Style
Stoppard scholar Jim Hunter writes that Arcadia is a relatively realist play, compared to Stoppard's other works, although the realism is "much enhanced and teased about by the alternation of two eras". The setting and characters are true-to-life, without being archetypal. It is comprehensible: the plot is both logical and probable, following linear series of events. Arcadia's only true deviation from this definition is the inclusion of two separate, though interrelated, plotlines: both follow a linear structure along parallel lines. An example of this comes after we see the historical Thomasina deriving her mathematical equations to describe the forms of nature; we later see Val, with his computer, plotting them to produce the image of a leaf.
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—Jean-Luc Godard (b. 1930)
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—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)