"The Renaissance teaches us that the book of knowledge is not to be learned by rote but is to be written anew in the ecstasy of living each moment for the moment's sake. Success in life is to maintain this ecstasy, to burn always with this hard gem-like flame. Failure is to form habits. To burn with a gem-like flame is to capture the awareness of each moment; and for that moment only. To form habits is to be absent from those moments." - Pater, Act I

Wonderful play about A.E. Housman, a biography with passionate, emotionally powerful imagination. Stoppard's intellectual exercises just amaze me.

one of the most gorgeous things i’ve read

oh, LOVED that. Made my head spin in the most delightful way. No clue how this translates to the stage at all since the stage directions were so sparse. So many brilliant lines, which I'm beginning to think is to be expected of Tom Stoppard.

absolutamente brillante. cuando se me vaya el nudo en la garganta tipeo algo mas extenso

A favorite.

lost dog loves young man — dog young lost man loves, loves lost young man dog, you can't beat Latin: shuffle the words to suit, the endings tell you which loves what, who's young, who lost, if you can't read Latin go home, you've missed it! You kissed the dog.

Read it, read it again, read some Housman poetry then read it again. Couldn't get enough and learned something more about the play and its structure every time.

The Invention of Love basically is a play about the life and work of A.E. Housman, the textual critic and poet, with particular, though not exclusive, emphasis on his unrequited love for his straight friend Moses Jackson. It takes the form of a dream the night before Housman's death, although this isn't immediately obvious (the beginning of the play would lead one to believe that it is set in an afterworld following his death, and it is rather confusing until the reader/spectator figures that out), in which he meets his earlier self as well as seeing various colleagues and friends from different periods of his life. In addition to the emotional aspect of the plot with Jackson and discussions about homosexuality by various figures in the play (Oscar Wilde is mentioned many times and makes an appearance in the last scene), there is also much discussion of the nature and importance of textual criticism as opposed to other forms of classical study, which somewhat dovetails with the epistemological concerns of his earlier plays such as Arcadia. (Ruskin, Pater and Jowett are characters.) As with many of his plays, there is some fun at the expense of pompous academics, and more serious satire of journalists. Although I found the play interesting (perhaps because I studied Greek and Latin in college) it did seem more confusing even than the usual Stoppard play.

“You want to be brothers-in-arms, to have him to yourself … to be shipwrecked together, (to) perform valiant deeds to earn his admiration, to save him from certain death, to die for him – to die in his arms, like a Spartan, kissed once on the lips … or just run his errands in the meanwhile. You want him to know what cannot be spoken, and to make the perfect reply, in the same language. ”

“At night I hold you fast in my dreams, I run after you across the Field of Mars, I follow you into the tumbling waters, and you show no pity."

confession scene.......

A clever play, classic Stoppard. Cleverness aside, this struck me:

“Before Plato could describe Love, the Loved One had to be invented. We would never love anyone if we could see past our invention. [...] In the mirror of Invention, Love discovered itself. [...] - a piece of ice in the fist that you cannot hold or let go.” (Act II)

This is a strong analysis, with practical application.

This is my favorite Stoppard play (though The Real Thing and Jumpers come close), mainly because I used to be a Classics nerd and already appreciated Housman's contributions to that field and to poetry in general. This play has all the classic Stoppard ingredients: good banter, beautifully-stylized language, and emotional truth. I'm a sucker for a good, unconventional unrequited love story, and Stoppard communicates Housman's longing for his straight friend Moses beautifully.

Housman himself (by whom I meant the elder Housman - labeled "Housman," if I remember correctly, to distinguish him from the younger "AEH," with whom he interacts) is so fully-formed, his characterization so subtle and interesting, that he steals every scene he's in. His personality is part self-deprecation, part wounded pride, part wry humor and part abject (but not maudlin) longing. Though this is a love story, in the end this play is patently about Housman's relationship with himself, and the various happy and tragic ends to which we refract our longing through our own conceptions of self.

Oscar Wilde pops in every now and then, to sometimes-hilarious, sometimes-thoughtful effect. If you, like I do, believe that he's the only fun thing to come out of the Victorian era, and especially if you like Classics, I highly recommend this play.