Oscar Wilde ‘An Ideal Husband’ Context
The Background
‘I took the drama, the most objective form known to art, and made it as personal a mode
of expression as the lyric or the sonnet’ – Wilde play = personal form of expression
Critics on ‘An Ideal Husband’
John Ruskin
Leading English art (literature, poetry etc…) critic of Victorian era
Believed that art should communicate truth above all things = contrast to the modern
art world (art for art’s sake)
Walter Pater
English essayist, literary & art critic
Asserted that life had to be lived intensely with an ideal of beauty
Believed that art should exist for its own sake and not to serve any other purpose
Opposite to Ruskin
Aestheticism
Wilde = aesthete
British decadent writers = inspired by Pater & his essays ‘life had to be lived intensely,
with an ideal of beauty’
“Art for Art’s Sake”
Artists & writers of Aesthetic style tend to profess that the arts should provide sensuous
pleasure rather than convey moral or sentimental messages reject Ruskin ideas
Art didn’t have any truthful/ teaching purpose only needed to be beautiful and give
pleasure
Life should copy art
Wilde the world should be judged on its beauty rather than its moral value
Dandyism
A Dandy: a man who takes great care with his clothing & general appearance, especially
one who is nonchalant in demeanour & develops aristocratic hobbies a flamboyant
male regardless of sexual orientation
Dandyism: the style or conduct of a dandy; a literary and artistic style of the latter part of
the 19th century marked by artificiality & excessive refinement
, England = had very rigid system of social mores Wilde = rebelled against these & the play
dramatizes this…
Posing the Dandy against more ‘respectable’ characters
1895
Period of Wilde’s love affair with Lord Alfred Douglas homosexual affair = illegal at time
Trial turned against Wilde friends & family reject him to protect themselves…
Sir Robert Chiltern = criticism of society abandoning Wilde to protect their reputation
Wilde sank into drug addiction & died in Paris in 1900
The Play
Genre
Contemporary problem play
Epigrammatic language: each character talking with a crystallised, non-naturalistic wit
which complicates notions of sincerity, self-expression, and truth
Difference between men and women in love “its entire psychology – the difference in
which man loves a woman from that in which a woman loves a man, the passion that
women have for making ideals (which is their weakness) and the weakness of a man who
dare not show his imperfections to the thing he loves” - Wilde
Draws influence from several play styles
French well-made play with its complex and precise plotting
Farce & melodrama
A society drama engaging with contemporary issues
Wilde = vastly popular before being found to be homosexual play criticises hypocrisy of
society: praise one minute and criticism the next:
The play has revealed English High
society and government as in thrall to
wealth at birth, hypocritically veiling its
failings with a supposed adherence to
high moral ideals
The play does NOT end with the bettering of society: the Chilterns may each have learnt
greater wisdom and self-knowledge in the play’s events, but there is no suggestion of any
wider reform in a society which worships wealth while flattering itself with a reputation for
high morals
Women in the Play
The Background
‘I took the drama, the most objective form known to art, and made it as personal a mode
of expression as the lyric or the sonnet’ – Wilde play = personal form of expression
Critics on ‘An Ideal Husband’
John Ruskin
Leading English art (literature, poetry etc…) critic of Victorian era
Believed that art should communicate truth above all things = contrast to the modern
art world (art for art’s sake)
Walter Pater
English essayist, literary & art critic
Asserted that life had to be lived intensely with an ideal of beauty
Believed that art should exist for its own sake and not to serve any other purpose
Opposite to Ruskin
Aestheticism
Wilde = aesthete
British decadent writers = inspired by Pater & his essays ‘life had to be lived intensely,
with an ideal of beauty’
“Art for Art’s Sake”
Artists & writers of Aesthetic style tend to profess that the arts should provide sensuous
pleasure rather than convey moral or sentimental messages reject Ruskin ideas
Art didn’t have any truthful/ teaching purpose only needed to be beautiful and give
pleasure
Life should copy art
Wilde the world should be judged on its beauty rather than its moral value
Dandyism
A Dandy: a man who takes great care with his clothing & general appearance, especially
one who is nonchalant in demeanour & develops aristocratic hobbies a flamboyant
male regardless of sexual orientation
Dandyism: the style or conduct of a dandy; a literary and artistic style of the latter part of
the 19th century marked by artificiality & excessive refinement
, England = had very rigid system of social mores Wilde = rebelled against these & the play
dramatizes this…
Posing the Dandy against more ‘respectable’ characters
1895
Period of Wilde’s love affair with Lord Alfred Douglas homosexual affair = illegal at time
Trial turned against Wilde friends & family reject him to protect themselves…
Sir Robert Chiltern = criticism of society abandoning Wilde to protect their reputation
Wilde sank into drug addiction & died in Paris in 1900
The Play
Genre
Contemporary problem play
Epigrammatic language: each character talking with a crystallised, non-naturalistic wit
which complicates notions of sincerity, self-expression, and truth
Difference between men and women in love “its entire psychology – the difference in
which man loves a woman from that in which a woman loves a man, the passion that
women have for making ideals (which is their weakness) and the weakness of a man who
dare not show his imperfections to the thing he loves” - Wilde
Draws influence from several play styles
French well-made play with its complex and precise plotting
Farce & melodrama
A society drama engaging with contemporary issues
Wilde = vastly popular before being found to be homosexual play criticises hypocrisy of
society: praise one minute and criticism the next:
The play has revealed English High
society and government as in thrall to
wealth at birth, hypocritically veiling its
failings with a supposed adherence to
high moral ideals
The play does NOT end with the bettering of society: the Chilterns may each have learnt
greater wisdom and self-knowledge in the play’s events, but there is no suggestion of any
wider reform in a society which worships wealth while flattering itself with a reputation for
high morals
Women in the Play
