Comedy, Chaos, and Casuistry: Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia

Abstract

I have written in the past on disparate topics such as postmodernism, the history of complexity theory, the different models of moral reasoning, and the relationship between art and life. Yet perhaps because we live in an age that values the making of connections between apparently unrelated things, I have always been intrigued by the linkages between the nature of comedy, chaos theory, and in our postmodern culture. I have not been alone in seeing such an intriguing relationship, as evidenced by Waleed Salameh's recent work on the conceptual alignment of humor, wellness, and chaos.1 However, since my interest has always been the interface of philosophy and art, I prefer to examine this peculiar congruence of comedy, chaos, and in Tom Stoppard's theatrical masterpiece, Arcadia. First, I will explore the recent theoretical discussions surrounding these concepts. Then I will consider the implications of their interdependent nature. Finally, I will provide an analysis of Stoppard's play in light of these interrelated concepts. The Paradoxes of Comedy In Umberto Eco's postmodern masterpiece, The Name of the Rose, he presents two divergent assessments of the value of laughter.2 Knowing full well that scripture never mentions that Jesus ever laughed, Jorge follows the Benedictine tradition in his mistrust of laughter. He acknowledges that carnival can be a time for purging unhealthy emotions in simple peasant folk, but as such is dangerous, for him, since it can lead to a mockery of truth. William of Baskerville, on the contrary, is a Franciscan who champions Aristotle's affirmation of laughter. For him, it can be therapeutic in pointing out the vices of ordinary people and thus serve as an ally of truth. Yet William also acknowledges that we can laugh at our very obsession for absolute truth. Thus Eco reveals comedy's double nature: it can ridicule deviations from the norm as well as undermine our very confidence in justifying the existence of objective norms. Perhaps that is why Jorge sees as such a dangerous phenomenon in human affairs. Eco's novel reflects the divided nature of current scholarship on the significance of humor. For example, Fritz Graf, discussing Roman argues that is, like satire, basically very conservative, tending everywhere to correct deviant behavior by ridiculing it.3 Jan Bremmer, on the other hand, would argue that this fact is in keeping with the way was regarded in ancient Greece, though he points out that there was also a growing opposition to unbridled jesting in Athens.4 And Jacques Le Goff posits such a development in medieval culture's acceptance of laughter.5 According to him, in the early Middle Ages, the Benedictine suspicion and repression of humor prevails. Then there develops a greater appreciation for the value of as revelatory of human folly, followed by the formation of a scholastic casuistry of laughter to ensure its propriety. Finally, in the Renaissance, we have the full liberation of as a critique of society itself, if Mikhail Bakhtin's theories are to be believed. However, Christopher Herbert rejects this historical description by insisting that comedy in every age is constituted by this tension between the poles of virtue and pleasure.6 Consequently, according to Herbert, this fact should explain why theories of humor often become polarized into the following two camps.7 The standard interpretation of comedy sees it as an ally of conservatism, order, [and] the golden mean, while the alternative viewpoint sees it as a promoter of revolutionary anarchy. The standard theory sees comedy's function to be a moral corrective of socially deviant behavior in the interest of forging a stable sense of community. The alternative theory sees comedy's role to be the mocking of repressive authority and the glorification of worldly pleasure and delight. While one sees humor as a kind of moral judgment, the other sees it as promoting an attitude of tolerance. …