Sex

And Aristocratic Etiquette

"Septimus, what is carnal embrace?" (Thomasina, 8).

Bernard. Well, it's all trivial, isn't it. Why don't you come?

Hannah. Where?

Bernard. With me.

Hannah. To London? What for?

Bernard. What for.

Hannah. Oh, your lecture.

Bernard. No, no, bugger that. Sex.

Hannah. Oh... No. Thanks... (then, protesting) Bernard!

Bernard. You should try it. It's very underrated.

Hannah. Nothing against it" (83).

Sex

We can’t ignore that this is a play about sex. And love. But sex comes up a lot. I think we should be freely comfortable to discuss it while also being able to understand that it’s also such an awkward thing to talk about. I’d like to approach it from a dramaturgical perspective, especially cracking the code on the two younger girls’ relationship to their sexuality and why we find ourselves so uncomfortable in those discussions.

"Thomasina. Is it Cleopatra? - I hate Cleopatra!

Septimus. You hate her? Why?

Thomasina. Everything is turned to Love with her. New love, absent love, lost love - I never knew a heroine that makes such noodles of our sex. It only needs a Roman general to drop anchor outside the window and away goes the empire like a christening mug into a pawn shop. If Queen Elizabeth had been a Ptolemy history would have been quite different - we would be admiring the pyramids of Rome and the great Sphinx of Verona" (51).

The Waltz

"Thomasina. I must waltz, Septimus! I will be despised if I do not waltz! It is the most fashionable and gayest and boldest invention conceivable - started in Germany!

Septimus. Let them have the waltz, they cannot have the calculus" (106).

The time jump we have to 1812 is just before ballroom dancing culture’s true beginnings in about 1816, with the society schools and lessons, and the Viennese waltz wouldn’t have reached diplomats until balls in 1814-1815. In its early start, it wasn’t a well-loved dance---Byron being one disliker of the waltz---but its acceptance marked a “generational cultural shift as well as a shift in class power towards the new bourgeoisie”. A later problem of the waltz, especially for young women, was that the waltz could “lead to a loss of rational self-control with socially reprehensible consequences” because of the “newer understanding of connecting expressively with their bodies” and experiencing “the pleasure of the dance.”

"After a moment's hesitation, she gets up and they hold each other, keeping a decorous distance between them, and start to dance, rather awkwardly,

Septimus and Thomasina continue to dance, fluently, to the piano" (126).

Tea

"Before Lady Croom can respond to this threat, Jellaby enters the room with her 'infusion'. This is quite an elabroate affair: a pewter tray on small feet on which there is a kettle suspended over a spirit lamp. There is a cup and saucer and the silver 'basket' containing the dry leaves for the tea" (92).

Afternoon tea, served before dinner but after lunch, around 4:00 or 5:00 PM in the mid 1800s, would not become fashionable until about 200 years after the arrival of tea to England in and about the 1650s. In the 18th century (reminder that Arcadia is set in the 1800s in the *19th* century), tea became more regularly known as a woman’s drink, not because it was seen as feminine, but because men had their own spaces in the form of the coffeehouse.

In 1717, Thomas Twining, coffeehouse proprietor, would begin serving tea at his coffee house.

Side note: high tea has nothing to do with stance or aristocracy. “High tea”, different from “low tea” or “afternoon tea”, is called such because it *replaced* dinner and was eaten at a high table, while “low tea” was eaten a low table, like a coffee table today.

“Valentine. Listen - you know your tea’s getting cold.

Hannah. I like it cold.

Valentine. (ignoring that) I’m telling you something. Your tea gets cold by itself, it doesn’t get hot by itself. Do you think that’s odd?

Hannah. No.

Valentine. Well, it is odd. Heat goes to cold. It’s a one-way street. Your tea will end up at room temperature. What’s happening to your tea is happening to everything everywhere. The sun and the stars. It’ll take a while but we’re going to end up at room temperature. When your hermit set up shop nobody understood this. But let’s say you’re right, in 18-whatever nobody knew more about heat than this scribbling nutter living in a hovel in Derbyshire” (103).

Page updated

Google Sites

Report abuse