, mirrors Stoppard’s own attitude toward existence.19 While one did not forget the past, it was not an instrument that paralyzed. Rather, one chose to deal with it in practical terms. Ballard and Stoppard shared a love of all things American as well. The set design of Jim’s room, according to Nadel, “produced some uncanny connections for Stoppard.”20 For example, the chart of the flag of nations on Jim’s wall was, according to Stoppard, “exactly the chart I’d had. Identical. Clipped from a magazine, I shouldn’t wonder. Spooky” [emphasis Stoppard’s].21 Stoppard began working on the script during the spring of 1985. He referred to his draft as a “film narrative” rather than a “treatment.” His reasoning was that “treatment seems to mean different things to different people.”22 The text merely tracked the sequence of the yet-to-be-made film. No attention was given to dialogue or the detail of a screenplay. Stoppard took issue with the book’s sole focus on Jim, the younger version of Ballard. The sole hero of the text being a young boy was a

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problem. He felt the focus needed to be broadened.23 The first draft of the script was completed in January of 1986. It opened with the scene at an airfield. Young Jim played with a toy plane, surrounded by Europeans witnessing the aftermath of a battle.24 The next month saw the changing of directors from Becker to Spielberg. Becker’s removal from the film was for Stoppard “something of a shock.”25 Initially, Stoppard and Spielberg were timid with one another. According to Ian Freer, “Spielberg and Stoppard seemed a bizarre meeting of the minds: the world’s most populist film-maker collaborating with the creator of erudite riffs on Shakespeare.”26 However, the two men “soon became good friends and worked intensely on subsequent drafts of the screenplay.”27 Spielberg had his own attraction to the film, even if it did not mirror his autobiography as it did Stoppard’s. “I was … attracted to the idea that this was a death of innocence,” Spielberg told Myra Forsberg. “This was a boy who had grown up too quickly, who was becoming a flower long before the bud had ever come out of the topsoil. And, in fact, a flower that was a gifted weed.”28 In other words, Jim’s existence was the antithesis of the Peter Pan existence, of the boy who never grew up, that, according to the popular consciousness, Spielberg was living. According to Stephen Frears, Stoppard had written a script for the novel before Spielberg replaced Becker on the film. Spielberg’s writers tinkered with the script before showing it to David Lean. Lean “politely” informed Spielberg that the piece was “not very good,” and Stoppard needed to be reinstated in the project.29 Attempts by the studio to lure him back failed. Spielberg reportedly called him personally. Stoppard informed Spielberg he was working for the BBC. Spielberg said, “But that’s just television …. This is Hollywood.” Stoppard responded, “No [not television, but] [r]adio.”30 Eventually, Stoppard relented and came back on board.31 Unsurprisingly, given Spielberg’s status, after he became involved, the script took on a much larger scale. Stoppard recounted, “Before Steven became involved, I was being very modest. I didn’t write in a fly-over of P-51s—I’d no idea there were any available that still flew.”32 Becker’s removal would not be the last upheaval. In a case of “too many chefs,” Empire’s adaptation was hobbled by the involvement of Menno Meyjes, a hired scriptwriter brought on by Spielberg.33 Though the specifics remain unclear, Meyjes contributed elements of dialogue to the screenplay. In July of 1986, Stoppard began sending Spielberg “page by page commentary” on the third draft dated 11 July 1986.34 With regard to Stoppard’s notes on the changes made to the dialogue, Nadel describes Stoppard’s eye as “sharp but sympathetic.”35 Stoppard wrote, “[I]t’s okay

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to be wrong about it but it’s not okay to be casual about it . . . You’re looking for my reaction to the big changes but it’s the small things which depress me really.”36 He objected to the streamlining of the story, saying “the general tendency is to simplify the tapestry in order to make way for a couple of bold patterns.”37 In a revised third draft dated 12 September 1986, Stoppard examined the script to see if any of the changes he noted had been made, but none were.38 Revisions on the script continued during the shooting of the film. As late as March of 1987, Stoppard added an additional four pages to the script. One of the issues was the need for a different poem to use at the end of the film, although it was a scene Stoppard was not fond of.39 He favoured Dryden’s translation of Horace’s “Ode 29” from Book III. He gave other options, including Wordsworth’s “My Heart Leaps Up” and the First Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians, though he considered both to be too “pious.”40 Stoppard argued, “If you don’t like the Dryden, I’ll have to write the bloody thing myself and pretend it’s old . . . If you don’t like the Dryden do not despair—we have the technology.”41 The fourth draft of the script led to further suggestions from Stoppard. There were issues with the chronology of the story. The problem resulted from “a confusion of the historical and emotional narratives” within the story.42 After page 148, the script, according to Stoppard, had “been treated as though it were composed of interchangeable parts.”43 Nadel notes again Stoppard’s meticulous-to-the-point-of-obsessive eye in an explanation about the border signs. They read “You are entering the United States” instead of “You are now entering the United States,” which, according to Stoppard, was how the signs read.44 Issues with the scenes in the camp led to further rewrites. Meyjes came to England and the two writers attempted to excise twenty pages from the camp section of the February 1987 draft of the script. Stoppard invited Meyjes back to his home where both men stayed up late working on the script. After Meyjes departed, Stoppard made further revisions to the script. Additional work took place with Meyjes assisting Stoppard, but “the fundamental shift, which made the rewrite possible, was Stoppard’s,” according to Nadel.45 Stoppard transposed the two main scenes with Jim and Basie. Mere weeks before shooting ended on 6 June, Stoppard, nipping at Meyjes’ heels, flew to Spain to revise a final scene: Basie’s death. The character, played by John Malkovich, lives through the film in the finished product.46 Given the constant tinkering of the film, especially the input from Meyjes, whatever it might have been, perhaps it is no surprise that a dispute arose over the screenwriting credit. The Writers Guild of America

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had to step in and sort matters out. Stoppard declared himself “‘the first and last writer on this film and indeed am still working with the director on the day I write this statement’ (4 August 1987).” He did not feel it was justified sharing screenwriting credit with Meyjes “for no more than twenty-five pages of material.”47 Despite Stoppard’s displeasure leading to the Writers Guild interceding, this did not taint his relationship with Spielberg, surprisingly. Spielberg was so impressed with Stoppard, he kept him on as a “script doctor” for Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and Schindler’s List. When the former became a box office blockbuster, Spielberg sent Stoppard a “thank-you bonus” of one million dollars.48 Stoppard learned much on the art of filmmaking while “interfering” in the post-production of Empire. He said: on the page you feel you must have a certain line, but when you see the film you want to cut all over the place. Even now I’d take out the odd phrase here and there from the “Empire” screenplay if I could . . . the genius of filmmaking I so much admire is to capture the same feeling I get from words by showing. It’s awfully seductive. Another great thing about film is its fixedness, where the great thing about plays is they can be changed. That fixedness of film is a relief and a luxury for a playwright, but most deceptive.49

It is that emphasis on the visual in film over the verbal that characterizes Stoppard’s work that problematizes the study of his work on the adaptation of Ballard’s novel. To their credit, Ian Freer and Frank Gormlie acknowledge Tom Stoppard’s involvement with the script for Empire of the Sun. While discussing the focus of the film, Freer says, “Spielberg, through Stoppard, zeroed in on the relationship between Jim and Basie.”50 However, Gormlie’s credit to Stoppard is couched in indifference. He writes, “[I]t may not really matter if we call the film of Empire of the Sun Steven Spielberg’s (or for that matter Tom Stoppard’s who wrote the screenplay).”51 However, it does matter. Stoppard’s own downplaying of his contribution further complicates matters while explaining the process of adaptation. In the McBride biography on Spielberg, Stoppard said, “The book is a big canvas …. To film all of it, you’d end up with a film which is maybe four or five hours long.”52 What then does one focus on and whose decision is it? According to Stoppard, “the auteur—the author as opposed to the screenwriter—is the person who ultimately makes these choices.”53 While in the camp, Jim’s relationships are manifold, although they differ in levels of significance. “You can’t deal fully with all of them,” Stoppard continued.

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“Steven was most interested in Jim’s relationship with Basie.”54 It would seem not even Stoppard himself thinks his contribution greater than Spielberg’s to the film. Ballard only mentions Stoppard once in Miracles of Life. Ballard and his domestic partner Claire Walsh met Tom Stoppard at the Beverly Hilton during the film’s Los Angeles premiere in December of 1987. He described Stoppard as a “pleasant but intensely nervous man.”55 Sadly, but unsurprisingly, Ballard gives the majority of the credit to Spielberg when discussing the adaptation. Ballard’s first impressions of Spielberg were positive. He said: . . . I liked him enormously, and in fact within five seconds of talking to him, I knew that my book was in the best possible hands. He struck me as a man with a very powerful, hard imagination—completely unsentimental, quite the opposite of what I had read in the newspapers.56

Ballard said he found himself “immediately impressed by [Spielberg’s] thoughtfulness and his commitment to the novel. Difficult scenes that could easily have been dropped were tackled head-on.”57 As an example, Ballard cited Jim’s attempt at reviving the dead kamikaze pilot in Chapter Forty-One. In the film, the young pilot “merges into [Jim’s] younger, blazer-wearing self, a powerful image that expresses the essence of the whole novel.”58 Jim viewed the pilot as “this imaginary twin he had invented.”59 He felt “if he could raise this dead Japanese pilot he could raise himself, and the millions of Chinese who had died during the war” among others, including Basie and his parents, who might or might not be dead.60 Spielberg told Ballard he: “saw” the film . . . in the scene where the Mustangs are attacking the airfield next to the Lunghua Camp . . . . It’s an unsettling moment, one of many in . . . Spielberg’s best . . . film.61

Ballard’s precision in describing the aircraft parallels the precision of Stoppard’s writing and Spielberg’s directing. When the third aircraft approaches, it flies “so low that Jim was looking down at the cockpit. He could see the pilots and the insignia on their fuselage.”62 Ballard describes Jim as: feast[ing] on every rivet in their fuselages, on the gun ports in their wings, on the huge ventral radiators that Jim was sure had been put there for

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While his involvement in the film would not be of the same level as Stoppard’s, Ballard did take part in the filming. Like Stoppard going to Shanghai before principal photography, Ballard visited the sets.64 He remarked that the scenes at Sunningdale were, for him, “strange to be involved in” due to the attention paid in recreating the childhood home of Ballard. When Ballard stepped out of the house to see the period automobiles, Packards and Buicks from the 1930s, Ballard remarked, “The scene was so like the real Shanghai of my childhood that for a moment I fainted.”65 Ballard would also contribute to the celluloid version of his work, though sadly, those contributions would not reach the final production. Ballard had been asked by Spielberg to play a walk-on part as a party guest dressed as John Bull. The scene was cut from the final production, although it is glimpsed in the making-of documentary The China Odyssey.66 According to Freer, Spielberg, playing on the “empire” element of the book’s title, offered a Roman centurion’s costume to Ballard originally.67 With the exception of the cut scene, Ballard kept his involvement in the film limited to the introductory voiceover, which again, ended up on the cutting room floor. The logic behind Ballard’s “hands-off” approach was “I want to be able to sit back in the audience like everybody else and be captivated by the magic of Steven Spielberg.”68 In doing so, Ballard, whether he realized it or not, removed his authorship in a way from the film. Even if neither Spielberg nor Stoppard ever laid eyes on the text, Ballard linked the text to the cinema throughout the film as “one of the recurring motifs in the book.”69 The novel begins with Jim watching newsreels in the Shanghai Anglican Cathedral. As he links the text to films, Ballard’s film doppelganger Jim associates viewing the newsreels with patriotic duty. If that is true, then Jim is a model patriot. Ballard writes, “Usually Jim devoured the newsreels, part of the propaganda effort mounted by the British Embassy to counter the German and Italian war films being screened in the public theatres and Axis clubs of Shanghai.”70 He contrasts the March of Time films with the Pathé newsreels, finding the former “more sombre, in a way that appealed to [him].”71 As for the latter, they gave the impression that “despite their unbroken series of defeats,” the British, by and large, were enjoying the on-going conflict.72 Also, the chauffer for the Graham family is an actor in locally produced films.73 According to Ballard, “Yang enjoyed impressing his

