context AO3 Flashcards
Victorian morality
great political, economic, and social change driven by scientific and technological advances.
= however English largely share the same set of Victorian moral ideals
(ex. sexual restraint) upper class genuinely superior, expected to behave in a certain way
how victorian morality relates to the play
Victorian morality facing complications
-Victorians ideals about gentlemen clashed with emerging ideal (economic reality) of self-made man
-ideas about femininity clashed with New Woman Movement, emergence of birth control
-Socialist agaitation
homosexuality
play itself = false identity to hide activities that can not be practised openly
modern audience find comparisons between Jack/Ernest’s life and Victorian era homosexuals
(seen as a capital crime and a felony later) - contradiction of Victorian ideals (reproduction)
Wilde himself was suggested as one, married
“Earnest” = code word for homosexual (gay)
The Aesthetic Movement
(reflected on performance, artifice, epigram, satirical sayings in the play)
“Art for art’s sake”
-reversed the trend where arts was often sentimental or practical (moral values) championed sensory individual sensual, instead of objective truths and eternal values
Pater (leading voice in the Movement) influenced Wilde ( took a copy of his studies when he studied)
The Decadent Movement
-reversed values of (honesty, hard work and modesty) glorifies artifice instead
-closely linked with Aesthetic Movement (rejected ideas that art should imitate life and have clear moral purpose)
-DECADENCE celebrated style, excess and pleasure (values celebrated in the play)
19-century theatre
in the play, Wilde used conventions of the well-made play (revolve specific problems (romances ex) suspense was key)
but satirised them (exaggerating them to point of ridicule)
(wanting marriage but faced obstacles)
(lack of background= unacceptable suitor)
ridiculously resolved at end of play
