The
Invention of Love Poetry
The Invention of Love by Tom Stoppard
It opened in 1997, and the
wind it brought to Los Angeles said, “Mr. Housman was queer.” Well, no, the play says no such thing, these
are not the memoirs of an old queen, although none other than Oscar Wilde is
brought on toward the end as a figment of Housman’s
imagination to retail such goods in a shocking representation that puts me
ahead of myself in this piece.
The actual subject of the
play is the invention of love poetry by Propertius
(or some other Roman poet) twenty centuries ago. This proceeds as a
philological examination backwards, naturally, against an imaginary
representation of Housman’s life in his mind.
The entire point is to create a simulacrum of emotions reflecting the condition
of Propertius, by generating an elaborate masterpiece
of artificial construction toying rather dangerously with the real.
It’s all a game, but
it grows more and more unstoppered until you have the
real sense that Stoppard has let the play loose entirely: shame and confusion
reign as Wilde is mocked (this is prepared with dazzling and daring care by
introducing Bunthorne from Patience with the
famous satire), until, in the best piece of writing Stoppard has produced, Housman unweaves the mess in the end.
The famous opening of Jumpers,
involving a lady on a swing and a waiter with a tray, either has nothing on
this, or amounts to what it all adds up to.
The Grove Press edition,
which features on its back cover the pointed assertion that I am wrong and the
wind had it right all along, rather humorously contains small alternate
insertions (in parentheses) from the Royal National Theatre production, which
give the text the incidental look of a variorum.