The Invention of Love is a play by Tom Stoppard, first produced in 1997, which portrays the life of A. E. Housman, examining his friendships, academic work, and poetry at different points during his life, with particular focus on his unrequited love for his "greatest friend and comrade Moses Jackson", who as a straight man, could not reciprocate Housman's affections. Many critics consider it his masterpiece, but it is exceptionally abstruse, full of references and allusions to the late-Victorian and Edwardian literary, academic, and artistic landscapes, the social scenes of those times, the history and literature of classical antiquity, and a whole lot of untranslated Latin and Greek.
Tropes:
- Acquired Error at the Printer: The play provides several completely serious examples, such as a long discussion on a misplaced comma in a printed edition of Catullus completely changing the meaning of a line.
- Ambiguous Syntax: An example between Housman and Chamberlain while watching Jackson compete at an athletics meet.Housman: It's after the 220 hurdles.Chamberlain: Running late.Housman: (No, 220 yards…)
- Ancient Grome: Steadily averted throughout the play, as one would expect where the cast consists almost entirely of classical scholars, but played straight in one scene, Jackson confuses Latin and Greek.
- Audience Monologue: Occurs a few times, particularly to end both acts. In the monologue at the end of the first act, the audience takes the place of Housman's class of students.
- Da Editor: W. T. Stead, in Act II, is the editor of a newspaper largely responsible for the rise of the "new journalism" in the Victorian era.
- Damned by Faint Praise: A few examples, especially when characters criticize each others' poetry.(When discussing a cadet who committed suicide, about whom Housman wrote a poem:)AEH: He left a note for the coroner.Wilde: Of course, and you should have sent your poem to the coroner too.
- The Dandy: Several characters.
- Pater is explicitly described as a "dandy".
- Oscar Wilde himself, having been The Ghost for the first three-quarters of the play, shows up towards the end of Act II.
- Bunthorne, from Gilbert & Sullivan's operetta Patience, who appears briefly at the beginning of Act II, also probably qualifies.
- Deadpan Snarker: Everybody gets some choice snark in, but the grown-up A. E. Housman is the undisputed master.AEH (to Housman, his younger self): Ah! Müller…Haupt…Rosberg…really, there's no need for you to read anything written in German in the last fifty years. Or the next fifty.
- Driven to Suicide: Subverted. Chamberlain at one point had suspected Housman of this—"I thought, the river, and no two ways about it"—but Housman "turned up again, dry as a stick."
- The Ferryman: Charon himself takes both Housman and Oscar Wilde across the River Styx into Elysium.
- Flowery Insults: Quite a few.Housman: Actually, I was thinking of going in for the Newdigatenote —I thought the poem that won it last year was not so—how may one put it?AEH: Not such a poem as to suggest that your attempt would be a piece of impudence.
- Gayngst: Lots of characters, but particularly Housman and Chamberlain.
- Historical Domain Character: Basically everyone.
- Homoerotic Subtext: Jowett chews out a professor for exchanging homoerotic letters with a student, and then shortly after describes a Latin poem in some very…explicit terms.Jowett: Is Catullus on your reading list?Housman: Yes, sir. The Marriage of Peleus and Thetis.Jowett: Catullus 64! Lord Leighton should paint that opening scene. The flower of the young men of Argos, hot for the capture of the Golden Fleece, churning the waves with their blades of pine, the first ship ever to plow the ocean!
- I Hate Past Me: Deconstructed. Housman meets his younger self a few times during the play, and his reactions to the person he used to be are…mixed, at best.
- Incompatible Orientation: Jackson's inability to return Housman's affections drives much of the play.
- Leaning on the Fourth Wall:
- As Charon poles Housman across the River Styx:AEH: Were you asleep?Charon: No, I was in a play.AEH: That needs thinking about.
- When Housman meets his younger self:AEH: And you are?Housman: Housman, sir, of St John's.AEH: Well, this is an unexpected development.
- As Charon poles Housman across the River Styx:
- Lovable Jock: Jackson is this.
- Nature Lover: Ruskin, who comes in for a bit of gentle mocking for this.
- Secret-Keeper: Housman and Chamberlain for each other.
- Self-Abuse: Hilariously equated with being a diligent student as equally damaging to one's soul.Pattison: A genuine love of learning is one of two delinquencies which cause blindness and lead a young man to ruin.
- Take That, Critics!: Housman gets a pretty good shot off while discussing lost Athenian plays that are known because they were mentioned by critics.Housman: There were critics?AEH: Naturally—it was the cradle of democracy.
