written and maintained by Steve Brown.  Latest update: 25 September1999

e-mail:  stevebrown@FreeNet.co.uk

‘Arcadia’ as a name was originally the name of a district in Greece - but it has more particular associations in English literature.  It is the name given to an idealized realm, the preferred setting for pastoral poetry, in which shepherds and shepherdesses discourse eloquently on the topic of love.  It is a kind of classical equivalent to Eden - a mythical place - of innocence, grace and romance.  But unlike Eden, its innocence is not compromised or destroyed by sin ( or sex, as the Fall in Genesis is often interpreted as a parable of).  The story knows nothing of such ‘moral’ points - its innocence is not threatened by what is paganly accepted as ‘natural’.  But it is nevertheless threatened.

There is this famous painting by the French artist Nicholas Poussin (dating from the 17th century):

The painting illustrates another component of the story of ‘Arcadia’.

The shepherds are looking at a tomb - and on that tomb is inscribed: Et in Arcadia ego’ ‘I too am in Arcadia’.

Death is what undermines the pastoral idyll; even in the middle of innocent Nature, there is Death.

I don’t think you have to struggle too much to see  the relevance of this to Stoppard’s ‘Arcadia’ - what with the play containing Thomasina’s death - or, rather, not containing it, as the play ends its depicted action just before that happens. 

You might consider how the play in itself is like the myth of Arcadia - as a comedy, it is ‘innocent’; that is although there is much chaos and confusion, nothing ‘bad’ happens (that is, events which are disastrous, tragic or irreversible) - everything is defused by the laughter of comedy.  But, nevertheless, like the shepherds in the painting, you discover at the heart of the story there is this gross, obdurate fact: Thomasina’s death.  And how much does that change the nature of the play?