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eleven-year-old passenger with tall tales of film stunts and trick effects.”74 Jim thought of Yang’s acting in the chapter named, unsurprisingly, “The Open-Air Cinema.”75 He recalled how, before war broke out, “cartoons and adventure serials made by the Shanghai film industry were projected at night to audiences of Chinese mill girls and dockyard workers.”76 Film brackets the plot of the novel. In the last chapter, before the Grahams leave for England, Jim makes note of the three screens set up along the Bund, the embanked riverfront in Shanghai, as a joint effort by the local government and the Allied forces. On them were screenings projecting for the citizens “in order to give the population a glimpse of the world war that had recently ended.”77 While his parents were slow to recover following their return from the prison camps, in the two months since his return to Amherst Avenue, Jim frequented the cinema, sitting through repeated viewings of Bataan and The Fighting Lady to the puzzlement of Yang.78 According to Gormlie, “[r]eferences to films and cinema form a grotesque and ironic comment on the action in the novel.”79 He cites the “honour guard of fifty hunchbacks in medieval costume” outside of a showing of The Hunchback of Notre Dame and the massive poster of Gone with the Wind.80 For Gormlie, even Ballard’s literary style, “from long, slow tracks through the streets of Shanghai, to dramatic cuts at the ends of chapters or sections,” takes on cinematic aspects.81 It must be said that the film does employ some of these elements. The challenge for Spielberg as a director lay in externalizing a piece that, according to Ballard, was “almost entirely an interior narrative.”82 Spielberg admitted, I was very disturbed making this movie . . . . This was not a happy experience, not because it was such a difficult film to make . . . . It was my attitude. It was that I was doing things against not the grain of my intuition, but against the collection of my own experiences as a director.83

Spielberg had to resist the urge to balance the darkness of the film with humour, a reflex on the part of Spielberg that marked his work up to that point. According to Philip Taylor, “the film is a difficult one to describe in terms of its content, largely because of the reliance upon the visual performance of . . . Jim Graham.”84 Turning his attention to Stoppard’s script, Taylor considers it “a relatively busy one in terms of dialogue but one which simplifies and adapts the novel for visual purposes.”85 Indeed, considering the work’s literary origins and the very love of wordplay that

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typifies Stoppard’s work, it is, ironically, the imagery that propels the plot and meanings within the film. Ballard himself admitted that his first reaction to the film was, “‘This has nothing to do with my book.’ . . . It’s [due to] the nature of the medium, so remote from the medium of print.”86 Ian Freer believes “Ballard’s words [are] translated into haunting, slightly surreal pictures to render Jim’s mind-set manifest.”87 As examples, Freer cites the scene where Jim touches a Zero with sparks flying off it before he salutes the Japanese airmen. This “replicates his idealised view of his enemy and the world.”88 Freer also cites the Mustang pilot waving to Jim as the plane flies past during the U.S. Air Force’s demolition of the prison camp. In 1990, Spielberg summarized his working relationship with Stoppard, stating: [W]hat I think I’ve done is to introduce Tom to telling the story with pictures and Tom introduced me to telling the story with dialogue. He showed me an interesting way of talking, not to the point but round the point. You don’t just come out and say what you mean. Let the audience figure it out for themselves. Give them all the clues and then confirm, after they figure it out, that they were right.89

For better or worse, Spielberg believed credit went to him for the alteration in Stoppard’s methods. To turn the attention to the script compared to the novel, where do the two contrast? Among the differences noted by Freer, the script avoids the sexual ambiguity of Frank and Basie’s relationship, along with their “predatory interest” in Jim.90 The same cannot be said of Ballard’s novel. When Jim is taken to Frank and Basie’s living quarters, he notes “[a] familiar scent . . . in the air, reminding him of his mother’s bedroom in Amherst Avenue, the odours of face powders, cologne, and Craven A cigarettes.”91 For Jim, the association is so strong, he imagines his mother will emerge to wake him from the nightmare of the war. Further hints of the two’s homosexuality are given by Ballard viewing Frank and Basie through Jim’s eyes. Basie’s hands are “soft” and he powders himself underneath a quilt during their introduction.92 Is it an overgeneralization to say aspects of softness and/or a desire to preserve one’s modesty were not masculine traits during World War II? Furthermore, the two men sleep together under the quilt.93 In one brilliant sentence, after explaining Basie’s former employment on the CathayAmerica line, Ballard’s prose practically screams of Basie’s effeminacy. He writes, “To a large extent, Basie had modelled himself on the women

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passengers he had served [then], forever powdering themselves in the heat as they lit a cigarette.”94 If Basie is not homosexual, he toys with aspects of transgenderism at the very least. As one final example of the questionable sexuality of the two Americans, during Basie’s constant questioning of Jim, he asks, “Tell me about [your parents’] swimmingpool parties . . . . I imagine there was a lot of . . . gaiety.”95 Could word choice be that accidental? One wonders. Spielberg/Stoppard refrained from “the catalogue of Japanese atrocities—the public stranglings, the piles of maggot-ridden corpses—as described in the book and the sense of poverty-stricken Shanghai.”96 Here Freer slightly misreads the text in his comparison of the film to the novel. Ballard devotes only a single paragraph to the public stranglings. Also, he does not describe an actual execution, but the small stadium where the executions took place, as well as the reaction by the Chinese citizens. To Jim’s mind, “The Chinese enjoyed the spectacle of death . . . as a way of reminding themselves of how precariously they were alive.”97 Ballard, both as writer and his fictional stand-in, takes great interest in examining the bodies of the newly deceased, as depicted in the opening page of Chapter Three. Ballard writes: [Jim] stopped to peer into the lidless coffins. The yellowing skeletons were embedded in the rain-washed mud . . . . Jim was struck by the contrast between the impersonal bodies of the newly dead . . . and these sunwarmed skeletons.98

He held the skulls with particular fascination “with their squinting eye sockets and quirky teeth.”99 In his description of the corpses, the reminders return that Ballard read medicine at university, which crop up repeatedly in his books, despite his desire to break away from the sort of fiction he wrote before Empire. True, Stoppard’s film adaptation opens with the floating coffins, but within the luxury of the printed form, Ballard is able to indulge in his appreciation for anatomy at its most horrid, particularly when describing the funeral pier at Nantao where those Chinese too poor to pay for a funeral sent the coffins of the deceased out to sea: [c]arried away on one tide, they came back on the next . . . the old men and women, the young mothers and small children, whose swollen bodies seemed to have been fed during the night by the patient Yangtze.100

For some morbid reason, Ballard deems it necessary to describe the swelling of the corpses. The coffins wash ashore again when Jim is down

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at the Bund, joined this time by the “carcasses of dogs.”101 Jim, fascinated, or if not, desensitized by the corpses, imagines Frank and Basie engaged in raiding the floating graves of the Chinese for the one gold tooth every Chinese citizen allegedly had, “prodding the corpses that drifted past and exposing their gums.”102 It is the absence of these horrors through which Frank Gormlie conducts his analysis of the film adaptation versus the source novel. Gormlie sets up the dichotomy between the book and film, based on the absence and presence of the aforementioned nightmarish images. He writes: Jim’s illusions about war, and his gradual disillusionment, form the novel’s core, but a sense of unreality is at the heart of the book: a sense expressed in a nightmarish vision of bodies and death, which would not be out of place in a modern “visceral” horror movie.103

By contrast, the film skirts the “sense of nightmare.” In its place are “dreamlike surrealist sequences serving to show how attractive the war is to Jim, a great adventure, and thus avoiding the novel’s critical edge.” 104 If Stoppard were to include the “visual horror” of the text, Gormlie explains, noting the rats eating into the burial mounds and Jim’s viewing the beheadings of the peasants with the same disinterest as he views Pathé newsreels, the film would most likely resemble one of George Romero’s zombie movies.105 To shift from the dead to the dead-but-still-living, the Graham family’s chauffeured Packard passes a solitary beggar in the film. This differs, according to Freer, compared with the multitude in the streets of Shanghai. In the novel, the beggar’s foot is even “casually crushe[d]” by Jim.106 In the novel, Ballard writes, “There were so many beggars in Shanghai . . . outside the gates of the houses, shaking their Craven A tins like reformed smokers. Many displayed lurid wounds and deformities, but no one noticed them that afternoon.”107 He is speaking of the day of the invasion, but is that day really different from any other with regard to the beggars? One last omission noted by Freer is the treatment of Mrs Vincent as Jim’s “first object of lust” within the text.108 Ballard’s language complicates Freer’s critique though. True, “Like all the men and older boys in G Bloc, Jim was attracted to Mrs Vincent, but her real appeal lay elsewhere.”109 She seems almost deity-like in her detachment from the camp. Though he wants to touch Mrs Vincent, it is, according to Ballard, “less out of adolescent lust than simple curiosity.”110 All the same, when

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Jim reaches for her shoulder, she pushes his hand away, suggesting he return to Mr Maxted in the huts. Freer does view “a whiff” of the idea still being present in the scene where Jim watches, through the netting in their dormitory, the Victors, as they are named in the film, having sex.111 For all the elements of the novel that were excised from the script, others were embellished by the union of Stoppard and Spielberg. The scene where Jim sets pheasant traps for Basie takes up a single paragraph in Ballard.112 In the film, the scene is developed into “a taut, tense, cinematic set-piece that is typically Spielberg.”113 Other images are taken from the book and “heightened with Spielbergian touches.”114 Jim signals to the HMS Petrel with his flashlight on the night the Japanese invade, culminating in a blast that sends the young boy across the room. The camera “whip-pans” to three mirrors, suggesting that Jim’s life and personality have both been shattered by war.115 In the text, Jim believes he started the war due to the Japanese misinterpreting the semaphores he flashed to them from his bedroom window.116 After his separation from his parents, Jim returns to the Graham home. Exploring the premises, he notes a footprint in talcum powder that becomes several, suggesting a struggle. At the end of the scene, Jim opens a window, blowing the dust away. Freer reads this as an obliteration of not just the dust, but Jim’s parents.117 Stoppard lifts the scene wholesale from the text. In the book, while Jim does see the prints in the spilled powder, neither the wind from the open window nor the dramatic symbolism noted by Freer are present.118 Stoppard and Spielberg disagreed about the end of the picture. One might argue that Stoppard wanted to represent his own childhood issues when he wanted Jim’s life, even after the reunion with his parents, “never [to] be pleasant again” due to his experiences in the prison camp.119 According to Freer, such a position was “completely antithetical to Spielberg’s worldview,” and the film ends on a note of uncertainty about Jim’s future.120 Stoppard’s vision of how the film should end was closer to the damaged, adult-before-his-time Jim with whom Stoppard felt a kinship, shown in the closing paragraphs: He stepped onto the gangway, conscious that he was probably leaving Shanghai for the last time, setting out for a small, strange country on the other side of the world that he had never visited, but that was nominally “home.” Yet only part of his mind would leave Shanghai. The rest would remain there forever, returning on the tide like the coffins launched from the funeral piers at Nantao.121

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It is difficult not to think of what might have been if Stoppard had been allowed to reflect the sombre tone with which the novel ends in his own script. Jim is not the “Jamie” returning to the warm bosom of his mother that Spielberg shows in the film version. Within that brief but dense description of Ballard, Jim is shown as a shell-shocked survivor. The damage to him is so severe, not only is mental illness suggested, but also associations of death, with the returning image of the floating coffins. Jim is not and cannot be “Jamie” ever again. By the same token, Tom is not and cannot be “Tommy” ever again. In a review by Philip French from The Observer, he wrote, “The film’s admirable first hour is stunning in its recreation of the confused Shanghai . . . The picture jumps forward from 1942 to 1945 and thereafter it loses its clarity, dramatic grip and simple coherence.”122 French’s opinion about the divided nature of the film reflected Stoppard’s own toward the film. To Stoppard’s mind, why the first half of the film was superior was because it possessed a compression, a density. There was more room in it for Steven to do what he does. The images were very eloquent—they locked together in a way which aggregated—and not many overtly dramatic events were happening [emphasis Stoppard].123

Stoppard cites the scene where Jim is rude to the servant for taking an item from the icebox. “I didn’t care too much for it on paper,” said Stoppard. “But Steven always knows what he’s doing.” The scene is tied to when the servant later slaps the boy’s face, another scene lifted from the book.124 “[T]hose two moments are so interdependent. The boy wasn’t trying to be insolent. The boy was just expressing colonialism, he was expressing the ethos of his own society.”125 Stoppard stated, “I think the first hour of Empire of the Sun is somewhere in the masterpiece class, as good as anything [Spielberg] ever did . . . .” Stoppard ranks it “up to Schindler’s List, the work of his I like best of all.” He regarded the scenes in the streets of Shanghai as “absolutely remarkable. The way the shots are put together, the balance between the work that Steven is doing against the work which I and [Ballard] were doing, the balance there just seemed to me to be perfect.”126 Though Stoppard seems denied sunlight to grow under the shadow cast by Spielberg when critics write about the film adaptation of Empire of the Sun, in other respects, Spielberg acted as a human shield, given the amount of negative press he received upon the film’s release. Indeed, the film was a disappointment at the box office. McBride noted that the

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attacks on Spielberg were due to the film’s downplaying of Ballard’s account of the disease and starvation that wracked the prisoners in the camp at Lunghua, as well as for the film “minimizing the brutality of the Japanese guards.”127 McBride cites a review by Pauline Kael who wrote that the film “treats the hell of the prison camp as if it were the background for a coming-of-age story.”128 For all his resistance to creating films similar in sweetness and humour to past projects like E. T., Spielberg still stood accused of treading the same ground with Empire of the Sun. “[He] seems to be making everything nice,” Kael continued. “[T]here’s something in the source material that’s definitely not nice.”129 Such criticism, according to McBride, “betray[s] a fundamental misunderstanding” of the complexity of the perspectives of Stoppard, Spielberg and Ballard on childhood.130 As difficult as it was for Kael and others to understand the film adaptation of Empire of the Sun, it is also difficult to determine conclusively how closely Stoppard’s vision of Ballard’s novel was represented on celluloid. Who rules the Empire? While the source text remains Ballard’s, remember his initial reaction to the film. Also, it is true that the Writers Guild of America ruled in Stoppard’s favour as far as the writing credit on the screenplay. However, one wonders how much of Meyjes’ contributions remained. Even if it were possible to erase, or at least to ignore Spielberg’s reputation momentarily, the compromised “happy” ending of the film complicates issues of authorship. The truth remains as elusive as Stoppard himself, a characteristic Ira Nadel notes in the introduction to his biography on Stoppard131 (Stoppard: A Life xii). Perhaps that is what makes the film adaptation of Empire of the Sun ultimately Stoppardian.

