Wilde's Wild Life (1854-1900)

Son of Anglo-Irish surgeon who attends Trinity College Dublin and Oxford (known for eccentric style)
Founder of the Aesthetic Movement (art for art's sake)
Successful lecturer (in the US and UK)
Novelist: Dorian Gray
Dramatist: A Woman of No Importance, An Ideal Husband,Salomé (in French)
Involved with Lord Alfred Douglas
In 1895 (year Earnest performed), he sued Douglas' father the Marquis of Queensbury for libel (for being called a "sodomite," a criminal offence); after dropped libel suit, he is arrested, tried and found guilty for homosexuality.
Spends 2 years in prison doing hard labor.
Released in 1897, he lives in exile on the Continent as Sebastian Melmoth, gets baptized in the Catholic Church, and dies of cerebral meningitis in Paris.

19th-century Theater in the Late 20th Century

In her 1990 study Sexual Anarchy: Gender and Culture at the Fin de Siecle, Elaine Showalter notes,

"The 1980s and 1990s - - - compulsively tell and retell the stories of the 1880s and 1890s, in contemporary versions of Victorian novels, in film and TV adaptations, in ballets and musicals, and in all the myriad forms of popular culture .... Yet in retelling these stories we transmit our own narratives, construct our own case histories, and shape our own futures" (18).

1790s / 1890s / 1990s: Revolution, Bohemianism, Sexual Experimentation

Growth of the City as Center for Cultural Shifts

Revolution in Leisure after 1830

technology (train): more demand for seaside resorts
technology (steam press): pulp fiction and periodicals (see Punch)
technology (bicycle)
the pub
the football pitch
public parks and gardens
expansion of theaters
Music Halls

Victorian Theater

1) Genre

Melodrama: Plays with music using stock characters (villain, heroine) that appealed to lower classes
Burlesque: the variety show
Middle-class Satire: Gilbert and Sullivan's operettas (cf. Patience)
Pantomime / Performance as Still Tableau
Tragedy: Reserved mostly for the "licensed" playhouses

2) Realities of

Often loud, crowded, and unruly
All plays had to be cleared by censors (parts of Wilde's play not allowed)
Producing a play depended on a writer's affinity with the ruling theatrical establishment

3) 1890s Outside Britain: the Naturalist Drama

Henrik Ibsen: A Doll's House, Hedda Gabler, Ghosts; Gerhart Hauptmann: Before Sunrise, The Weavers; Plays that subtly (and more oftentimes not so subtly) critique the hypocrisy of modern life by comparing it to the struggle of the fittest using minimalist scenery

Bunbury according to OED:

The name of an imaginary person used as a fictitious excuse for visiting a place or avoiding obligations (see quot. 1899). Hence used allusively in various formations (see quots.).

1899 WILDE Importance of being Earnest I. 14, I have Bunburyed all over Shropshire on two separate occasions. Ibid. 16, I have invented an invaluable permanent invalid called Bunbury, in order that I may be able to go down into the country whenever I choose. Ibid. 17 Now that I know you to be a confirmed Bunburyist I naturally want to talk to you about Bunburying.

1959 Listener 12 Feb. 300/3 He may even be able to kill the faint hope in many hearts that the former has merely gone Bunburying.

1960 Times 27 Apr. 10/1 The perils of Bunburying to use the classical term for the creation of a spurious alibi increase in proportion to the complexity of the story told.

1965 P. MOYES Johnny under Ground ix. 117 I've evolved this rather attractive alter ego Mr. Reginald Derbyshire-Bentinck. Quite Bunburyish, in his own little way.

1969 Listener 5 June 794/3 For he who lives more lives than one More deaths than one must die... At least the words are an apt motto for a Bunburyist.

______________________________________________

Dandy according to OED:

One who studies above everything to dress elegantly and fashionably; a beau, fop, ‘exquisite’.

c1780 Sc. Song (see N. & Q. 8th Ser. IV. 81), I've heard my granny crack O' sixty twa years back When there were sic a stock of Dandies O; Oh they gaed to Kirk and Fair, Wi' their ribbons round their hair, And their stumpie drugget coats, quite the Dandy O. 1788 R. GALLOWAY Poems (Jam.), They..laugh at ilka dandy at that fair day. 1818 MOORE Fudge Fam. Paris i. 48 They've made him a Dandy, A thing, you know, whiskered, great-coated, and laced, Like an hour~glass, exceedingly small in the waist. 1819 ANDERSON Cumbrld. Ball. (1823) 148, I..went owre to see Carel Fair; I'd heard monie teales o' thur dandiesOdswinge! how they mek the fwok stare! 1831 CARLYLE Sart. Res. III. x, A Dandy is a Clothes-wearing Man, a Man whose trade, office, and existence consists in the wearing of Clothes. 1874 G. W. DASENT Half a Life II. 65 Like the cabriolets which some dandies still drive.

