Context Flashcards
(29 cards)
What is the Victorian compromise?
contradiction between the progress brought on by the Industrial Revolution, and the poverty, disease, and suffering felt by the working classes as a result of this progress.
a mixture of hypocrisy and morality, the attempt to hide the unpleasant aspects of progress and the materialistic philosophy of life under a veil of respectability and optimism. The upper classes hid their misdemeanours in order to retain their respectability.
what is the subject of Wildes 1st 3 plays?
Social misdemeanors:
- corruption of upper class
- wrongdoings.
-taboo subjects that aren’t talked about but every body knows.
-Gossip.
-Society.
-Upper class hid their mis-demeanors - covered up things they knew were wrong.
the pretences which helped society to thrive
what is a comedy of manners?
-‘Manners’ often means behavior - usually bad behavior.
-Hypocrisy usually at the basis of these manners.
-Disaster occurs due to the ‘masks’ being removed.
What does Wilde say in the Soul of man under socialism
-explicit about mistreatment of working classes.
-need to change social structure - redistributing aristorcratic wealth - letting machines, not men do the work.
What does Wilde say in ‘de Profundis’
-manifesto offering him self as martyr and guide of working classes.
What flaws of the current social attitudes promoted by wealthy and powerful people does Wilde question?
-Reliabilitiy of texts - publishers often rejected texts attacking upper class - as these were their audiences - Ibsens a dolls house ending changed - 1880s
-Fiction verses truth.
-Class.
-Gender.
-Birth and identity.
-love and marriage.
-Religion and education.
Worldview expressed in the play: concern for social reform.
Themes:
-Class
-Seriousness in comedy
Lower class is satirized – ineffectual Chasuble – foolish Miss Prism – all-too-knowing Lane and Wilde relishes in pleasures of distinguished society.
However, an outsider himself – Anglo-Irish writer and ardent socialist – aware of corruption + cold-heartedness of the wealthy – enables audience to observe this way.
Aristocratic values – shown as mercenary and heartless.
E.g. Bracknell represents an entire class – callous about illness ‘Health is the primary duty of life’ and contemptuous of Miss Prism’s efforts at education and Chasuble’s religion. Idea of revolution and acts of violence in Grosvenor square – threaten her – cannot understand them.
Algy – disregard for debt, concerned only with his immoderate consumerism – represent those who think only about their material well being – the poor doesn’t matter.
How prominent are Wildes social concerns in the play?
-Submerged strand of the play.
-suggested only by irony and allusion - not directly addressed.
Worldview expressed in the play: desire to promote the centrality of aesthetic beauty.
-Perfection of form and style – good manners and personal style/taste – overriding importance.
-Celebration of wit – most elegant and sophisticated.
What is the mission of the aesthetic movement?
Aesthetes have didactic purpose ‘mission of aesthetic movement is to lure people to contemplate’ so that they ‘wake into consciousness, creating new desires and appetites.’
Oscar Wilde as editor of ‘The Woman’s World’
Under his editorial ship published articles on:
-Dress reform - (against the restrictions of the corset).
-Votes for women.
Style of Wildes earlier plays (Lady Windmere’s fan, A woman of no importance, An ideal husband)?
-Realist plays
-raise moral issues seriously such as morality is not absolute.
-Touch of melodrama.
When was the Criminal Law Amendment Act, what did it do, and what was it’s impact of Wilde?
-1885
-criminalised sexual activity between two men.
-Wilde had to lead a double life (Bunburying).
How did George Gissing describe the late nineteenth century?
Sexual anarchy due to the formal agitation by women for wider rights - votes, education and professions.
What is the separate spheres debate?
Debate about the assumption that the woman’s sphere was the home and the mans in the public world of actions and commerce.
How would the inversion of gender roles be received by Wildes original audience?
Absurd and funny due to it’s unlikeliness.
What is the New woman?
-Women dissatisfied with their conventional roles - sought wider fields of action.
-Positive descriptions: well-educated, active, employable and attractive.
-Negative versions: unwomanly, immoral blue-stocking - no hope of marrying a decent man.
Influence of Walter Pater?
-one of the founders of the aesthetic movement.
-Overturned victorian idea that a text had to preach a moral lesson - suggested art forms are self-sufficient.
-One should live not for consequences, but for the moment.
-anti-realist.
-Seen in TIOBE:
-Inconsequential plot, patterning of character, dialogue and action, all point to a non-realist world.
-Without moral - exist for its own perfection.
-Perfect phrasing unimportant its truth value is utterly unimportant.
Wilde’s views of the French Revolution?
Wilde agreed with Thomas Carlyle’s theory which presented the power of the revolutionaries positively, as the start of a historical process of social change.
Ironically, Lady B reveals aristocrats’ fears about effect of revolution and of democratic change. Yet the emptiness, folly and viciousness of her views shows exactly why such change was needed.
For audiences used to melodramas on the 1890s stage what generic expectations does Jack being a foundling set up?
-illegitimacy was a profound social stigma.
-Foundling child traditionally presented in a tragic mode - illegitimate parentage.
-out cast - existence the sad result of an illicit sexual relationship.
-Force of a joke in Act 3 - Jack wrongly identifies Miss Prism as his ‘Mother!’ - sentimental speech - straight from melodrama - about sexual double standards - condones male sexual irregularity - condemns women and illegitimate child.
Double-life in late Victorian writing
-Common theme
-Usually treated with much more seriousness - matter of moral panic.
-E.g. Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886).
-Even Wilde - The Picture of Dorian Grey.
-Jack the ripper murders - supposedly the work of an upper-class man who was leading a double life.
‘Pas devant’
-Restraint of the upper and middle classes - constantly observed in their homes by their servants.
-‘Pas devant’ - not in front of the servants - not permitted to observe the failings, outbursts of temper, or any kind of impropriety. - Thus Algy and Lane’s relationship - witty reversal of norms.
Invalidism in Victorian convention
-Upper and middle class women - very little autonomy.
-one way to assert control over their lives - retreat into the life of the invalid.
-illnesses could be purely psychosomatic.
-Victorian fiction - abounds with invalid women - E.g. Miss Havisham.
-Lord Bracknell’s ill-health - comic reversal of the presumption of feminine invalidity - implies emasculation by his formidable wife.
Sensation novel in the Victorian period
-Popular mode of fiction writing from the 1860s.
-Focused on infidelity, intrigue, crime and lunacy.
-This is what Gwendolen refers to when the comments (about her diary) ‘One should always have something sensational to read.