Notes 1

Deborah Cartmell and Imelda Whelan. “A practical understanding of literature on screen: two conversations with Andrew Davies.” in The Cambridge Companion to Literature on Screen, ed. Deborah Cartmell and Imelda Whelan (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 242. 2 Ibid. 3 Andrzej Gasiorek. “J.G. Ballard” in Dictionary of Literary Biography: British and Irish Short Fiction Writers: 1945-2000. Vol. 319 (Farmington Hills, MI: Gale, 2006), 4-6. 4 Joseph McBride. Steven Spielberg: A Biography. (New York: Simon and Shuster, 1997), 398.

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Ira B. Nadel. Tom Stoppard: A Life. (New York: Palgrave, 2002), 23 Ibid., 26. 7 Ibid., 36. 8 Ibid., 37. 9 Ibid., 36. 10 “Ballard, J(ames) G(raham) 1930- .” in Contemporary Authors, New Revision Series, Vol. 133, ed. Tracy L. Matthews. (Farmington Hills, MI: Gale, 2005), 46. 11 Conversations, ed. V. Vale. (San Francisco: RE/Search, 2005), 190. 12 Ibid., 138. 13 Philip Taylor with Daniel O’ Brien. Steven Spielberg: The Man, His Movies, and Their Meaning. 3rd ed. (New York: Continuum, 1999), 119. 14 Ian Freer. The Complete Spielberg. (London: Virgin, 2001), 158. 15 J.G. Ballard. Miracles of Life: From Shanghai to Shepperton. (London: Fourth Estate, 2008), 255-56. 16 Ibid., 256. 17 Ira B. Nadel. “Stoppard and film.” The Cambridge Companion to Tom Stoppard. ed. Katherine E. Kelly. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 95. 18 Nadel, Stoppard: A Life, 355. 19 Ibid., 356. 20 Ibid. 21 Ibid. 22 Ibid. 23 Ibid. 24 Ibid. 25 Ibid. 26 Freer, 158. 27 Nadel, Stoppard: A Life, 356-57. 28 Myra Forsberg. “Spielberg at 40: The Man and the Child.” in Steven Spielberg: Interviews. ed. Lester D. Friedman and Brent Notbohm. (Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi, 2000), 127. 29 Nadel, “Stoppard and film,” 95. 30 Ibid. 31 Ibid. 32 Nadel, Stoppard: A Life, 357. 33 Ibid. 34 Ibid. 35 Ibid. 36 Ibid. 37 Ibid. 38 Ibid. 39 Ibid. 40 Ibid. 41 Ibid. 42 Ibid., 358 6

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Ibid. Ibid. 45 Ibid., 357. 46 Ibid., 358. 47 Ibid. 48 Ibid., 359. 49 Nadel, “Stoppard and film,” 95. 50 Freer, 158. 51 Frank Gormlie. “Ballard’s Nightmares/Spielberg’s Dreams: Empire of the Sun.” in The Films of Steven Spielberg. ed. Charles L. P. Silet. (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow, 2002), 128. 52 McBride, 395. 53 Ibid. 54 Ibid. 55 Ballard, Miracles of Life, 258. 56 Taylor, 121. 57 Ballard, Miracles of Life, 256. 58 Ibid. 59 J.G. Ballard. Empire of the Sun. (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1984), 269. 60 Ibid., 271. 61 Ballard, Miracles of Life, 257. 62 Ballard, Empire of the Sun, 150. 63 Ibid., 151. 64 Nadel, Stoppard: A Life, 357. 65 Ballard, Miracles of Life, 257. 66 Taylor, 120. 67 Freer, 164. 68 Taylor, 121. 69 Gormlie, 130. 70 Ballard, Empire of the Sun, 4 71 Ibid. 72 Ibid. 73 Gormlie, 130. 74 Ballard, Empire of the Sun, 5. 75 Ibid., 81. 76 Ibid. 77 Ibid., 275. 78 Ibid. 79 Gormlie, 130. 80 Ibid. 81 Ibid. 82 Forsberg, 130. 83 Ibid. 84 Taylor, 121. 44

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Ibid. Conversations, 185. 87 Freer, 162. 88 Ibid. 89 Taylor, 121. 90 Freer, 158. 91 Ballard, Empire of the Sun, 68. 92 Ibid., 69. 93 Ibid., 75. 94 Ibid. 95 Ibid., 76. 96 Freer, 158-9. 97 Ballard, Empire of the Sun, 40. 98 Ibid., 17. 99 Ibid. 100 Ibid., 26. 101 Ibid., 65. 102 Ibid., 74. 103 Gormlie, 129. 104 Ibid., 129. 105 Ibid., 132. 106 Freer, 159. 107 Ballard, Empire of the Sun, 11-12. 108 Freer, 159. 109 Ballard, Empire of the Sun, 138. 110 Ibid. 111 Ibid., 159. 112 Ibid., 128. 113 Freer, 159. 114 Ibid., 162. 115 Ibid. 116 Ballard, Empire of the Sun, 28. 117 Freer, 162. 118 Ballard, Empire of the Sun, 44. 119 Freer, 159. 120 Ibid. 121 Ballard, Empire of the Sun, 279. 122 Freer, 165. 123 McBride, 396. 124 Ballard, Empire of the Sun, 44. 125 McBride, 396. 126 Ibid., 395. 127 Ibid., 398. 128 Ibid. 86

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129

Ibid. Ibid. 131 Nadel, Stoppard: A Life, xii 130

Works Cited “Ballard, J(ames) G(raham) 1930- .” In Contemporary Authors, New Revision Series, Vol. 133. 46-54. Edited by Tracy L. Matthews. Farmington Hills, MI: Gale, 2005. Conversations. Edited by V. Vale. San Francisco: RE/Search, 2005. Ballard, J. G. Empire of the Sun. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1984. —. Miracles of Life: From Shanghai to Shepperton. London: Fourth Estate, 2008. Cartmell, Deborah and Imelda Whelehan. “A practical understanding of literature on screen: two conversations with Andrew Davies.” In The Cambridge Companion to Literature on Screen, 239-51. Edited by Deborah Cartmell and Imelda Whelehan. New York: Cambridge UP, 2007: 239-51. The China Odyssey. Directed by Les Mayfield. Narrated by Martin Sheen. Warner Brothers, 1987. Empire of the Sun. Directed by Steven Spielberg. Warner Brothers, 1987. Forsberg, Myra. “Spielberg at 40: The Man and the Child.” In Steven Spielberg: Interviews, 126-32. Edited by Lester D. Friedman and Brent Notbohm. Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi, 2000. Freer, Ian. The Complete Spielberg. London: Virgin, 2001. Gasiorek, Andrzej. “J.G. Ballard.” Dictionary of Literary Biography: British and Irish Short Fiction Writers: 1945-2000. Vol. 319. Farmington Hills, MI: Gale, 2006: 3-11. Print. Gormile, Frank. “Ballard’s Nightmares/Spielberg’s Dreams: Empire of the Sun.” The Films of Steven Spielberg. Ed. Charles L. P. Silet. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow, 2002: 127-38. Print. McBride, Joseph. Steven Spielberg: A Biography. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1997. Print. Nadel, Ira B. “Stoppard and film.” In The Cambridge Companion to Tom Stoppard, 84-103. Edited by Katherine E. Kelly. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001. —. Tom Stoppard: A Life. New York: Palgrave, 2002. Taylor, Philip with Daniel O’ Brien. Steven Spielberg: The Man, His Movies, and Their Meaning. 3rd ed. New York: Continuum, 1999.

CONFRONTATIONS WITH MORTALITY: KEATS, NIGHTINGALES, AND PRELAPSARIAN GARDEN SYMBOLS IN STOPPARD’S ARCADIA JOHN SIEKER

Evolutionary critics are concerned with attempts to legitimize English literary scholarship by turning its focus to a more scientific emphasis; however, for Tom Stoppard and John Keats, all avenues of human study are parallel streets leading toward the ordering of one’s universe and answering universally human questions. Both authors consider artistic and scientific investigation as equal partners in the objective of epistemological truth-seeking. Keats writes poetry addressing human questions, and Stoppard’s dramas include the “poetry” of math and science as tools to “investigate the struggle for knowledge that is science on stage from an interdisciplinary [and intertextual] perspective.”1 In consideration of the growing attention on the scientific aspects of Stoppard’s play-texts, it is helpful to look at Arcadia in the light of interdisciplinary definitions of human sensation and how various scholarly foci attempt to provide order to our imperfect world. While some current Stoppard studies feature a scientific concentration, in her review on Kirsten Shepherd-Barr’s Darwinist perspectives on “science plays,” Katy Price states, “Hannah, a character from the present-day (1990s) scenes in Arcadia declares: ‘Comparing what we’re all looking for misses the point. It’s wanting to know that makes us matter’ (p. 58).”2 Keats and Stoppard’s “wanting to know” is clear in their presentations of searches for prelapsarian garden environments in their respective works, which use similar Romantic ideology and symbols to confront one of the most basic literary and human concerns: humanity’s confrontation with its own mortality. In partial connection to the critical dialogue between Anja Muller-Muth and Buckhard Niederhoff regarding the potential of reading Arcadia intertextually as well as the question of the “epistemological scepticism” of the play-text, this paper will focus not on the key points of Stoppard and Bryon with which Niederhoff is concerned, but rather it will

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centre on the situation of Stoppard’s characters as intertextually connected to the speaker of John Keats’s famous “Ode to a Nightingale” and the Nightingale itself (Niederhoff 281).3 In Leon Waldoff’s article, “Imagination and Growth in the Great Odes,” he claims that [a]n important part of the imaginative effort in each of Keats’s major poems goes toward working out a defence against a full recognition of irrevocable loss and human mutability. The effort arises from a dual necessity, an old but still pressing psychological need to repair an absence and a more recent but equally compelling intellectual awareness of the complex personal, moral, and philosophical implications of loss and final separations.4

Such a description could not be more apt to describe Septimus Hodge in his hermitage. His need to repair the destruction of his world resulting from the loss Thomasina is evident in his desperate attempts to use his elegant mathematical ability to find the iterated equation to undo past events, time, and tragedy. These efforts are his attempt to reorder his world and recreate what was becoming his idyllic garden at Sidley Park, and through his love of Thomasina, he also attempts to reject the plight of humanity’s mortality. Here is one striking connection to Keats’s speaker in “Ode to a Nightingale.” While Keats’s speaker in “Ode to a Nightingale” is able to wrench himself from the beautiful world which he, as a human, cannot ever truly inhabit, Septimus is doomed to search continually through equations to recreate his garden in a way which he deems more ideal: “Ode to a Nightingale” [shows] the impulse to build a psychological or spiritual garden, a bower of enclosed contentment. Yet Keats knew that we cannot “build a sort of mental Cottage of feelings quiet and pleasant . . . this never can be.” (Rollins i. 254)5

Septimus is not as fortunate in his fate, and his inability to alter the past along with his heart-breaking loss drives him from the genius of Sidley Park to the lunatic of a Gothic hermitage. He remains in a world created by those futilely attempting to recreate a garden paradise of their own, and also in a mind-set where he must fail to turn back time and fight the final experience of humanity; unlike Keats’s speaker who escapes “easeful death” and lives to face his mortality outside the bower, Septimus dies in the garden.6 This desire for prelapsarian existence is an important

