"Et in Arcadia ego” on page 12

Poussin's painting

According to two Wikipedia pages, the phrase was related to two pastoral paintings done by Guercino and Nicolas Poussin in the 17^th century. The sentence is in Latin and translates to mean “Even in utopia, I am there.” Arcadia is the utopia, and even those within its beautiful and jovial landscape cannot elude the inevitable grips of human mortality; this idea was a constant theme in Renaissance thought, which was referred to in Latin as “memento mori” (Poussin). The paintings include shepherds gathered around starkly grim images.  Guercino’s painting has two shepherds staring at a dead shepherd’s skull and Poussin’s painting has four shepherds standing near a tomb. The shadows around and beneath the shepherds represent the darkness of death which the adjacent shepherds suddenly notice; this is the moment when their facile life suddenly becomes more complex than previously thought. Near the end of the article on Poussin, in the section titled “Other appearances,” it says that the above phrase was originally going to be the title for the play “Arcadia.”

 

Guercino's painting

   If one begins to interpret Arcadia under the pastoral lens, a likely reading because the setting is a room surrounded by gardens, one will ultimately find an anti-pastoral message. The Latin phrase Stoppard uses can remind readers of the Biblical story from Genesis where the snake (Satan) enters into the Garden of Eden (a utopia) and, “even there,” is able to subvert God’s perfect plans. Perhaps Stoppard is including this phrase early on in his text to foreshadow an approaching revelation of grave information in the scenes to come; even in the present day filled with Mazda sportscars, exists something darker. Most likely, this will relate to Bernard’s intellectually curious mission in coming to the Coverly residence.

 

Works Cited

"Et in Arcadia ego." Wikipedia. 2013.< http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Et_in_Arcadia_ego>.

"Et in Arcadia ego (Guercino)." Wikipedia. 2013. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Et_in_Arcadia_ego_(Guercino)>.