In the Native State/Indian Ink: Footnoting the Footnotes on Empire

Abstract

In 1972, Tom Stoppard was the first contributor to a series of essays focusing "on the interplay, if any, between 'Doers and Thinkers.’” In his article, Stoppard, the quintessential Doer, defends the art of the play against the "pointless analysis" of Thinkers who inhabit "academic circles." Damning with no praise at all the "academic preoccupation with the creative work of other people" (emphasis added), Stoppard defines the separate spheres relegated to playwrights (that is, creative artists who work for a living) and professors. "the vast oracular Lego set of Lit Crit with its chairs and lectureships, its colloquia and symposia, its presses, reprints, offprints, monographs, reviews, footnotes and fireside chats .... "For Stoppard, "writing-about writing" is merely the "pffttzzz," not the Coke, "not the real thing," and he aims his satirical barbs at the cabal of professors who "continually acknowledge each other with endorsements or rebukes" and at the purveyors of "footnotes" and "monographs" who seek reflected fame. "[T]he habit of making undeniable but gratuitous connexions is the measles of critical diseases," Stoppard asserts.