Title
The title is an abbreviation of an initial, pre-publication, title: "Et in Arcadia ego" (with Arcadia referring to the pastoral ideal of Arcadia), a phrase most commonly interpreted as a memento mori spoken by Death. The phrase translates as "and in Arcadia I am", frequently rendered as "I too am in Arcadia" or "Even in Arcadia I am", although the meaning of the phrase is enigmatic and the subject of much academic discourse.
Discussing paintings of pleasant landscapes, Lady Croom mistranslates the phrase as "here I am in Arcadia", on which Thomasina drily comments, "Yes Mama, if you would have it so". Thomasina's tutor Septimus notices; later, knowing that she will appreciate the true meaning, he offers the translation "Even in Arcadia, there am I". He is right: "Oh, phooey to Death!" she replies. Although these brief exchanges are the only direct references in the work to the play's title, they presage the fates of the two main characters: Thomasina's early death and Septimus's voluntary exile from life. Stoppard originally wanted to make this connection plainer by using Et in Arcadia Ego for the title but "box office sense prevailed".
In a more obvious sense, the title also alludes to the ideal of nature as a rustic paradise, with the landscaping of the estate to give a less stylised, irregular form as a major theme in the play. This serves as a recurring reference to the different ways in which "true nature" can be understood, and as a pragmatic parallel to Thomasina's theoretical method of describing the structure of the natural world using mathematics.
Read more about this topic: Arcadia (play)
Famous quotes containing the word title:
“All his works might well enough be embraced under the title of one of them, a good specimen brick, “On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History.” Of this department he is the Chief Professor in the World’s University, and even leaves Plutarch behind.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“And Reason kens he herits in
A haunted house. Tenants unknown
Assert their squalid lease of sin
With earlier title than his own.”
—Robert Bridges (1844–1930)
“To revolutionize, at one effort, the universal world of human thought, human opinion, and human sentiment.... All that he has to do is to write and publish a very little book. Its title should be simple—a few plain words—”My Heart Laid Bare.” But—this little book must be true to its title.”
—Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849)