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connection to Stoppard’s literary forbears whether they are Romantic, Neo-Classic, Sir Phillip Sydney, or Ancient Greek. The speaker of “Ode to a Nightingale” is the struggling poet in the face of the incomprehensible both as pertains to his poetic task as well as that of being human in a complex world. As one considers that the speaker of “Ode” comes to realize he cannot in fact live in the Nightingale’s idyllic world, one can begin to see a distinct similarity to Stoppard’s various characters’ struggles with their own place and artistic and social goals in Arcadia. In her study of the great odes, Helen Vendler states that the poems say a great deal about Keats’s “view of our human predicament and his own predicament as an artist.”7 She goes on to say that “Ode to a Nightingale” represents Keats’s study of the art of natural music. His choice of comparing his poetic art to music through the Nightingale conveys vocal song without words, a “pure” aesthetic. The Nightingale’s art has “no conceptual or moral content,” which means that the art is “indifferent to its audience”8 just as Stoppard’s characters suggest that Second Law of Thermodynamics is indifferent to the fact that all bodies become cold means that all that lives must die passing through nature to eternity. Keats treats this evidently important theme in “Ode to a Nightingale” as well as his “Ode to a Grecian Urn,” where he again ruminates on complex issues of time, the comparison of art forms, heat and cold, and Arcady. In Keats’s first stanza of “Ode to a Nightingale,” he addresses his concerns about the comparison of art forms. The Nightingale, due in part to its beautiful voice, is often associated with poetry and poets, and Keats too “identifies himself as poet with the nightingale.”9 Keats’s Nightingale sings in “full-throated ease,” which Keats envies because he must write instead, which he regards as somewhat less beautiful.10 Keats states: My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk, Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk11

And it is this uncomfortable and troubling description that Keats must endure, while the Nightingale sings effortlessly in its pastoral garden. Stanza two describes Keats’s desire to join the world of the Nightingale, which the successive stanzas treat. The human world with its painful concerns, “Where but to think is to be full of sorrow/And leaden-eyed despairs,” is something that the Nightingale “among the leaves hast never known.”12 Such a garden paradise is doubtless attractive in comparison to

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the pain Keats discusses, and he is tempted to try to stay. Indeed the speaker is intoxicated with his humanity. His human thoughts and concerns fill him with pain, and in his journey to experience the Nightingale’s world, Keats’s speaker is making an effort to transcend his humanity. Stanza two reveals that he wishes to drink the mythological Greek “Hippocrene” wine and “fade away into the [Nightingale’s pastoral] forest dim.”13 In Keats’s third stanza, his speaker describes many of the struggles of humanity, and in an effort to understand seemingly thoughtless creation in the bird’s music, the reader begins to realize that poetic “music” comes from the pain of being human—an idea present in the works of Burns, Wordsworth, Byron, and any number of Romantics “grafted into the text via allusions.”14 Though he claims that he wishes to “Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget”15 the pain of humanity, which presumably will allow him to stay in the Nightingale’s pastoral bower, if he is to retain what it is that makes him beautiful, he must use this sensation of pain and eventually retreat from the garden and return to reality and ultimately his human death. For Keats, “on the viewless wings of Poesy”16 is the only way for one to even consider transcendence of human concerns, and in his investigation of such a state, his speaker profoundly feels the sensation of his humanity. He catalogues the temporal nature of humanity in stanza five, where the speaker lists the beauty of sensation, which is a complex word for Keats. Through the poem, the ephemeral nature of life becomes clear, and death follows as the subject of stanza six. In a study of Keats and Shelley, Heather Coombs states that Keats’s speaker is tempted to shut out misery by drink, or even death, but this is a passing mood. At his best moments, he knows that he must grasp all sensations fully, and leave behind the delights of pure fancy to come to grips with “the agonies, the strife of human hearts.” He must “welcome joy and welcome sorrow,” loving both “fair and foul.”17

—Or rather, coming to terms with the human condition. This condition becomes especially profound as Keats realizes that the Nightingale’s song is timeless, a characteristic Stoppard takes great pains to recreate. To listen to such a song means at once to hear the deep and meaningful universal inspiration of a Romantic god figure, but remaining to listen in a true Arcadia would mean death, which Stoppard also illustrates through Septimus. Though death tempts Keats’s speaker, the word “forlorn”18 strikes him in his thoughts and sounds “like a bell/To toll [him] back from thee to [his] sole self!”19 Northrup Frye attempts to ascertain humanity’s

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complexity and relationship with the death and confrontation with mortality in A Study of English Romanticism, stating that the world of a future life, as distinct from the present life where wild and space are the same thing. It is also the lost paradise or innocent vision of a previous life: we notice how the word “forlorn,” with its overtones of something glimpsed but out of reach, echoes in the Ode to a Nightingale. Similarly, the vision of being without becoming suggested by the Grecian urn is the kind of paradox that we are forced to use in searching for some analogy in language to describe a higher kind of existence. At the same time, Keats’ conception of poetry as the voice of an interpenetrating world is Romantic in the sense that it regards human creative power as the only thing which gives us any clue to what another dimension of life may be like.20

Keats pulls himself out of the Nightingale’s world because, in the end, he is human and must suffer through his human experience. Keats’s speaker’s creative voice manifests itself through this suffering. In considering the complexity of sensation for Keats and understanding its definition’s connection to the seemingly divergent disciplines mentioned in Arcadia, it is helpful to turn to Keats: The Poet. In this text, Stuart Sperry indicates that John Locke, Thomas Reid, Archibald Alison, David Hartley, Dugold Stewart, Alexander Gerard, Berkely, and Abraham Tucker, who was an influence on William Hazlitt, Keats’s mentor, all are authors and philosophers who attempt to define the complex term “sensation” in their works. Locke’s definition of “sensation” is an “actual transmission of perception to consciousness.”21 This transmission includes “bodily experiences and a condition of consciousness of mind; or rather it relates to both at once.”22 Later, Locke’s ideas force one to ask if transmission is a process of thought and experience equalling sensation, and what is the connection to sensation from external stimulus and internal perception, which can be different for everyone. By drawing out reaction to experience in the external, physical world, Romantic poets are trying to answer the question of sensation much the same as Enlightenment philosophers.23 Keats struggled with the process of understanding where poetry and any creative output come from and also with dealing with the questions of sensation being different for various people. Though he often compares poetry to music, his ideas about the chemical process, formed through his studies of medicine, and the creative process helped him to address his questions. Although, he struggled with the concern of being understood by others as well as that

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[w]hile science, particularly chemistry, provided a method for understanding the changes and reactions taking place within the world of physical energy and matter, there was no simple or exact means for applying such principles in order to explain imagery, sensation, emotion, thought, and the various combinations and relationships between them.24

These variables are the same as those being questioned by Stoppard’s characters, and the influence great thinkers have had on the process and understanding of Keats is similar to that of Stoppard’s modern scientific inspirations. Keats’s attempt to define the various disciplines of human endeavour as art forms which attempt to solve the mystery of humanity illuminates Stoppard’s use of disparate individual scholars congregating at Sidley Park both in 1809 and 1993. Just as Keats’s speaker cannot actually remain in the realm of the Nightingale, and transcendence is unattainable for human beings, the characters in Arcadia use forms of writing or mathematics to connect with the meaning and experience of the perplexity of life. The creative mind seeks their symbolic Nightingale and his paradise, which is above the concerns of man and woman. Regardless of their discipline of study, many of characters who appear at Sidley Park, the aristocratic garden estate of the Croom family, are concerned with transcending or unravelling their human state in one way or another. For all of his study in mathematics, as Valentine Coverly states, the problem is the relationship of humanity to each other, or “the attraction that Newton left out. All the way back to the apple in the garden.”25 Clearly this reference brings Isaac Newton to mind; however, in the context of the other type of attraction that Thomasina and Valentine discuss, the mention of an apple (and the apple on the table of Sidley Hall, which Gus gives to Hannah) has obvious Eden connections, equations contained in leaves, temptations, and reiterated procreation as well. Regardless of their vehicles, Keats uses garden imagery to question man’s place in the world and his relationship to divinity just as Stoppard does. Whether one flies to a bower “on the viewless wings of Poesy”26 or reiterated computations, one’s lot is an effort to understand the garden of the earth and, while one is defined by one’s relationship with death, one cannot but ponder it. Stoppard would say that regardless of the method, “It’s wanting to know that makes us matter—or rather makes us human.”27 Stoppard’s connection to Keats and the effort to attain a prelapsarian existence is most obvious through his use of the Nightingale symbol within the garden. This symbol and character is, like his play, a complicated one. Although Bernard Nightingale does not seem to be a

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Nightingale as Romantic figure, as Chloe Coverly states in the play-text, perhaps he is a symbol of the failed ideal of a utopian Arcadia - the tragic notion that mortality is inescapable. He is searching for some truth, however fabricated, and is utterly tied to the success of his claims. His creations prove not to be “real,” much like Keats’s Nightingale’s creations are not tangible to humanity. His ideas about creation are too perfect and easy to be real, and so other characters are at odds with him and his creations: they are unattainable. As is especially noteworthy, Bernard’s arguments with Hannah Jarvis culminate in issues of reality versus fabrication. Bernard’s desire for Byron to have been at Sidley Park, duelled with Ezra Chater, and possessed “The Coach of Eros” creates friction for him with Hannah Jarvis. This desperate desire for connection to what Bernard perceives as the idyllic past and his desire to leave a lasting mark on the literary world is why Bernard verbally attacks the other characters. His longing for a way to conquer his mortality isolates him from the victory of his namesake. He is being pushed out of his Nightingale’s bower by the force of the other members of the garden at Sidley Park rather than by his own will and acceptance of his own beautiful yet painful humanity, which is what pulls Keats’s speaker back from the richness of death he apparently feels in the Ode. Though not a one-to-one ratio with Keats’s Nightingale or speaker, in his essay on character symbolism, John Fleming suggests that Bernard is a symbol for the Romantic temperament in that he is more energetic, more passionate, and more prone to intuition . . . . Characteristic of a romantic, Bernard takes a fervently intuitive approach to his research [. . . and] Bernard’s declaration[s] suggest that human intuition is an aspect of life that is more mysterious, something that cannot be confined and explained by science.28

Fleming points out that it is also important to note that Bernard is wrong in his theory on Byron, and Hannah is correct in her theory about Septimus. Hannah is correct in her theory on Septimus being the hermit in the garden because of proof that filters into the present but also probably because of the tragic and somewhat detached nature of Stoppard’s play. Septimus, like Bernard and all the intellectually driven characters in the play-text, attempts to confront his mortality and longs for a prelapsarian, Romantic, idyllic existence. Whether a character is looking to the past, as are Bernard, Valentine, and Hannah, or seeking to find a way to change the past, like Septimus, they fail. They pull themselves from or are

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unwillingly thrust out of the garden bower like Keats’s speaker, or attempt to alter the garden itself. Hannah Jarvis appears on stage as a confident woman and author seemingly unimpressed with Bernard. In his article, “Playing of Time (and Playing with Time) in Tom Stoppard’s ‘Arcadia,’” Enoch Brater describes her as a reader of period romances as well as the author who knocks off popular how-to books about gardening, remains Hannah throughout [the play-text, despite the shifts other characters may exhibit,] as does the designeracademic Bernard Nightingale, who yearns for headlines and never saw a trend he didn’t like. “Publish!” is his mantra as well as the last word he utters “with a carefree expansive gesture” as he noisily exits the play. (Arcadia, 96)29

Still, such a description does not seem to fit with one’s typical expectations for a Romantic character named “Nightingale.” He does not seem to inspire the reverence a reader of Keats might expect, but he does share the characteristic of the Romantic Nightingale symbol in that he “sings” out constantly. He shows off that of which he feels he should be proud, much like the namesake of the alias bird he ironically assumes to hide his true feathers from Hannah. As Bernard Peacock, Bernard hides an aspect of himself but exposes that, under the scrutiny of a realistic perspective, much like Keats’s speaker discovers at the end of the Ode, while the Nightingale is perhaps a fitting symbol, the Keatsian vision of a perfect garden is disconnected with the pain of humanity and the search for meaning in his changing world. Being in the Nightingale’s garden is a desirable state for poetic excellence and euphoric experience, but Bernard cannot fulfil the Romantic vision in entirety. He is at first willing to exchange his presumed scholarly Truth in research for some kind of immortality of reputation or scholarship in that his human craft would succeed in answering mysteries, but as a man he cannot really be the Romantic Nightingale and leaves the garden and Sidley Park as an incomplete symbol of unattained perfection and without an achievement of immortality much like Keats’s speaker. Some have claimed that the character Bernard Nightingale is in fact “the Benedict of the same name, who just happens to be the lead critic for the London Times, [and who] was not at all happy about sharing a name with him”; much like many aspects in Arcadia, Stoppard uses one item through two time periods often for more than one purpose.30 Whether a Regency “immortal Bird”31 or postmodern allusion, Bernard is perhaps meant to bear a connection to Benedict or another similar individual, but

