Stoppard’s "The Invention of Love"

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How familiar must the audience of Stoppard’s The Invention of Love be with classical literature and with classics as a field of study? How does this affect the play’s potential audience, and why did Stoppard choose to do this? The potential audience of the Invention of Love is limited in the first instance by the fact that it is a play for the stage. By proxy, the audience will be likely to have some knowledge of classical literature, as they will have more of a culture of theatre going. There is more of a tradition of classics amongst those that would have seen the play when it was first shown. Stoppard was a long established playwright by this time ; hence classical references will be more understood and even expected in a play about a classicist. With its star writer and subject matter the audience of the play is therefore going to be made up of a number of certain types, from Scholars, poets, and members of society that frequently use the theatres. However, Stoppard does take time to eloquently explain certain principles and scholarly¬ cruxes to a layman audience. The fact that he is a popular playwright would have also attracted the audience to attend the play. To open this play to an audience that is more interested in the writer than the subject, as well as non-classicists, Stoppard uses characters of Houseman’s life to be ignorant for the audience, so they can ask questions for them; such as, in Jacksons dual role as Loved One of Houseman and mouthpiece of the audience. At the start of the play (first staged in 1998 ) is a good place to see how classical literature is treated, when Charon makes his reference to Aristophanes quite clear . Stoppard does not spell it out, but gives enough information to allow the audienc... ... middle of paper ... ...Play Journal of Modern Literature, Vol. 24, No. 2 (Winter, 2000-2001), pp. 197-204 Barbara Mackey : The Invention of Love by Tom Stoppard Source: Theatre Journal, Vol. 51, No. 4, Theatre and Technology (Dec., 1999), pp. 459-460 Reckford,K. Stoppard's Housman Arion, Third Series, Vol. 9, No. 2 (Fall, 2001), pp. 108-149 Nadel ,I. Writing the Life of "Tom Stoppard" : Journal of Modern Literature, Vol. 27, No. 3, Writing Life/Writing Fiction (Winter, 2004), pp. 19-29 The National theatre, Old events at the Old Vic Archive,Past Events,Past productions 1996-2000 date accessed 20/03/10 http://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/8209/past-events/past-productions-19962000.html Hercules the legendary journeys TV history http://amazon.imdb.com/title/tt0111999/ date accessed 22/03/10 Hercules: Disney film history http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119282/ date accessed 22/03/10

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