DRAMA ARCADIA BY TOM STOPPARDAnalysis of Act Two Scene Five
DRAMA: ARCADIA BY TOM STOPPARD Analysis of Act Two, Scene Five Natalie Garcia de Heer In alluding to the transformation of an English manor garden from the Classical style to the increasingly popular picturesque in Arcadia Dramatist Tom Stoppard immediately highlights the primary concern of the play, the struggle between the rational and the irrational. ... It is significant to note that the characters are constructed in a fundamentally realistic manner, conventional for most post renaissance drama. The definition of characters in Arcadia in terms of class and gender is naturalised through this use of realism. ... Act two; Scene Five of Arcadia by Tom Stoppard sets out the two major and contradicting discourses of the play concerning knowledge. ... These discourses are presented in the scene through the dialogue between several characters, which is focussed around Bernard’s presentation of his speech concerning his literary discovery. ... This scene presents Bernard, the rash and pushy academic as a personification of the irrational, an aspiring Byronic figure in stark contrast to the austere and efficient academic Hannah who acts as the voice of reason in the play. Bernard Nightingale the literary critic in his late thirties with “a tendency to dress flamboyantly” presents to the audience in this scene a biographical theory concerning Romantic poet Lord Byron and through this articulates his ideas about the nature of truth and knowledge. Bernard is portrayed as a foppish academic with little regard for empirical process or details and as such is representative of the irrational and emotional discourse presented in Arcadia.