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the name nevertheless evokes Romantic links to liberation and constraint through the creative process of the artist. Regardless of his name, like Keats’s speaker, Hannah originally rejects Bernard and his methods. As a Nightingale figure, Hannah rejects partnership with him and his world because he seems not a real force for her; he is not concerned with the same human issues that interest Hannah. She studies the progression of the garden in various times; Bernard attempts to construct or fabricate the operations within the garden. As such, he is not engaged in solving any mystery of humanity, but he is rather concerned with believing in his own pride and peacocking. Hannah rejects Bernard as a Nightingale figure to be revered because of his artificiality. She dislikes humanity’s attempt to create false truth in their control of research, which is meant to disclose the answers to question and further the quest for knowledge, and also to artificially create and control one’s own environment for no discernible purpose. Interestingly she rejects Bernard for this reason and is searching for proof of Septimus, who is consumed with reordering his environment and who is instrumental to her research on British gardens. As part of her analysis of such historical and environmental changes, Hannah pronounces the hermitage “a perfect symbol [of] the whole Romantic sham… A century of intellectual rigor turned in on itself.”32 In his article “Turning Theorems into Plays,” Stephen Abbott says, Central to Hannah’s thesis is the hermit, “a savant among idiots, a sage of lunacy,” who when he died left the hermitage stuffed with thousands and thousands of pages of mathematical proofs attempting to “save the world through good English algebra.”33

The fact that the hermitage replaces the gazebo implies that there has been a shift from a structure that has come to symbolize carnal company with one that is defined by crippling isolation. What was designed as a picturesque, ornamental addition to the manor’s extravagant grounds turns into the self-made, fully-functional prison for Septimus. The place where he met with Mrs Chater, which leads to Thomasina’s question that opens the play-text’s dialogue, is also the place where Septimus will spend his last days. Septimus dies alone and mad in the garden of the Gothic, but he has not exchanged thinking for feeling as Hannah suggests of the time period in which Septimus lives. Rather, Septimus is consumed by thinking and feeling and uses his genius to attempt solve his and Thomasina’s human misery and eventually swoons to death just as Keats’s speaker is tempted to do in the Nightingale’s garden.

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Not only does such a shift work functionally in the play-text, but Stoppard’s [also] playing with time is partially sited in an uneasy past at the very moment when one Zeitgeist is about to give birth to another. The garden we see through this set’s elaborate window frame within the stage frame is therefore the subject of considerable intrigue. Historical as well as horticultural revisionism is in the air. Time plays. The classical symmetry of Capability Brown’s five hundred acres is about to be undone by Culpability Noakes in the New Age appetite for the “picturesque,” complete with grottos, hermitage, and “everything but vampires.” … And yet the very English classicism threatened here, what this play calls “Capability Brown doing Claude, who was doing Virgil,” is as much a fashion as the romantic claptrap that is about to replace it (26). Each age re-creates itself in the image it makes of the past.34

One sees the “Garden Paradise” through a lens of perspective of time or personal viewpoint. Stoppard illustrates that the artists, philosophers, and thinkers of a time attempt to re-see or redo their world and create. They are continually impressed with the past as if they are waltzing with it, though they revise it. Stoppard’s use of the dancers at the end of his playtext visually and thematically connects these seemingly disparate elements. The reader sees this temporal duality repeated everywhere in the play with Classicism/Romanticism, Regency/postmodernism, Aristotle/Newton, and Fermat/Chaos. In conjunction with Helen Vendler’s The Odes of John Keats and Keats’s attitude about the multifaceted interdisciplinary aspects of human sensation, however, Stoppard connects the Romantic issues at work in the play-text with science in his various uses of the term “reiteration.” Whether the mathematical repetition of functions or equations, eloquent continual description, or sexual reproduction, the term demands investigation based on its use by these two authors. Vendler believes that Keats desires to give every item a complete description in “Ode to a Nightingale.” She calls this his “trope of reiteration”35 in describing the supernatural wine he desires in stanza two and the ephemeral flowers and aspects of nature in the Nightingale’s bower from stanza five. Though Vendler may be using “reiteration” to mean something slightly different than Valentine’s “iteration” of equations in his explanation of his computations of Thomasina’s leaf, Septimus’s study of turning back time, and his own study of grouse behaviour, the connection is nevertheless apparent.36 Keats describes his garden experience in the same painstaking detail in poetry that Stoppard’s characters do with their elegant mathematics: “the mathematics of the natural world.”37 The problem addressed by Valentine,

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perhaps in part due to his romantic frustration with Hannah, regarding his study of grouse is that there is too much “noise,”38 i.e. too many variables, to chart their behaviour accurately. The connection to Thomasina’s conjecture about “bodies in heat”39 being the unaccounted for variable in the equation that might chart all earthly occurrences is humorous and relatively clear. Lady Croom echoes this thought, implying variables in a religious context as well when she states that “It is a defect of God’s humour that he directs our hearts everywhere but to those who have a right to them.”40 Such an arrogant comment sheds further light on Lady Croom. Two pages later in the play-text, though more than a hundred years later in time, and personifying the universe rather than one person’s imagining of an anthropomorphic deity, Chloe states that “The universe is deterministic all right, just like Newton said, I mean it’s trying to be, but the only thing going wrong is people fancying people who aren’t supposed to be in that part of the plan.”41 Here, the complication implicit in the human experience is romantic. Septimus suggests that all human knowledge is not lost despite the burning of libraries or the dropping of items that “we shed as we pick up”42 along the journey of human existence, but these variables, whether scientific or religious, are the very same struggles recorded by author and critic with regard to Keats’s works and frustration with the writing process and for Stoppard are frustrated by romantic attraction. One aspect of the reality of humanity that myopic Bernard sees—even in light of his professional oversight of fact-checking which does not—is that his concern with sensation is of a physical kind, which is cleverly connected to a type of reiteration and Stoppard’s discussion of chaos theory as the variable uncontrollable in predicting the future. The issue of sensation here is both artistic and scientific as well as romantic. Bernard and Septimus (early in the play-text) adopt a cavalier attitude toward such a force of attraction, but it is Septimus who is doomed to endure a task of using his discipline of understanding human sensation and its condition to combat its very condition of mortality of one whom he loves. If Bernard is posing different questions in the modern setting of Arcadia that others have to deal with, and the unaccounted for attributes of predicting the future are attributed to sex, Thomasina is doing so in the Regency setting of Arcadia. She is on the cusp of her physical maturity, and the stage direction at the end of the play-text implies she and Septimus are close to a serious romantic relationship, which has been hinted at throughout the play-text. Therefore, she will be proving that study of determinism is “destroyed” by “carnal embrace;”43 though is she physically destroyed by fire and so becomes an even greater obsession of Septimus’s. He remains

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in the garden in effort to undo his own fall from grace and unite with his symbol of what is unveiling both scientific truths about human existence and human mortality. In their studies of language, Bernard and Hannah exist in the “modern” time-period of Stoppard’s play. They look for truths of the literary and historical world, and Valentine and Septimus search the mathematical world for patterns and meaning; however, Thomasina studies both of these realms and becomes perhaps as great a symbol for the unattainable Nightingale’s transcendence of the humanity as does Bernard. Her understanding is too advanced to live in the world. While Septimus rejects society in favour of his garden hermitage, Thomasina is removed and “swoons to death”44 while attempting to uncover the mysteries of humanity itself. Though she dies, Thomasina is Septimus’s Nightingale symbol, and he spends the entirety of his life remaining in her bower and trying to reach her through their own shared human artistic and scientific efforts. Septimus goes insane from experiencing the human suffering Keats’s speaker attempts to withstand as he leaves the Nightingale’s world; he ends up “listening”45 not to Frye’s language to transcend to a higher existence, but instead to the mathematical “noise” in his garden, which he voluntarily makes his bower-prison, in that he dies attempting to change time and therefore alter the common lot of man.46 For Septimus as the hermit in an artificially constructed garden on the now Gothic grounds of Sidley Park, he is outside typical human concerns but not sensation. Septimus is a hermit because of human concerns for Thomasina, love, and regret, and he is struggling with these concerns. He is separated from humanity in that he refuses to come to terms with mortality and is in fact struggling to reverse the effect of the human plight; through his beautiful, poetic maths, he is attempting to deny what it means to be human because it hurts him to be one. Once Septimus and the reader understand what Thomasina does with her lessons, what she understands about humanity, we recognize mortality. We recognize the condition of being human. Her realizations about chaos theory and jam mixing with her rice pudding “until pink is complete” are innocent. They illustrate a scientific interest in human sensation and understanding, but as the reader, Septimus, and a Romantic poet might see, they are the tragic ruminations on mortality.47 The equation of Septimus plus Thomasina is contained within the chaotic world and not a pastoral bower. Without her, however, Septimus is consumed by rewriting the equation and, unlike Keats’s speaker who is only “half in love with easeful death,”48 chases his Nightingale fantasy into madness and dies alone in his garden denying the mortality of the woman he loves through his own mathematical poetry.

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The joke that Thomasina references from the margin of Fermat’s notebook states that there was not enough room to solve his theorem; the sad joke of Septimus’s fate is that whether he is clever enough “as to do it,” he does not have time or room enough on his thousands of sheets of paper to solve Thomasina’s “formula of all the future” 49or the past. The “voice”50 of Thomasina’s tragic joke is no bell to toll “forlorn”51 Septimus back “to [his] sole self,”52 nor will it open the “Charm’d magic casements”53 of the past in “lands forlorn”54; rather, one knows that when Stoppard’s “plaintive” waltz “fades,”55 the truth of humanity, of which Keats’s speaker is aware and Septimus rejects, is that the mysteries of humanity “lead into infinities where we cannot follow.”56

Notes 1

Price, Katy. Review: “It’s Wanting to Know that Makes Us Matter” Kirsten Shepherd-Barr, Science on Stage: From Doctor Faustus to Copenhagen. (Metascience 2008, 17), 162. 2 Ibid., 161. 3 Niederhoff, Burkhard. “Who Shot the Hare in Stoppard’s Arcadia? A Reply to Anja Müller-Muth.” Connotations. Vol. 13, No. 1-2 (2003/2004), 171. 4 Waldoff, Leon. “Imagination and Growth in the Great Odes.” Romanticism: A Critical Reader. Ed. Wu, Duncan. (Oxford: Blackwell, 1995), 300. 5 Ibid., 304-305. 6 Keats, John. “Ode to a Nightingale.” John Keats: The Major Works. Ed. Cook, Elizabeth. (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2001), 52. 286. 7 Vendler, Helen. The Odes of John Keats. (Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1983), 13. 8 Ibid., 55. 9 Ibid., 77. 10 Keats, John. “Ode to a Nightingale.” John Keats: The Major Works. Ed. Cook, Elizabeth. (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2001), 10. 285. 11 Ibid., 1-4, 285. 12 Ibid., 27-28, 22. 286. 13 Ibid., 16, 20. 285. 14 Muller-Muth, Anja. "It's wanting to know that makes us matter": Scepticism or Affirmation in Tom Stoppard's Arcadia. A Response to Burkhard Niederhoff. Connotations. Vol. 12, No. 2-3 (2002/2003), 282. 15 Keats, John. “Ode to a Nightingale.” John Keats: The Major Works. Ed. Cook, Elizabeth. (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2001), 21. 285. 16 Ibid., 33. 286. 17 Coombs, Heather. The Age of Keats and Shelley. (Glasgow: Blackie and Son Ltd., 1978), 172.

