“It’s wanting to know that makes us matter”: Epistemological and Dramatic Issues in Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia

Abstract

Based off an interview with the playwright, this article examines the scientific sources and artistic inspirations that influenced Stoppard’s creation and crafting of Arcadia. In probing the play’s structure, characters, and intellectual conceits, it also places Arcadia within Stoppard’s oeuvre, arguing that by melding two previous phases of his career, Arcadia marks the pinnacle of Stoppard’s playwriting while also standing as the best dramatic embodiment of Stoppard’s worldview.

Keywords

• 20th-century theatre
• Stoppard
• Newton
• epistemology
• chaos theory
• deterministic chaos