Tom Stoppard is justly famous for his innovative theatrical techniques. Daniel Jernigan argues that while much of Tom Stoppard's early work ( and , for instance) is postmodern, the remainder of his career essentially tracks backward from there--becoming "late modernist" in the 1970s ( ) and fully modernist in the 80s and 90s ( ). This pattern also makes sense of Stoppard's recent and uncharacteristic foray into dramatic realism with (2002) and (2006), at which point the playwright seems to embrace the more straightforward rhetorical advantages of literary realism.