Discussion

1. What is Bunburying? How might it relate to sexuality (femininity, masculinity, etc.)?

2. What is the “importance of being earnest”? How does it relate to “Englishness”?

3. What is the view of marriage portrayed in the play by Cecily and Gwendolen, on the one hand, and Jack/Ernest and Algernon on the other? How does it relate to class?

Wilde's Wild Life (1854-1900)

Son of Anglo-Irish surgeon who attends Trinity College Dublin and Oxford (known for eccentric style)

Founder of the Aesthetic Movement (art for art's sake)

Successful lecturer (in the US and UK)

Novelist: Dorian Gray

Dramatist: A Woman of No Importance, An Ideal Husband,Salomé (in French)

Involved with Lord Alfred Douglas

In 1895 (year Earnest performed), he sued Douglas' father the Marquis of Queensbury for libel (for being called a "sodomite," a criminal offence); after dropped libel suit, he is arrested, tried and found guilty for homosexuality.

Spends 2 years in prison doing hard labor.

Released in 1897, he lives in exile on the Continent as Sebastian Melmoth, gets baptized in the Catholic Church, and dies of cerebral meningitis in Paris.

19th-century Theater in the Late 20th Century

In her 1990 study Sexual Anarchy: Gender and Culture at the Fin de Siecle, Elaine Showalter notes,

1790s / 1890s / 1990s: Revolution, Bohemianism, Sexual Experimentation

Growth of the City as Center for Cultural Shifts

Revolution in Leisure after 1830

technology (train): more demand for seaside resorts

technology (steam press): pulp fiction and periodicals (see Punch)

technology (bicycle)

the pub

the football pitch

public parks and gardens

expansion of theaters

Music Halls

Victorian Theater

1) Genre

Melodrama: Plays with music using stock characters (villain, heroine) that appealed to lower classes

Burlesque: the variety show

Middle-class Satire: Gilbert and Sullivan's operettas (cf. Patience)

Pantomime / Performance as Still Tableau

Tragedy: Reserved mostly for the "licensed" playhouses

2) Realities of

Often loud, crowded, and unruly

All plays had to be cleared by censors (parts of Wilde's play not allowed)

Producing a play depended on a writer's affinity with the ruling theatrical establishment

3) 1890s Outside Britain: the Naturalist Drama

Henrik Ibsen: A Doll's House, Hedda Gabler, Ghosts; Gerhart Hauptmann: Before Sunrise, The Weavers; Plays that subtly (and more oftentimes not so subtly) critique the hypocrisy of modern life by comparing it to the struggle of the fittest using minimalist scenery

Bunbury according to OED:

The name of an imaginary person used as a fictitious excuse for visiting a place or avoiding obligations (see quot. 1899). Hence used allusively in various formations (see quots.).

1959 Listener 12 Feb. 300/3 He may even be able to kill the faint hope in many hearts that the former has merely gone Bunburying.

1960 Times 27 Apr. 10/1 The perils of Bunburying to use the classical term for the creation of a spurious alibi increase in proportion to the complexity of the story told.

1965 P. MOYES Johnny under Ground ix. 117 I've evolved this rather attractive alter ego Mr. Reginald Derbyshire-Bentinck. Quite Bunburyish, in his own little way.

1969 Listener 5 June 794/3 For he who lives more lives than one More deaths than one must die... At least the words are an apt motto for a Bunburyist.

______________________________________________

Dandy according to OED:

One who studies above everything to dress elegantly and fashionably; a beau, fop, ‘exquisite’.

Discussion

1. What is Bunburying? How might it relate to sexuality (femininity, masculinity, etc.)?

2. What is the “importance of being earnest”? How does it relate to “Englishness”?

3. What is the view of marriage portrayed in the play by Cecily and Gwendolen, on the one hand, and Jack/Ernest and Algernon on the other? How does it relate to class?

4. How does Wilde’s view of family compare to Ibsen and Strindberg’s?

5. What is meant by the term “modern” used in the play?

6. What character embodies Wilde’s voice? What does the doubling in the play say about individuality?