The Invention of Love
| The Invention of Love | |
|---|---|
Cover of the Grove Press edition | |
| Written by | Tom Stoppard |
| Characters | A. E. Housman Alfred W. Pollard Charon Moses Jackson John Ruskin Benjamin Jowett Jerome K. Jerome Henry Labouchere W. T. Stead Frank Harris Robinson Ellis John Postgate Walter Pater Oscar Wilde |
| Date premiered | October 1, 1997 |
| Place premiered | UK |
| Original language | English |
| Subject | A. E. Housman |
| Genre | Drama |
| Setting | The river Styx |
The Invention of Love is a 1997 British play by Tom Stoppard portraying the life of poet A. E. Housman, focusing specifically on his personal life and love for a college classmate. The play is written from the viewpoint of Housman, dealing with his memories at the end of his life, and contains many classical allusions. The Invention of Love won both the Evening Standard Award (U.K.) and the New York Drama Critics Circle Award (U.S.)
Considered by many to be Stoppard's finest play, it has been called "esoteric". In fact, to demystify the play's many historical and academic references, the New York production team provided the audiences with a 30-page booklet on the political and artistic history of the late-Victorian period. Harold Bloom, a scholar of Walter Pater, contended that the character of Housman and those in his circle are fabulated for dramatic effect, and the play's difficulties are not historical but its own. This clarified, he cited it in 2003 as Stoppard's "masterpiece to date".