Arcadia

In Arcadia, Stoppard takes us back and forth between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, ranging over the themes of truth and time, the difference between the Classical and the Romantic temperament, and the disruptive influence of sex on our orbits in life. Focusing on the mysteries—romantic, scientific, literary—that engage the minds and hearts of characters whose passions and lives intersect across scientific planes and centuries, it is Stoppard's richest, most ravishing comedy to date. And so much of this is due to his story's dreamlike quality: you're instantaneously aloft, soaring, banking, doing loop-the-loops (in space) and then when you think you're about to plummet to earth (into a chase scene or a lecture), swooping to a gentle touchdown of not easily described sweetness and sorrow.