Arcadia reveals the implicit conflict between reason and emotion. Stoppard creates characters as test models of each quality. For instance, Hannah is the champion of reason, and Mrs. Chater is the champion of emotion. Mrs. Chater, however, does not help the play find resolution, as she never enters the stage. It is rather the struggle and journey of Septimus and Hannah that brings the play to its final conclusion and victory of emotion.
Another example of tension in Arcadia is the dichotomy of Classicism versus Romanticism. It is exemplified by the argument between Lady Croom and Mr Noakes over the changes being made to the garden of Sidley Park. It portrays a move from the symmetry, orderliness and tidiness of the Classic style to the newly fashionable ‘picturesque’ style of the nineteenth century, a romantic wild landscape of ruggedness, irregular trees and jagged rocks. The eighteenth century age of Enlightenment stressed orderly, rational thought, and conformity to accepted rules and forms, and looked to the Classical Greeks and Romans as models of simplicity, proportion, and restrained emotion in culture, art, and literature. Romanticism of the early nineteenth century was a deliberate revolt against Enlightenment ideals.
This contrast is also presented through Septimus and Thomasina, as she argues her new theories and ideas that refute classic Newtonian ideals while he defends them. Hannah’s search for the identity of the hermit Sidley Park, and its possible poetic meanings, remarks on this theme. She excitedly remarks ‘The whole Romantic shame, Bernard! It’s what happened to the Enlightenment, isn’t it? A century of intellectual rigour turned in on itself. A mind in chaos suspected of genius… The decline from thinking to feeling’. However, the character of Hannah is one with typically Classic attributes. She has an inclination towards logic and her aversion to romantic attitudes is exemplified many times. Stoppard had specified her attire as being sensible – ‘She wears nothing frivolous. Her shoes are suitable for the garden’. Hannah often clashes with Bernard, who embodies Romaniticism. Stoppard has similarly specified his ‘tendency to dress flamboyantly’ and places constant emphasis on his impulsiveness. Where Hannah is reserved and cautious, Bernard is flamboyant and reckless; where Hannah looks for evidence, Bernard books a press tour. By doing this, Stoppard has personified the conflict between Classicism and Romanticism.
A further source of tension in Arcadia is the clash between science and literature. Bernard, being a literary academic, obviously values literature over scientific research and progression, saying later on in the play that ‘A poet is always timely. A great philosopher is an urgent need, there is no rush for Isaac Netwon’. However, the play also explores how the lines between science and literature can be blurred; ‘Then maths left the real world behind, just like modern art, really. Nature was classical, maths was suddenly Picassos. But now nature is having the last laugh. The freaky stuff is turning out to be the mathematics of the natural world.
Additionally, there is an abundance of clashes of character in Arcadia. The most obvious is Hannah and Bernard, but there is also: Mr Noakes and Lady Croom (in relation to the changing of the garden), Chater and Septimus (perhaps this is more a conflict of intellect, as Septimus constantly deceives Chater with his words) and Valentine and Bernard (a difference of mindsets regarding mathematics and literature).
In conclusion, it is the conflicts and tensions set up in the first act that drive the play forward into the next. Stoppard is very effective in ensuring that the play does not simply become a platform for debate regarding the various dichotomies, but they rather add to the deeper meaningswhich Arcadia is steeped in.
Taybah Siddiqi
12AM