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18 Keats, John. “Ode to a Nightingale.” John Keats: The Major Works. Ed. Cook, Elizabeth. (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2001), 71. 288. 19 Ibid., 72. 288. 20 Frye, Northrup. A Study of English Romanticism. (New York: Random House, 1968), 162. 21 Sperry, Stuart. Keats the Poet. (Princeton: Princeton UP, 1973), 11. 22 Ibid. 11. 23 Ibid., 28. 24 Ibid. 70. 25 Stoppard, Tom. Arcadia. (New York: Samuel French, 1993), 74. 26 Keats, John. “Ode to a Nightingale.” John Keats: The Major Works. Ed. Cook, Elizabeth. (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2001), 33. 285-288. 27 Stoppard, Tom. Arcadia. (New York: Samuel French, 1993), 75. 28 Fleming, John. “On the Symbolism of the Characters.” Tom Stoppard: Bloom’s Major Dramatists. Ed. Bloom, Harold. (Philadelphia: Chelsea House. 2003), 108. 29 Brater, Enoch. “Playing for Time (and Playing with Time) in Tom Stoppard’s ‘Arcadia.’” Comparative Drama. Vol. 39. No. 2 (Summer 2005), 164. 30 Ibid., 165. 31 Keats, John. “Ode to a Nightingale.” John Keats: The Major Works. Ed. Cook, Elizabeth. (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2001), 61. 287. 32 Stoppard, Tom. Arcadia. (New York: Samuel French, 1993), 27. 33 Abbott, Stephen D. “Turning Theorems into Plays.” Math Horizons. Vol. 7, No. 1 (Sept. 1999), 9. 34 Brater, Enoch. “Playing for Time (and Playing with Time) in Tom Stoppard’s ‘Arcadia.’” Comparative Drama. Vol. 39. No. 2 (Summer 2005), 166. 35 Vendler, Helen. The Odes of John Keats. (Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1983), 87. 36 Stoppard, Tom. Arcadia. (New York: Samuel French, 1993), 45. 37 Ibid. 38 Ibid., 46. 39 Ibid., 84. 40 Ibid., 71. 41 Ibid., 73. 42 Ibid., 38. 43 Ibid., 1. 44 Keats, John. “Bright Star.” John Keats: The Major Works. Ed. Cook, Elizabeth. (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2001), 14. 325. 45 Frye, Northrup. A Study of English Romanticism. (New York: Random House, 1968), 162. 46 Stoppard, Tom. Arcadia. (New York: Samuel French, 1993), 46. 47 Ibid., 5. 48 Keats, John. “Ode to a Nightingale.” John Keats: The Major Works. Ed. Cook, Elizabeth. (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2001), 52. 285-288. 49 Stoppard, Tom. Arcadia. (New York: Samuel French, 1993), 5.

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50 Keats, John. “Ode to a Nightingale.” John Keats: The Major Works. Ed. Cook, Elizabeth. (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2001), 63. 287. 51 Ibid., 71, 288. 52 Ibid., 72, 288. 53 Ibid., 69, 288. 54 Ibid., 70, 288. 55 Ibid., 75, 288. 56 Stoppard, Tom. Arcadia. (New York: Samuel French, 1993), 37.

Works Cited Abbott, Stephen D. “Turning Theorems into Plays.” Math Horizons. Vol. 7, No. 1 (Sept. 1999), 5-11. Brater, Enoch. “Playing for Time (and Playing with Time) in Tom Stoppard’s ‘Arcadia.’” Comparative Drama. Vol. 39. No. 2 (Summer 2005), 157-168. Coombs, Heather. The Age of Keats and Shelley. Glasgow: Blackie and Son Ltd., 1978. Fleming, John. “On the Symbolism of the Characters.” Tom Stoppard: Bloom’s Major Dramatists. edited by Harold Bloom. Philadelphia: Chelsea House. 2003, 107-111. Frye, Northrup. A Study of English Romanticism. New York: Random House, 1968. Keats, John. “Bright Star.” John Keats: The Major Works. edited by Elizabeth Cook. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2001. 325. —. “Ode to a Nightingale.” John Keats: The Major Works. edited by Elizabeth Cook. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2001. 285-288. Muller-Muth, Anja. "It's wanting to know that makes us matter": Scepticism or Affirmation in Tom Stoppard's Arcadia. A Response to Burkhard Niederhoff. Connotations. Vol. 12, No. 2-3 (2002/2003). 281-291. Niederhoff, Burkhard. “Who Shot the Hare in Stoppard’s Arcadia? A Reply to Anja Müller-Muth.” Connotations. Vol. 13, No. 1-2 (2003/2004). 170-178. Price, Katy. Review: “It’s Wanting to Know that Makes Us Matter” Kirsten Shepherd-Barr, Science on Stage: From Doctor Faustus to Copenhagen. Metascience (2008) 17:159–163. Sperry, Stuart. Keats the Poet. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1973. Stoppard, Tom. Arcadia. New York: Samuel French, 1993. Vendler, Helen. The Odes of John Keats. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1983.

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Waldoff, Leon. “Imagination and Growth in the Great Odes.” Romanticism: A Critical Reader. Edited by Duncan Wu. Oxford: Blackwell. 1995, 291-342.

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Kuurman, Joost. “An Interview with Tom Stoppard.” Dutch Quarterly Review of Anglo-American Letters. 10 (1980/1): 41-57. Lawson, Mark. “Parade’s End: Why Tom Stoppard’s return to television is a cause for celebration.” Guardian, 24 August 2012. Accessed 28 October 2012. http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-andradio/tvandradioblog/2012/aug/24/parades-end-tom-stoppardsreturn?INTCMP=SRCH, accessed on 28 October 2012. Lewis, Peter. “How Tom went to work on an absent mind and picked up £20,000.” London Daily Mail, 24 May 1967: 6. —. “Quantum Stoppard.” Observer Magazine, 6 March 1988: 58-59. Londré, Felicia Hardison. Tom Stoppard. New York: Frederick Ungar, 1981. Lyall, Sarah. “The Muse of Shakespeare Imagined as a Blonde.” New York Times, Dec. 13, 1998, http://www.nytimes.com/1998/12/13/movies/film-the-muse-ofshakespeare-imagined-as-a-blonde.html?src=pm. Macaulay, Alastair. “The man who was two men.” The Financial Times, October 31/November 1, 1998. Marowitz, Charles. Confessions of a Counterfeit Critic. London: Eyre Methuen, 1973. Miller, David, and Richard Price. British Poetry and Magazines 19142000: A History and Bibliography of ‘Little Magazines.’ London and New Castle, DE: Oak Knoll, 2006. Mortimer, Penelope. “Tom Stoppard: Funny, Fast Talking and Our First Playwright.” [British] Cosmopolitan. Jan. 1978: 30-31, 39. Muller-Muth, Anja. “It’s wanting to know that makes us matter”: Scepticism or Affirmation in Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia. A Response to Burkhard Niederhoff. Connotations. Vol. 12, No. 2-3 (2002/2003). 281-291. Mustich, James. “Stoppard in Conversation,” Barnes & Noble Review, 10 December 2008. Nadel, Ira B. Double Act: A Life of Tom Stoppard. London, Methuen, 2002. —. “Stoppard and Film.” In The Cambridge Companion to Tom Stoppard, 84-103. Edited by Katherine E. Kelly. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001. —. “Tom Stoppard and the Invention of Biography.” Modern Drama 43, no. 2 (2000): 157-70. —. Tom Stoppard: A Life. New York: Palgrave, 2002.

282

Select Bibliography

Nicholls, Mark. “Brush Up Your Shakespeare: Performance Anxieties in Shakespeare in Love.” Journal of Film and Video 54, no. 4 (2002): 3 – 15. Niederhoff, Burkhard. “Who Shot the Hare in Stoppard’s Arcadia? A Reply to Anja Müller-Muth.” Connotations. Vol. 13, No. 1-2 (2003/2004). 170-178. Norman, Marc, and Tom Stoppard. Shakespeare in Love. London: Faber and Faber, 1999. Norman, Marc, and Tom Stoppard. Shakespeare in Love: A Screenplay. New York: Hyperion, 1998. Novick, Julius. “Rationality Regained.” The Threepenny Review, no. 63 (Autumn 1995): 28-9. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4384467. O’Connor, Thomas. “Welcome to the World of Tom Stoppard.” Orange County Register, 2 April 1989. Reprinted in Paul Delaney, Tom Stoppard in Conversation. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 1993: 225230 Offman, Craig. “‘Neither a Borrower . . .’: Were Parts of the Hit Movie Shakespeare in Love Lifted from an Obscure 1941 Novel?” Salon Magazine 5 February 1999. . Oxford Theatre Group. Letter/contract to Stoppard, 12 July 1966: Gordon Dickerson Collection 19.4. Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center. Page, Malcolm. File on Stoppard. London: Methuen, 1986. Pearce, Howard D. “Stage as Mirror: Travesties.” In Tom Stoppard, edited by Harold Bloom, 59-74. New York: Chelsea House, 1986. Pohvinen, Merja. “Reading the Texture of Reality: Chaos Theory, Literature, and the Humanistic Perspective.” English Department 6, Unpublished Dissertation, University of Helsinki, 2008. Price, Katy. Review: “It’s Wanting to Know that Makes Us Matter” Kirsten Shepherd-Barr, Science on Stage: From Doctor Faustus to Copenhagen. Metascience (2008) 17:159–163. Rabinowitz, Peter. “The Impossible has a Way of Passing Unnoticed: Reading Science in Fiction.” Narrative 19.2 (2011): 201-15. Rabinowitz. Peter J. “Narrative Difficulties in Lord Malquist and Mr Moon.” In The Cambridge Companion to Tom Stoppard, edited by Katherine E. Kelly, 55-67. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001. Renk, Kathleen. Magic, Science and Empire in Postcolonial Literature: The Alchemical Literary Imagination. NY: Routledge, 2012.

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Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. Directed by Tom Stoppard. 1990. New York City, NY: Cinecom Pictures, 2005. DVD. “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, Edinburgh 1966 | Stage | The Guardian.” Guardian.co.uk. Last modified August 6, 2003. http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2003/aug/06/theatre/. Rusinko, Susan. Tom Stoppard. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1986. Sammells, Neil. “The Early Stage Plays.” In The Cambridge Companion to Tom Stoppard, edited by Katherine E. Kelly, 104-19. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001. Sammells, Neil. Tom Stoppard: The Artist as Critic. London: Macmillan Press, 1988. Sammells, Neil. Tom Stoppard: The Artist as Critic. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1988. Schiff, Stephen. “Full Stoppard.” Vanity Fair 52. 5 (May 1989). Reprinted in Paul Delaney, Tom Stoppard in Conversation. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 1993: 212-224. Scott, A. O. “Stoppard in Love: The Playwright’s Infatuation with Smart Fun . . . and with Himself.” Slate 20 March 1999. http://www.slate.com/Assessment/99-03-20/Assessment.asp>. Shakespeare in Love. Directed by John Madden. 1998. New York City, NY: Miramax Films, 1999. DVD. Shulman, Martin. “The Politicizing of Tom Stoppard.” New York Times, 23 April 1978. Reprinted in Paul Delaney, Tom Stoppard in Conversation. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 1993: 107-112. Stoppard, Tom. “Act II . . . In Which Tom Stoppard Tries another Profession.” Western Daily Press, 13 September 1958: 8. —. “After Wesker—is the horse so thirsty?” Western Daily Press, 30 October 1961: 8 —. Arcadia. New York: Samuel French, 1993. —. Arcadia. New York: Faber and Faber, 1994. —. “Bits of Bert.” Scene 1.14 (September 1962): 21. —. “Chekhov – An Impartial Witness,” Ivanov, Donmar Warehouse Program, Sept. 2008. http://Donmarwarehouse.com/pl85.html.Ivanov2-1pdf. —. “The Definite Maybe.” Author 78 (Spring 1967): 18-20. —. Doctor Masopust, I Presume. Pilot for radio serial, co-written with Gordon M. Williams. Typescript. [1966] Gordon Dickerson Collection. Box 8.1. Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center. —. “Double Focus—the plight of the sane lunatic.” Western Daily Press, 13 November 1961: 8. —. “An English Seagull,” The Seagull, Program. Old Vic Theatre, London, 1997.6-7.

284

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—. The Explorers. Typescript. [1965]. Gordon Dickerson Collection. Box 8.7. Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center. —. Funny Man. Unproduced teleplay. Typescript. [1963] Tom Stoppard Collection. Box 67.4. Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center. —. The Gamblers. Typescript. Synopsis. [n.d.] Tom Stoppard Collection. Box 10.11. Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center. —. The Gamblers. Manuscript. [n.d.] Tom Stoppard Collection. Box 67.5. Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center. —. “Grandmother Courage.” Western Daily Press, 13 November 1981: 8 —. Higg and Cogg. Typescript. [1965] Tom Stoppard Collection. Box 13.11. Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center. —. How Sir Dudley Lost The Empire. Unproduced teleplay. Typescript. [1965] Tom Stoppard Collection. Box 67.6. —. I Can’t Give You Anything But Love, Baby. Manuscript. [1963] Tom Stoppard Collection. Box 14.10. Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center. —. The Invention of Love. London: Faber and Faber, 1997. —. The Invention of Love. New York: Grove, 1998. —. “Is It True What They Say About Shakespeare?” International Shakespeare Association, Hamburg. 12 April. 1980. Lecture. —. Jumpers. New York: Grove Press, 1972. —. Letter to Anthony C. H. Smith. May 1962. Tom Stoppard Collection. Box 37.1. Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center. —. 30 August 1962. —. Early 1963. —. June 1963. —. Summer 1963. —. October 1963. —. Late October or Early November 1963. —. November 1963. —. Late 1963. —. January 1964. —. February 1964. —. 23 April 1964. —. May 1964. —. June 1964 —. 22 June 1964. —. July 1964. —. August 1964. —. Early 1965. —. August 1965.

