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Arcadia's multi-faceted nature is reflected in the wide spectrum of relevant and informative www sites. |
This page contains links to sites devoted to Arcadia as a whole, or to sites which delve into specific dimensions of the play in detail. You can also go to a page containing a collection of reviews of specific productions of Arcadia.
Tom
Stoppard's Arcadia.
This excellent site has been created by Advanced Placement
Composition students at Eden Prairie High School. Limited
biographical information has been provided as well as some links
to other Stoppard sites around the world. The section covering
the plot of Arcadia also provides analysis questions to guide
study and interpretation of events in the play. Character
descriptions and particularly "illuminating" quotes are
provided as well as questions for character analysis. This
Arcadia Web Site includes general areas of interest related to
Arcadia including literature and literary allusions, history,
music,visual arts, physics, mathematics. There are links to sites
concerning figures central to the play (Salvator Rosa, Sir
Humphry Repton Capability Brown) and Arcadia
minutia (tradition of duelling, history of
the waltz, Horace Walpole's The Castle of
Otranto,Ann Radcliffe's, The
Mysteries of Udolpho, etc.)
Arcadia
Another excellent site containing
substantive interpretations of Arcadia's
main themes -- some of them are brief and others long, but all
are insightful (and some are beautifully illustrated).
The
Genva English Drama Society presents Arcadia
Contains brief but interesting audition notes on the characters
in Arcadia.
The
Penn Reading Project.
In 1995-1996, the University of Pennsylvania chose Tom Stoppard's
Arcadia for the Penn
Reading Project. All incoming freshmen read the work as their
introduction to the intellectual process. Visit this one! Too may
links,essays, graphics, reviews, and disciplines to begin to
catalog.
Chaos,
Fractals, and Arcadia
An animated description of some of the mathematical ideas lurking
in the background of Tom Stoppard's play Arcadia. This site has
the best presentation, by far, of Thomasina's extension of
geometry to the natural world and Valentine's use of chaos theory
in explaining variations of the estate's grouse population.
Know
what happens in the HA-HA?
In its 1996-1997 season, the Dalhousie Theater Department
Productions at Dalhousie University presented Arcadia: "Set
on the edge of an idyllic garden, Arcadia moves freely through
time as Stoppard examines the enigmas of history, literature,
philosophy and science. In this remarkably witty, yet
intellectually intriguing play, the final conclusion is not about
Lord Byron, chaos theory, or English landscape, but about the
innermost secrets of human nature."
Tom
Stoppard's Arcadia and the Steam Engine.
Includes: "Brief History and Description of the Steam
Engine," "Mr. Noakes's Steam Engine," "The
Improved Newcomen Steam Engine," "The Coverly Set and
the Steam Engine," "What is that
"So
the Improved Newtonian Universe must cease and grow cold?"
This was Septimus' appraisal of Thomasina's conjecture in the
seventh scene of Tom Stoppard's Arcadia. The idea that Thomasina
was of course uncovering is today known as the second law of
thermodynamics, or entropy. Includes: "What the theory
says," "What the theory means," "Stirring the
solution," "Heat and heat engines."
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