The Invention of Love (Paperback)

~ (Author) "AEH, aged seventy-seven and getting no older, wearing a buttoned-up dark suit and neat black boots, stands on the bank of the Styx watching the..." (more)
Key Phrases: Oscar Wilde, Housman Well, Ellis Didn't (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Poetry, scholarship, and love are entwined in Tom Stoppard's new play about A.E. Housman, which "Variety" has called "vintage Stoppard in its intelligence and wit". "Stoppard is at the top of form. . . . "The Invention of Love" does not just make you think, it also makes you feel".--"Daily Telegraph".

From the Back Cover

It is 1936 and A. E. Housman is being ferried across the river Styx, glad to be dead at last. His memories are dramatically alive. The river that flows through Tom Stoppard's The Invention of Love connects Hades with the Oxford of Housman's youth: High Victorian morality is under siege from the Aesthetic movement, and an Irish student called Wilde is preparing to burst onto the London scene.

On his journey the scholar and poet who is now the elder Housman confronts his younger self, and the memories of the man he loved his entire life, Moses Jackson-the handsome athlete who could not return his feelings. As if a dream, The Invention of Love inhabits Housman's imagination, illuminating both the pain of hopeless love and passion displaced into poetry and the study of classical texts. The author of A Shropshire Lad lived almost invisibly in the shadow of the flamboyant Oscar Wilde, and died old and venerated-but whose passion was truly the fatal one?

"Vintage Stoppard in its intelligence and wit."-Matt Wolf, Variety

"Tom Stoppard at his best; manipulative, inquisitive, irresistible . . . a master at work."-Sunday Times (London)

"So beautifully constructed that the playwright seems to be discovering his play only one jump ahead of the audience. It has that sense of surprise and wonder."-Vincent Canby, The New York Times

"A magical memory play which meanders like an elaborate dream . . . Stoppard has been inspired to write the most emotionally powerful and enthralling play of his career. Never before has he written with such exciting eloquence."-Nicholas de Jongh, Evening Standard

"Some of the finest, most passionate, and most disarmingly brilliant dramatic writing that he has given us."-Alastair Macaulay, The Financial Times

Tom Stoppard is the author of such seminal works as Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead, Arcadia, The Real Thing, Travesties, Every Good Boy Deserves Favor, and The Real Inspector Hound.

Product Details

• Paperback: 112 pages
• Publisher: Grove Press; 1st Grove Press edition (August 10, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0802135811
• ISBN-13: 978-0802135810
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.3 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #467,498 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

37 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A play to READ before and after seeing it, July 31, 1998

By	Janos Gereben (San Francisco) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Time is relative in Tom Stoppard's "The Invention of Love." One the one hand, it's a dazzling three-hour journey of many characters and ideas through the years (1859-1936) of A. E. Housman's life; on the other, it's a split second between the moment of the poet's realization of his death on the banks of the river Styx -- "I'm dead, then. Good." -- and his true, cathartic acceptance of it: "How lucky to find myself standing on this empty shore, with the indifferent waters at my feet.

Both a large-scale symphony and delicate chamber music, "Invention" requires thorough understanding of Greek and Latin poetry, the intricacies of the 19th Century academic, social and literary scene, even of the Labouchere amendment to the Criminal Law Act that landed Oscar Wilde in jail - and it allows being dazzled and moved without knowing anything about all that. The play works both on the level of seeing "characters in a play" or appr! eciating (as I couldn't possibly without another lifetime of learning) the full significance of the presence of Walter Pater, John Ruskin, Frank Harris, Jerome K. Jerome... of three generations of famed scholars at Oxford and Cambridge.

Here is the "late Stoppard," the Stoppard of "Arcadia" in his full glory of intellectual brilliance and rich emotional simplicity. Here is a play requiring, demanding, allowing re-reading and re-viewing, a work that keeps growing within the reader, the viewer, culminating in hoped-for (and, in my case, yet unattained) appreciation and understanding, even as old man Housman experiences in breathtaking scenes of conversations by the Styx with his younger self.

