"I am Britannia, the spirit of our age" : time shifting as a study of the idea of progress in Tom Stoppard's Arcadia and Shelagh Stephenson's An experiment with an air pump

Title: "I am Britannia, the spirit of our age" : time shifting as a study of the idea of progress in Tom Stoppard's Arcadia and Shelagh Stephenson's An experiment with an air pump
Author: Kačer, Tomáš
Source document: Brno studies in English. 2007, vol. 33, iss. 1, pp. [157]-167
Extent
[157]-167
  • ISSN
    1211-1791
Type: Article
Language
English
License: Not specified license
 

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Abstract(s)
The article compares two plays by contemporary British playwrights, Arcadia (1993) by Tom Stoppard and An Experiment with an Air Pump (1998) by Shelagh Stephenson. It focuses on the use of time changes in the two plays and shows how they contribute to developing the detective-style plots and what role they play in presenting the included scientific topics. It shows how ethical issues influence the view of scientific progress in the plays and how decay is dealt with on the stage.

References
[1] Blanchard, Jayne (2006) 'Science, Passion at Play'. The Washington Times 7 Dec. 2006.

[2] Demastes, W. W. (1998) Theatre of Chaos: Beyond Absurdism, into Orderly Disorder. Cambridge: CUP.

[3] Gleick, James (1988) Chaos. New York: Penguin.

[4] Karwowski, Michael (2005) 'Dramatic Revelations: The Science of Art'. Contemporary Review 283.1670, 163–69.

[5] Kelly, K. E. (2002) The Cambridge Companion to Tom Stoppard. Cambridge: CUP.

[6] 'The Pitfalls of Progress'. Financial Times [London edition]. 19 Oct. 1998, 20.

[7] Stephenson, Shelagh (1998) An Experiment with an Air Pump. London: Methuen.

[8] Steyn, Mark (1995) 'Rolling Backward' New Criterion 13.9.

[9] Stoppard, Tom (1993) Arcadia. London: Faber and Faber.