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—. October 1965. —. 12 October 1965. —. November or December 1965. —. Late September or Early October 1966. —. 6 December 1966. —. 7 February 1977. —. “Life, Times: Fragments.” In Introduction 2: Stories by New Writers, 126-9. London: Faber and Faber, 1964. —. Lord Malquist and Mr Moon. New York: Grove Press, 1966. —. “The Misfits in the Machine, Western Daily Press, 21 June 1961:10 —. “Off the Shaftesbury Fringe.” Scene 8.1 (November 1962): 19. —. Parade’s End. London: Faber and Faber, 2012. —. Parade’s End. Third draft. 29 July 2011. (Via William Baker.) —. “Reunion.” In Introduction 2: Stories by New Writers, 121-5. London: Faber and Faber, 1964. —. Rock ‘n’ Roll. London: Faber and Faber, 2006 —. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead. New York: Grove, 1967. —. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead. New York: Grove, 1991. —. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. New York: Samuel French, 1967. —. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Meet King Lear. Manuscript. [1964]. Tom Stoppard Collection. Box 23.10. Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center. —. Salvage, The Coast of Utopia Part III. London: Faber and Faber 2002. —. The Servant Problem (synopsis). Proposed teleplay. Typescript. [1965] Gordon Dickerson Collection. Box 11.10. Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center. —. Shipwreck, The Coast of Utopia, Part II. London: Faber and Faber, 2002. —. “Something to Declare.” The Sunday Times, 25 February 1968: 10. —. Stoppard: The Plays for Radio 1964-1983. London: Faber and Faber, 1990. —. “The Story.” In Introduction 2: Stories by New Writers, 131-6. London: Faber and Faber, 1964. —. This Way Out With Samuel Boot. Unproduced teleplay. Typescript. [1964] Box 68.5. Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center. —. “Tom Stoppard Interview for Parade’s End and Anna Karenina.” With John Preston. Daily Telegraph. 24 October 2012. —. Travesties. New York: Grove, 1975. —. Travesties. New York: Grove, 1989. —. Voyage, The Coast of Utopia Part I. London: Faber and Faber, 2002.

286

Select Bibliography

—. The Waiter (synopsis). Proposed teleplay. Typescript. [1965] Gordon Dickerson Collection. Box 11.10. Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center. —. “Who’s Talking of Jerusalem?” Western Daily Press, 15 January 1962:8. Tomasch, Sylvia. “Editing as Palinode: The Invention of Love and the Text of the Canterbury Tales.” Exemplaria 16, no. 2 (2004): 457-76. Tynan, Kenneth. Show People. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1979. Watts, Janet. “Tom Stoppard.” The Guardian, 21 March 1973. Reprinted in Paul Delaney, Tom Stoppard in Conversation. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 1993: 46-50. —. “Stoppard’s Half-century.” Observer, 28 June 1987: 17. Welsh, Anne Marie. “Stoppard in Love,” San Diego Union-Tribune, 6 February 2000. E11. The World of Parade’s End. BBC2, 24 August 2012. Zeifman, Hersh. “The Comedy of Eros: Stoppard in Love.” In The Cambridge Companion to Tom Stoppard, edited by Katherine E. Kelly, 185-200. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001.

CONTRIBUTORS

Editor William Baker is University Trustee Professor and Distinguished Research Professor, Department of English, and University Libraries at Northern Illinois University. The author/editor of numerous books including, with Gerald N. Wachs, Tom Stoppard: A Bibliographical History [2010], his “Tom Stoppard Radio Plays” introduced the British Library/BBC CD for their Tom Stoppard 75th birthday celebration in 2012. Amanda Smothers is a Ph.D. student in English at Northern Illinois University. She earned her Bachelor of Arts in English and Theatre Arts (Performance emphasis) from Marquette University (2004) and her Master of Arts in British and American Literature from Northern Illinois University (2010). Amanda is an Undergraduate English Advisor at NIU; has taught composition at NIU, College of DuPage, McHenry County College, and Ashford University; and volunteers at a few local history museums in Archives, Collections, and Acquisitions. She is also actively involved in local theatre in both performance and production capacities.

Contributors Todd F. Davis teaches American literature, creative writing, and environmental studies at Penn State University’s Altoona College. He is the author of four books of poems, most recently In the Kingdom of the Ditch (Michigan State University Press, 2013) and The Least of These (Michigan State University Press, 2010). He also edited Fast Break to Line Break: Poets on the Art of Basketball (Michigan State University Press, 2012) and coedited Making Poems: Forty Poems with Commentary by the Poets (State University of New York Press, 2010). His poetry has appeared widely in such places as The American Poetry Review, Poetry Daily, Gettysburg Review, Shenandoah, North American Review, and Iowa Review. In addition, Davis is the author or editor of six scholarly works, including Kurt Vonnegut’s Crusade, or How a Postmodern Harlequin

288

Contributors

Preached a New Kind of Humanism (State University of New York Press, 2006). Michael Dean is a Ph.D. candidate at Northern Illinois University. He is working on his dissertation under the title From America to Mars: Evolution of the Popular Captivity Narrative in the 19th Century. He currently teaches classes in both composition and literature studies. His recent review of Caped Crusaders 101: Composition through Comic Books appeared in the online journal, ImageTexT. John Fleming ([email protected]) is Chair of the Department of Theatre and Dance at Texas State University where he teaches Theatre History. He is the author of the books Stoppard’s Theatre: Finding Order amid Chaos, Romulus Linney: Maverick of the American Theater, and Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia. He has contributed chapters to Text and Presentation as well as Lectures de Tom Stoppard: Arcadia. His articles have been published in The Drama Review, Latin American Theatre Review, The Journal of American Drama and Theatre, and Text and Performance Quarterly. His plays include The Two Lives of Napoleon Beazley and Transposing Shakespeare. He recently finished work as a Contributing Author for the Enhanced Tenth Edition of Oscar Brockett’s The Essential Theatre, and is now under contract to write the 11th edition of that book and its accompanying anthology Plays for the Theatre. Tim Hendrickson is a Ph.D. candidate at Northern Illinois University where he will receive his doctorate in August of this year. His dissertation, “Still Adventurous: New Approaches to the Late-Victorian and Edwardian Adventure Story,” examines the adventure genre as far more ideologically and structurally flexible than most critics give it credit for. Presently, Tim is working up a chapter of his dissertation for publication and plans to present another chapter at the 2013 Conference of the North American Victorian Studies Association. Currently, Tim teaches as an Adjunct Professor at his alma mater, Trinity Christian College. John V. Knapp is a professor of English at Northern Illinois University where he regularly teaches courses in modern literatures, literary criticism, and teacher education. Knapp is author or editor of some five books and many articles. His most recent is an edited collection of critical essays titled Critical Insight: Family (Salem P, 2013). Knapp has been editor of the literary journal, Style, since 2007.

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Alastair Macaulay was chief theatre critic of The Financial Times in London in the years 1994-2007, reviewing the world premieres of Tom Stoppard’s Indian Ink, The Invention of Love, The Coasts of Utopia, and Rock ‘n’ Roll and interviewing Stoppard on two occasions. He read Classics at Cambridge in 1973-76. As a dance critic and lecturer, he founded the British quarterly Dance Theatre Journal in 1983, served as chief examiner to the Imperial Society of Teachers of Dancing in the years 1997-2002 and as guest dance critic to The New Yorker in 1988 and 1992. His short biography of Margot Fonteyn was published in 1998; his extensive book of interviews with the choreographer Matthew Bourne (his former student) was published in 2000 and in a new, expanded edition in 2011. Since 2007 he has worked in New York as chief dance critic to The New York Times. Ira Nadel teaches at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. His biography of Tom Stoppard appeared in 2002. He has also written accounts of Leonard Cohen, David Mamet and Leon Uris. His critical book Modernism’s Second Act appeared in 2013. Forthcoming is a study of Philip Roth. Steven Price is Senior Lecturer in English at Bangor University, UK. He has published extensively on British and American drama and screenwriting, and is the author of A History of the Screenplay (forthcoming), The Screenplay: Authorship, Theory and Criticism, The Plays, Screenplays and Films of David Mamet, and (with William Tydeman) Wilde: Salome. Melina Probst is a Ph.D. candidate studying Nineteenth-Century British Literature at Northern Illinois University. Before beginning her doctoral studies, Melina earned her M.A. from Northern Illinois University in 2010. She is writing her dissertation on the various depictions of America in Victorian fiction. Her interests also include the influences of religion on Victorian literature. Melina has published in the Illinois Association of Teachers of English Newsletter and has presented at numerous conferences. In her spare time, Melina teaches at Waubonsee Community College. John Sieker teaches English at Hampshire High School in Hampshire, Illinois. He is a doctoral student at Northern Illinois University and studied Stoppard’s Arcadia with Dr William Baker.

290

Contributors

Scott Stalcup, a Doctoral Candidate at Northern Illinois University, is currently writing his dissertation examining the longer fiction of J.G. Ballard through the Radical and Marxist lenses of feminist criticism. He received his Bachelor of Science in English and Master of Arts in English and American Literature from Indiana State University, Terre Haute in 1997 and 1999 respectively. He also completed the certificates of graduate study in Women’s Studies and Lesbian, Bisexual, Gay and Transgender Studies at Northern Illinois University in Spring 2012. His publications have appeared in Studies in Popular Culture, English Language Notes, The Journal of Mind and Behavior, Gothic Studies, and Maximumrocknroll. He also contributed to the Juvenilia Press printing of Patrick Branwell Brontë’s History of the Young Men and ABC-CLIO’s Music in American Life: An Encyclopedia of the Songs, Styles, Stars, and Stories That Shaped Our Culture. Additionally, he reviews submissions for The Journal of American Culture. Kenneth Womack is the author of numerous works of nonfiction, including Long and Winding Roads: The Evolving Artistry of the Beatles. He is Professor of English and Integrative Arts at Penn State University’s Altoona College, where he also serves as Associate Dean for Academic Affairs. Womack is the author of two novels, including John Doe No. 2 and the Dreamland Motel, which won the Bronze Award in Foreword Reviews’ Book of the Year competition, and The Restaurant at the End of the World.

INDEX

Note: Works of literature are listed under their authors’ names. A adaptation, 1, 3, 6, 17, 22, 29, 32, 121-25, 129, 132, 168, 177, 243, 246, 248-49, 253-54, 256-57 Aeschylus, 154-55, 161-63, 206 Aestheticism, 150, 160, 203, 210, 212 anachronism, 126, 136, 140, 173, 215 authorship, 3, 6, 123, 137-38, 14142, 144-48, 177, 202, 217-18, 250, 257 B Bainbridge,Beryl, 8 Bakhtin, Mikhail , 141, 148 Bakunin, Mikhail, 23-25, 28 Ballard, J.G., 5, 243-45, 248-57 Empire of the Sun, 5, 243-45, 248, 253, 256-57 Beckett, Samuel Eleutheria, 76 Waiting for Godot, 73, 75, 84 Belinsky, Vissarion, 23, 25, 33 Billington, Michael, 190 Blond, Anthony, 57, 62, 85 Bolt, Robert Flowering Cherry, 39, 90 Bond, James, 76 Boorman, John, 46, 65 The Newcomers, 61, 93 Boot, William (pseudonym), 42, 90 Brassell, Tim, 184-85, 190, 196 Brecht, Bertolt Baal, 43

Brecht on Brecht, 43 Mother Courage and Her Children, 40 Bristol Evening World, 1, 37-38 Bristol Old Vic, 17, 21, 38-39, 41, 72, 89 Broadway, 36, 43, 87, 92, 99, 184 Bryden, Ronald, 85, 169 Burbage, James, 144 Burbage, Richard, 141-42, 144-45 Byron, George Gordon, 109, 113, 158, 224, 227-33, 236-37, 265, 268 C Catullus, 150, 152-54, 160-62, 165, 216-17 Chaos Theory, 4, 103-04, 224-26, 272-73 Chekhov, Anton, 2-3, 17-22, 25-34, 87 Cherry Orchard, The, 3, 17- 21, 25-27, 29-33 Ivanov, 2, 17-20, 26-28, 31- 34 Seagull, The, 2, 17-20, 22, 30, 32-34 Three Sisters, The, 18-19, 32, 87 Uncle Vanya, 19, 21, 32-33 Chekhovian, 17, 20-21, 25, 28-29, 32, 126 China Odyssey, The (Documentary), 243, 250 Codron, Michael, 43, 84, 89 Coward, Noel Hay Fever, 22 cricket, 8, 72

