Dec 31, 2009

Arcadia | Septimus Hodge

After studying mathematics and natural philosophy at Cambridge, where Lord Byron was one of his classmates, Septimus Hodge came to Sidley Park to work as the tutor for the Croom family's daughter, Thomasina Coverly. Septimus is young, intelligent, clever, and apparently attractive. He begins the play aged twenty-two. His brief encounter with Mrs. Chater in the estate's gazebo is choice gossip among the servants, and he is conducting an ongoing affair with Lady Croom, his protegé's mother.

For Septimus, the passions of the flesh compete with the quest for knowledge as his most...