An Ideal Husband Context

Question 1

Oscar Wilde was alive

Answer 1

1854-1890

Question 2

Wilde’s parents’ jobs

Answer 2

Mother - poet
Father - surgeon

Question 3

Wilde was born in

Answer 3

Dublin, Ireland

Question 4

Wilde went to

Answer 4

Oxford and won prizes for poetry

Question 5

Whilst at Oxford Wilde was influenced by

Answer 5

aestheticists (John Ruskin and Walter Pater)

Question 6

Wilde was key part of the

Answer 6

aestheticism movement (art for art’s sake)

Question 7

Wilde had a reputation among the London elite as

Answer 7

witty, a dandy and glamorous

Question 8

Wilde married and had

Answer 8

2 sons

Question 9

In 1887 Wilde took the post of

Answer 9

editor at Women’s World magazine, commissioning articles on female involvement in politics

Question 10

The Picture of Dorian Grey came out in

Answer 10

1891 and shocked audiences with its homoeroticism

Question 11

Wilde’s plays (eg The Importance of Being Earnest, AIH, Lady Windemere’s fan) were

Answer 11

hugely successful

Question 12

An Ideal Husband debuted in

Answer 12

1895

Question 13

Wilde had a homosexual affair with

Answer 13

Lord Alfred Douglas (aka Bosie)

Question 14

in 1895 Lord Alfred Douglas’ father left a card at Wilde’s club

Answer 14

addressed “to Oscar Wilde, posing as a sodomite”

Question 15

Wilde sued his affair’s father for

Answer 15

libel

Question 16

Wilde was convicted of homosexual practices

Answer 16

in 1895 and was sentenced to 2 years hard labour in Reading jail

Question 17

After leaving prison

Answer 17

Wilde spent the rest of his life sick and poor, wandering Europe and addicted to drugs

Question 18

Wilde died in

Answer 18

1900 from cerebral meningitis in a hotel in Paris

Question 19

the 1890s were known as

Answer 19

the “yellow” or the “naughty nineties”

Question 20

AIH was written during

Answer 20

industrialisation, imperial expansion and a time of rigid social norms and morals

Question 21

AIH uses techniques and character types from

Answer 21

the french well-made play, originating from Sardou and Scribe, emphasising craftsmenship over context
(a type of melodrama)

Question 22

French well-made plays use

Answer 22

stock characters eg virtuous wife, the “other woman”,
and end in a reaffirmation of pure and happy love

Question 23

1890s famous divorce case and politician involved

Answer 23

• irish politician Charles Parnell
• named in a divorce case in the 1890s as he had an affair with the wife
• scandal with led to the downfall of his political career