In the tiny black rectangle of the Cottlesloe, under Richard Eyre's farewell direction after a decade at the head of the National, "Invention" worked brilliantly, presented by a surprisingly large and uniformly excellent cast, headed by John Wo! od's old Housman and PaulRhys' young one. From Housman's et! ymological exasperation with all the talk about the Wilde controversy ("Homosexuality? What barbarity! It's half Greek and half Latin!") to mindboggling discussions about the role of a comma, to a mini-essay about who "invented" the love elegy (Catullus or Gallus, based on the single surviving line from the work of the latter), the play may be seen as one in the long line of the Clever Stoppard -- "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern," "Jumpers," "The Real Thing" and "Hapgood" - but it is also assuredly in the category of the Great Stoppard of today.

Still, with all the rich complexity and wonderful timewarps that have characterized both plays, may "Invention" by called another "Arcadia"? I don't think so, but the very question may be moot. Both similar and different, the two plays form the foundation of the triumphal arch for a playwright who has progressed on a dislocated time-scale from the fire! works of Wilde to the steady, bright, warm light still shining across two millenia from the poets of Housman's scholarship and passion.

28 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant and Luminous, Stoppard at his Best, October 19, 2000

By A Customer

The Invention of Love, in my opinion, Tom Stoppard's best play, opens with A.E. Housman being ferried across the River Styx by Charon, relieved to be dead at last. Or is he? Perhaps he is only dreaming from his bed in a rest home. One of the things that makes The Invention of Love so outstanding is Stoppard's wonderful mix of fantasy and reality. He combines the two so well, in fact, that we're never quite sure which is which. There are luminous scenes of young men rowing down the Thames to Hades, a marvelous Thameside encounter between the youthful Housman and his older self and an almost transcendent conclusion showing Housman stepping off-shore onto a watery-looking stage.

The Invention of Love successfully combines elements from Stoppard's previous plays: the wit and cleverness of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead with the emotional richness and intensity of The Real Thing to the purity of Arcadia. This is, however, a slower, more meditative and contemplative Stoppard. Even the flamboyant Oscar Wilde is presented in a toned-downed, rather Housmanesque style.

The script, itself, although erudite and intellectual, is so opulently rich in imagery and language (yes, there is a lot of Latin) that we, as an audience, are forced to be attentive. Stoppard rewards us handsomely, though, as we become increasingly aware that certain things (rivers, Hades, dogs, love, inventions, inversions, three men in a boat) circle and then loop back and circle again and again.

Those who think Housman's scholarliness might seem dull couldn't be more wrong. It is, instead, the very essence of this marvelous play. Stoppard uses lost Greek plays and corrupted Latin texts like the master he is. And he delivers a poignant message: Even great art contains within itself the seed of its own mortality. Although the artist (in this case, Housman) strives to produce a coherent and hopefully, immortal, body of work, time, itself, eventually leeches almost everything away until only fragments remain. This is a powerful message, to be sure, but in The Invention of Love, it is one that is both comforting and melancholy and sadly, we come to realize, all too true.

20 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Devastating and moving play about love and devotion..., May 1, 1999

By A Customer

It's a hard play to read, an easy one to see, and worthwhile in each case. As much wit as may be expected from the writer of Shakespeare in Love (in fact, some of the same jokes) but more depth. Houseman the scholar is devoted to fine translations of classical poetry; Houseman the man is devoted to his friend in an unrequited and hopeless passion, and to expressing the passion in glorious verse.

Oh, and it all takes place in the afterlife. The dead, older Houseman encountering his younger, buoyant self at Oxford is almost too gloriously terrible to take.

Yes, it's erudite. But then this is Amazon.com. if you're here, you love books.... and just think of the books you'll want to read after reading this (Pater, Ruskin, Wilde...)

I was so moved when I saw it I could barely breather afterwards.