Literature

While Ezra Chater, his novel Couch of Eros, and the rest of the characters are not real, many of the other writers and publications are. In the first two scenes alone, there are dozens of literary references, and with the mix of fictional characters, it's easy to get lost on who’s who. John Milton (1608-1674) and Robert Southey (1774-1843) are both English poets, and the Edinburgh Review was a real publication from 1802-1829. Mentioned solely by the stage directions, landscape gardener Humphry Repton (1752-1818) is a major inspiration for Sidley Park’s landscape artist Mr. Noakes, as well as the Italian painter, Salvator Rosa (1615-1673). Lady Croom is right that Mrs. Ann Radcliffe (1752-1818) did pen the Gothic novel The Mysteries of Udolpho, and Mr. Chater is correct that landscape gardener and novelist Horace Walpole (1717-1797) wrote the novel The Castle of Otranto. D.H. Lawrence (1885-1930), mentioned by Bernard in Scene 2, was a real writer. The subject of Hannah’s first book, Caroline Lamb (1785-1828), and the subject of Bernard’s research, Lord Byron (1788-1824), were both poets and novelists, and were involved in a short-lived affair in 1812. The DNB or Oxford Dictionary of National Biography is a real dictionary that was used rather extensively for this part of my research. From the Croom estate’s previous landscape gardener, Capability Brown (1716-1783), to the French landscape gardener who inspired him Claude Gelee (1600-1892), to the 1st century BC Roman poet Virgil, the way in which these literary references are used in the first two introductory scenes of Arcadia can be jumbling, but it’s with a purpose.

The characters are smart and are, in different ways depending on their timeline, looking for ways to prove that and to climb social and academic ladders.

HANNAH. Where is it you don't bother to teach, by the way?

BERNARD. Oh, well, Sussex, actually.

HANNAH. Sussex. (She thinks a moment.) Nightingale. Yes; a thousand words in the Observer to see me off the premises with a pat on the bottom. You must know him.

BERNARD. As I say, I'm in your hands (33).

Academia, Gender,

The gender differences in academia are show in both the 19th century and 20th century scenes, with the differences in education based on sex between Septimus, Thomasina and Augustus, and the charged misogyny seen in the present between academics Hannah and Bernard, and the differences in academic minds of the three siblings Valentine, Chloe and Gus.

"Common forms of harassment include leers, jeers, insults, sexist jokes and provocative remarks, forms of behaviour that many women have kept to themselves as a private experience not to be shared least they rock the boat, or disturb the male structures of patronage on which they depend for advancement."

Lady Caroline Lamb

by Eliza H. Trotter

oil on canvas, exhibited 1811

NPG 3312

Caroline Lamb is the topic of Hannah's first novel. She was a novelist and had an affair with Byron in 1812 (which is why Lady Croom offhandedly references her in Scene 7, page 111 'Let him be hanged there for a Lamb', as that scene would have taken place during the beginning of their affair). Hannah, as a contemporary female historian and novelist would have had the beginnings of many views of Lamb's post-Byronic writings and how their breakup affected her writings and mental health. The Byron-Lamb historian dynamics are why Hannah and Bernard get so heated (in more ways than one).

Lord Byron

by Richard Westall

oil on canvas, 1813

NPG 4243

“BERNARD. The thing is, there’s a Byron connection too.”

Fun Fact: Lord Byron’s only child, Ada, countess of Lovelace (1815-1852) was a mathematician and whose publication in 1843 described how to program the world’s first computer. Her mathematical findings remained obscure until 1953, making her a parallel (and likely inspiration) for this play’s Thomasina.

Ada Lovelace

by Margaret Sarah Carpenter

oil on canvas, 1836 NPG L274

and Lord Byron

Lord Byron is referenced in the play over 180 times, yet we never see him. Lord George Gordon Noel Byron, sixth Baron Byron, was one of the first celebrities of true rank. His role in the play is the myth beyond the man; a figurehead, less so a true figure. Often noted as one of the first celebrities, Byron's 'Childe Harold's Pilgrimage' was a popular publication, and the literary concept 'the Byronic hero' was thus created.

"I awoke one morning and found myself famous."

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