Index

292 Czechoslovakia, 65, 88 D Dadaist, 137 Deacon, Terrence, 104-05 Incomplete Matter How Mind Emerged from Matter, 104 Delaney, Paul, 103, 108 Dear, Nick, 22-23, 32 Dexter, John, 85 Donmar Warehouse, 25 Dunjohn, Isabel, 38, 42, 47, 89, 195 E Edinburgh Fringe Festival, 83 Ellis, Robinson, 6, 202, 216 Enright, D.J., 8 entropy, 104-06, 223 epistemology, 150-51, 262 Ewing, Kenneth, 39, 45, 56, 83, 245 F Faber (publishers), 3, 45, 57, 12324, 129, 131-34 Fermat’s Last Theorem, 222, 225 Fiennes, Joseph, 140 Firth, Brian, 2, 8-9 Firth, Colin, 141 Ford, Ford Madox, 1, 3 Parade’s End, 1, 3-4, 12123, 125-26, 129-30, 134 Frayn, Michael, 26, 32, 108 Friel, Brian, 32 Afterplay, 32 G Gaskill, William, 43 Glasgow Herald, 84 Gleick, James Chaos, 118 Gorky, Maxim, 18, 21-24, 32

Lower Depths, The, 21 Summerfolk, 18, 22-24, 32 Grandage, Michael, 26, 28 Gussow, Mel, 89-90, 98 H Hall, Sir Peter, 22, 38, 45, 77 Hamburg, Thalia Theatre, 62 Hare, David, 122 Harris, Frank, 154 Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, 2, 36, 46, 49, 66-67, 72, 76, 86, 89, 94-96, 98 Heaney, Seamus, 8 heteroglossia, 141, 143, 146 Hobson, Harold, 87 Hollywood, 39, 130, 136, 167, 246 Holroyd, Michael, 8 Homer, 152-53, 155, 206 homosexuality, 155, 252 Horace, 150, 152-53, 155-56, 15961, 163, 165, 205, 207, 247 Housman, A.E., 3, 6, 20, 147, 15066, 202-18 I India, 88, 244 Ingle, Jose, 61, 65-66, 76, 196 J Jagger, Mick, 72 James, William, 138 Jameson, Fredric, 141 Jewish, 27, 64 journalism, 1, 17, 21, 42, 44-46, 81, 88, 168, 185-86, 189, 195 Jowett, Benjamin, 6, 151, 202, 20910, 213-17 Joyce, James, 137, 199 K Kahneman, Daniel, 4, 103, 110-12, 114, 116-18

“The Real Thing”: Essays on Tom Stoppard in Celebration of his 75th Birthday Thinking, Fast and Slow, 4, 104, 111 Keats, John, 5, 106, 262-74, 276 Ode to a Nightingale, 5, 263-64, 266, 271 Kelly, Katherine E., 44, 90, 134, 176, 180, 198-99, 239-40 Kendal, Felicity, 8 Koch snowflake, 222 L Labouchère Amendment, 150, 203 Lamb, Caroline, 224 Lean, David, 244, 246 Lenin, V.I., 21, 88, 137 Lodge, David, 8 Los Angeles, 235, 239 M Macaulay, Alastair, 3, 149, 165-66, 290 Madden, John, 122, 137, 139, 176, 180-81 Mamet, David, 26, 32, 121 Mandelbrot, Benoit, 103 fractals, 4, 103, 222, 237 Marlowe, Christopher, 141, 144 Marlowe, Derek, 44-45, 62, 65, 72, 92 Marowitz, Charles, 43, 62, 94 Marx, Karl, 24, 88 memory, 27, 67, 92-94,114, 117-18, 124, 133, 149, 176, 203, 209-10, 212-14, 218 Mendes, Sam, 26, 29, 31 Meyjes, Menno, 246-48, 257 Miller, Arthur Death of a Salesman, 39-40 Molière, 40 Moscow, 21, 28, 32 Mrozek, Slawomir, Tango, 83

293

N Nadel, Ira, 2-3, 8, 16-18, 32, 36, 43, 78, 88-90, 93, 96, 104, 110, 112, 184-85, 194, 197-200, 244-47, 257-59, 261 National Theatre, 18, 22, 32, 84-85, 87, 91, 97 New York, 24, 43, 51, 87, 93 New York Times,4, 237 Newton, Isaac, 4, 103, 223, 232-34, 267, 272 Newtonian world view, 231, 233-34 Second Law of Thermodynamics, 4, 103, 105, 223-25, 233, 264 Norman, Marc, 122, 136, 138-39, 146-47, 177 Nunn, Trevor, 3, 22, 24, 77, 83, 139 O Observer, The, 38, 84, 256 Olivier, Sir Laurence, 3, 18, 85 Osborne, John Look Back in Anger, 38 O’Toole, Peter, 38, 43, 47, 87 Ovid, 152-53, 162, 207 Oxford Play House, 83, 86, 139 Oxford Theatre Group, 83, 97-98 P Paltrow, Gwyneth, 142 paradox, 151, 157, 267 parody, 10, 28, 108, 137, 143, 196 Pater, Walter, 6, 202-04, 208-10, 212-15, 217 Pattison, Mark, 6, 202, 204, 209-12, 214-15 Pinter, Harold, 37, 87, 121 Caretaker, The, 43 Plato, 151-52, 161, 163 Plowright, Joan, 86 Poland, 71

Index

294 Pollard, A.W., 152, 159-60, 162-63, 211 Postmodernism, 139-40, 147, 272 Porter, Peter, 8 Propertius, 152-154, 160-61, 207 props, 170-71, 176 puns, 86, 136, 157 Q Questors Theatre, 43, 72, 94 R Rabinowitz, Peter J., 182, 186-88, 190, 197 radio, 1, 21, 36, 43, 46, 53-54, 56, 76-79, 86, 91, 95, 134 Ransom Center, University of Texas, Austin, see Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center Read, Piers, 62, 65, 72 Rees, Roger, 8 Robbins, Jerome, 140 Royal Court, 37-38, 41, 43, 83, 97 Royal Shakespeare Company, 77, 83 Ruskin, John, 6, 202, 208-10, 21415 S Sammells, Neil, 173, 180, 191, 199 Sappho, 154, 161-62 satire, 28, 38, 59-60, 81 Saunders, James Next Time I’ll Sing to You, 4344, 62 Scene (magazine), 1, 42-46, 90, 195 Schindler's List (film), 248, 256 science, in Arcadia, 4-5, 103-04, 107-08 Senelick, Lawrence, 27 Shakespeare, William Antony and Cleopatra, 3, 141, 161, 226

As You Like It, 86, 99, 154 Hamlet, 22, 27, 38, 56, 67, 7172, 77, 87, 94, 96, 137, 139, 158, 171-76 Henry V, 3, 13, 139, 172 King Lear, 70 Love’s Labour’s Lost, 3, 141 Midsummer Night’s Dream, A, 169-70 Romeo and Juliet, 139, 142-46, 148, 178-79 Tempest, The, 169 Titus Andronicus, 3, 141 Twelfth Night, 3, 139, 146-48, 179 Two Gentlemen of Verona, The, 3, 141 Shakespeareana, 3, 138, 140 Sher, Antony, 142 Singapore, 88, 242 Smith, Anthony, 37, 39, 42, 44-49, 53, 56, 61-64, 66, 76-77, 96, 127-28, 194-95 Sophocles, 154-55, 162-63, 170, 226 Spielberg, Steven, 6, 243-44, 246, 248-53, 255-57 Stoppard, Kenneth, (stepfather), 88, 244 Stoppard, Miriam (second wife), 66 Stoppard, Tom, Fiction “Life, Times: Fragments”, 44, 189-90, 195 “Reunion”, 44-45, 187-91, 19596 “Story, The”, 45, 56, 81, 185-90, 195 Lord Malquist and Mr Moon, 62, 78, 84, 98, 184, 190-93, 196 Stoppard, Tom, Film Anna Karenina, 4 Empire of the Sun, 5, 243-46, 248, 253, 256-57 Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, 248

“The Real Thing”: Essays on Tom Stoppard in Celebration of his 75th Birthday Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, 173, 177, 180 Schindler’s List, 248, 256 Shakespeare in Love, 3, 7, 112, 122, 134, 136-42, 144, 14648, 176-77, 179-80, 199 Stoppard, Tom, Radio Albert’s Bridge, 1, 76, 78-79 Artist Descending a Staircase, 1, 65 Dales, The, 56 Dissolution of Dominic Boot, The, 53-54 Dog It Was That Died, The, 1 If You’re Glad I’ll be Frank, 79 In the Native State, 1, 21 M is for Moon among Other Things, 54, 92 Student’s Diary, A, 78, 86 Tales of Doctor Masopust, 86 Stoppard, Tom, Reviews Brecht on Brecht, 43 Stoppard, Tom, Stage Plays After Magritte, 37, 40, 61 Arcadia, 2, 4-5, 19-20, 32, 89, 92, 103-04, 108, 110, 112, 116-18, 150, 154-55, 157-58, 161-62, 170, 173, 221-22, 225, 230-31, 235-37, 262, 264-69, 272 Cherry Orchard, The (Chekhov), Adaptation, 28 Coast of Utopia, The, 2, 17-20, 22-26, 28-33, 89 Critics, The, 39, 46, 89 Der Spleen des George Riley. See A Walk on the Water Enter a Free Man, 15, 65, 93 Every Good Boy Deserves Favour, 75 Gamblers, The, 36, 39, 46, 7276, 89, 96 Guildenstern and Rosencrantz, 72 Hapgood, 22, 32, 92, 104, 119 Higg and Cogg, 36, 76, 96

295

Indian Ink, 19, 21, 43 Invention of Love, The, 2-3, 6-7, 20, 147, 150-52, 154-58, 16162, 170, 202-04, 208, 211-12, 216, 218 Jumpers, 2, 11, 14-15, 20-22, 40, 44, 61, 72, 94, 198-99 Murder at Mousetrap Manor, 89 Night and Day, 9-10, 15, 51, 191 Real Inspector Hound, The, 32, 43, 78, 89, 198 Real Thing, The, 2, 8-10, 12, 1921, 49, 110, 196 Rock ‘n’ Roll, 20, 43, 150, 162 Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, 1-2, 7, 15, 18-19, 21, 36-37, 39-40, 43, 46, 6569, 71-75, 77, 79, 83, 85-89, 91, 93, 95, 97- 98, 121, 137, 158, 168, 171-77, 180, 18385, 191-93, 197 Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Meet King Lear, 37, 66-68, 73, 95 Salvage (The Coast of Utopia), 20, 24-25 Stand-Ins, The, 89 Travesties, 11, 21, 40, 65, 72, 94, 108, 137, 194 Voyage (The Coast of Utopia), 24-25 Walk on the Water, A, 39, 45-46, 62-64, 89 Stoppard, Tom, Television Doctor Masopust, I Presume, 37 Explorers, The, 37, 81 Funny Man, 36, 48-49, 52, 55-56 How Sir Dudley Lost the Empire, 36, 79 I Can’t Give You Anything but Love, Baby, 36, 54, 56-57 Neutral Ground, 121 Parade’s End, 1, 3-4, 121-23, 125-26, 129-30, 134 Paragraph for Mr Blake, A, 36, 81-82

Index

296 Professional Foul, 11, 75, 121, 123 Separate Peace, A, 78, 121 Servant Problem, The, 77 Squaring the Circle, 121 Story, The, 56 This Way Out with Samuel Boot, 36, 57, 61, 92 Waiter, The, 76 Stoppardian, 7, 25-26, 57, 115, 177, 190, 203, 257 Strand Theatre, 9 Straüssler, Eugen (father), 244 Straüssler, Martha (mother), 244 Straüssler, Peter (brother), 244 Strawberry Fare, 2, 8, 16 Strindberg, August, 18, 87 Dance of Death, The, 18, 87 Sunday Times, 87 Symonds, John Addington, Problem in Greek Ethics, A, 155, 164 T TV Times (magazine), 47 television, 1, 3-4, 36, 40, 46, 48, 52, 54, 56-58, 77, 79, 81-82, 90-91, 95, 97, 121-23, 129-31, 134, 243, 246 Thalia Theatre, 62 Times, The, 114 Tolstoy, Leo War and Peace, 25, 37

translation, 1, 18, 22, 27, 31-33, 62, 83, 89, 151, 154, 156, 161, 163, 165, 203-10, 212, 214-18, 226, 247 Tynan, Kenneth, 38, 57, 63, 65, 8487, 95, 97 Tzara, Tristan, 137

V Virgil, 152-53, 155, 157, 162, 271 W Watts, Janet, 83 Waugh, Evelyn, Scoop, 42-43 Wesker, Arnold, 40-41 Chips with Everything, 41 West End, 43, 89, 184 Western Daily Press, 1, 37-39, 286 Wilde, Oscar, 3, 63, 147, 150, 15455, 158-62, 202-04, 207-08, 210, 212-13, 216 Wilder, Thornton, 40 Wise, Robert, 140 Wood, Peter, 8 Wordsworth, William, 247 Z Zeffirelli, Franco, 140