'An Ideal Husband'- Critical views Flashcards
Who said… “[Wilde] plays with everything: with wit, with philosophy, with drama, with actors and audience, with the whole theatre.”
George Bernard Shaw; Playwright.
Shaw praised ‘An I deal Husband’ for everything that it embodies and presents.
When others attacked the play, Shaw argued that “Wilde is the only thorough playwright” of the time (1895).
What does critic Barbara Belford say about ‘An Ideal Husband’ in her book, ‘Oscar Wilde: A certain genius’?
“Deliciously absurd, morally serious, profoundly sentimental and wickedly melodramatic.”
She believed that Wilde had included everything he needed and more to write a good comedy of manners.
Belford appreciates the comedy but also acknowledges the deeper messages that Wilde tries to provide.
Many critics have argued that the character of Lord Goring was largely modelled on Wilde himself. The ‘dandy’ and ‘aestheticism’ that surrounds goring was advocated by Wilde. Goring also aids the guide of the play by listening and advising characters which suggests that Wilde considered himself the voice of counsel or morality.
What themes can be related to this view?
1) Aestheticism
2) Morality
3) Functions of characters
Why does Director, Peter Hall, think that modern audience reception of the play is still positive?
Hall believes that “the play lives on not because of its wit but because of its compassion.”
Wilde explores the tolerance that high class Victorians rarely possessed and directors praised that.
What does critic, John Clum, say about the conclusion of the play?
“The play concludes that an ideal husband doesn’t exist, yet presents an ideal, submissive wife.” (2010, ‘The Drama of Marriage’)
Why does Ni Salamensky believe that women were subjugated in the Victorian period?
“Women are subjugated simply because their lives were seen less valuable than men’s. (2012)”
Gavin Witt, production Dramaturg, said: “[Wilde] lulled his audience into a feeling of comfortable recognition- which he then overturned with paradoxes, epigrams and inversions of expectations.”
What else does Witt say about Wilde’s techniques used in ‘An Ideal Husband’?
“Wit never falters and paradoxical inversion somehow lands everyone on their feet.”
“Wilde may mock marriage and serious social institutions [but] he also emerges as their ardent defender.”
Who describes Wilde as “The leading personality of English aestheticism and he expected art to reveal more about human life.”
John Allen Quintin
Stage designer, Judith Bowen, said: “Tensions are created when private conversations are constantly interrupted, drawing attention to the fact that people who live in the public eye have no private life.”
Why did Bowen design her set to replicate the late 1800s?
Bowen claims that: “The theme and message of the play is timeless so we left it in the period of the late 1800s to provide social context.”
