Tom Stoppard

<p> Tom Stoppard is justly famous for his innovative theatrical techniques. Daniel Jernigan argues that while much of Tom Stoppard's early work (<I>Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead</I> and <I>The Real Inspector Hound</I> for instance) is postmodern the remainder of his career essentially tracks backward from there--becoming late modernist in the 1970s (<I>Travesties</I>) and fully modernist in the 80s and 90s (<I>The Real Thing</I> and <I>Arcadia</I>). This pattern also makes sense of Stoppard's recent and uncharacteristic foray into dramatic realism with <I>The Coast of Utopia</I> (2002) and <I>Rock 'n' Roll</I> (2006) at which point the playwright seems to embrace the more straightforward rhetorical advantages of literary realism.</p>