Paper 2 Context(S)

Re: Context Emil af Björkesten Add to contacts 11:15 AM

To: Glyn Banks

PAPER 2 CONTEXT(S) In groups discuss and type in the various contexts (listed below) appertaining to the FOUR literary works you may use to answer Paper 2: Arcadia, Pride and Prejudice, Educating Rita, The Stranger. Fill this paper in as detailed as you can and/or as time allows. We’ll then ‘file share’? a) The author’s spatio-temporal background – his/her social/cultural values etc Tom Stoppard was born in Czechoslovakia to Jewish parents, but soon moved to Singapore. His family then moved to England, where Stoppard has spent most of his life. Stoppard never went to ubiversity, instead starting to work at a local Bristol paper arter completing school. He soom abandoned kournalism in odder to focis on a career as aplaywright. During his early playwriting, he supported himself by also wroting reviews as a freelancer. Stoppard is critical of trade unions, the academic elite and moral absolutism. The critique of the academic community is very visible in Arcadia. Stoppard considers himself a 'middle class bourgeois.' b) The Historical/Political context – how specific/individualized is it etc Some of the above information may be valid here as well. The choice of a setting in the early 19th century fits well with the context of previous knowledge being replaced by new, a time of uncertainty and change. Noakes’ work reinforces this motif.

c) The social/cultural context – personal/familial relationships; gender & ethnicity etc Again, some of the above information is valid here as well. Written by an Englishman without higher education or an upper class background. Stoppard did not have much in common with the Crooms, but lived in a society affected by people like them. Both he and his mother were married two times - is there a parallel to the amount of remarrying and infidelity in the play?

Stoppard does not have an academic background, but still the major characters do. d) The impact of prevailing values and beliefs The increasing influence of science in society seems to have affected the work. Living in a society where natural sciences provide absolute truths, it is natural that they do so in the play, too. e) The significance of the genre (novel, drama) in terms of communicating ‘meaning’ .Having two time periods on the same stage at the same time reinforces (visually) some of the ‘ideas’ about time ‘discussed’ in the play. Dramatizing ideas is more effective than lecturing. f) The use of intertextuality – how does it contribute to ‘meaning’ and your understanding of the work Elective Affinities (Goethe) bears many similarities, including the year 1809 and the characters Septimus and Thomasina. Byron.

Intertextuality with scientific theories, especielly chaos theory and the second law of thermodynamics. g) How does style and structure contribute to meaning and your understanding of the work Arcadia is set in two separate time frame: the beginning of the 19th century and the end of the 20th century. As one of the central themes in the play is a game with time, playing with the concept of causality, this setting becomes crucial for the understanding of the play. Stoppard strongly interlinks the two time frames, allows the characters in the present time to ponder on questions introduced by those living 200 years earlier, and goes on to put all characters on stage at the same time in the last scene. This

h) What ‘universal’ values (if any) are revealed through the work Gardening. (Cynics) Landscape gardening reinforces the perennial debate (?) about Science Vs Art and/or Art Vs Nature. The vagaries of Love. Unpredictability. i) To what extent do your own values/belief systems/knowledge of literature/gender/cultural background/politics/prejudices/linguistic background etc effect your ‘reading’ of the text Knowledge on chaos theory, the second law of thermodynamics and fractals affect the understanding of the work