UNIT 2: OM THE LATE 19TH-CENTURY COMEDY OF

MANNERS TO REALISM:

OSCAR WILDE and G. B. SHAW

THE TURN OF THE CENTURY

► Fin de siècle : aestheticism and decadence

► The end of the 19th century saw the abandonment of Victorian morality in
literature.

► art for art's sake

► Walter Pater's Studies in the History of the Renaissance (1873)

► comedies of manners: mildly critical of the vices of the bourgeoisie and tended
towards melodrama

► realism, naturalism and modernism rejected the melodramatic and comic

worldview of the comedies of manners: importation of the plays by Ibsen, Zola,
Strindberg and Chekhov

https://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/aestheticism-and-decadence

https://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/19th-century-theatre

OSCAR WILDE

Plays:

 Vera, or the Nihilists (1882)

 Salome (in French in 1891, in English in 1893, performed in 1896 in France and in
1931 in London)

 Lady Windermere's Fan (1892)

 A Woman of No Importance (1892)

 An Ideal Husband (1895)

 The Importance of being Earnest (1895)

OSCAR WILDE (1854-1900)

 He began with a type of drama based on French influences (symbolism): Salome,

banned from the British stage because of its religious subject matter.
  His failure to succeed led to comedies of manners: he could bring his aesthetic
vision of literature to the stage.

 He was also fascinated by Ibsen's social realist drama; Ibsen's darker themes in
a funnier key.

 His plays were the most popular of the time.

 Despite the plays’ appearance of superficiality and entertainment, they carried

with them a strong criticism of the upper classes.

https://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/salome

Lady Windermere's Fan (1892)

■ Social satire on the hypocrisy of Victorian attitudes to women and sex

■ Loosely based on Ibsen's A Doll's House (1979)

https://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/an-introduction-to-lady-
windermeres-fan

An Ideal Husband (1895)

■ Relationship between politics and morality

■ Exposes the need of the late Victorian society to keep up appearances

■ Pretension of incorruptibility vs. admission of fallible human nature (the two

couples)

■ Melodrama mixed with humour and satire

■ Huge commercial success

https://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/an-introduction-to-oscar-wildes-
play-an-ideal-husband

The Importance of being Earnest (1895)

■ Confusion of identities – Shakespearean style – “the Bunbury alibi"

■ Denunciation of the double standards of Victorian society

■ A more pure comedy – no traces of melodrama

■ Wilde's most performed play – possibly his masterpiece

https://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/the-importance-of-being-earnest
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxFEqwhqV3U

GEORGE BERNARD SHAW

Plays unpleasant:

 Widowers’ Houses (1892)

 The Philanderer (1905)

 Mrs Warren’s Profession (1902)

Plays pleasant:

 Arms and the Man (1894)

 Candida (1897)

 The Man of Destiny (1897)

 You Never Can Tell (1899)

Others

 Man and Superman (1903)

 John Bull’s Other Island (1904)

 Major Barbara (1905)

 Caesar and Cleopatra (1906)

 Pygmalion (1914)

 Saint Joan (1924)

GEORGE BERNARD SHAW (1856-1950)

 The most enduring influence on British theatre of the twentieth century

 Shaw's importance in English theatre: an adjective was coined with his name ̶
Shavian

 Prolific and influential with his writing ̶ dramatic works, literary criticism and
political pamphletism

 He wrote more than sixty plays and received the Nobel Prize in 1925

 He rejected the idea of "art for art's sake" and believed that literature should be
didactic

 He rejected Victorian theatre for its rigid conventions

  His early plays were "problem plays", following Ibsen's dictates

 Shaw's lecture The Quintessence of Ibsenism (1891) ̶ the beginning of modern

drama in Britain

 Shaw saw Ibsen's naturalism as the basis for drama that dealt with social issues
– this became the norm for 20th c. mainstream British

 Plays unpleasant – “to force the spectator to face unpleasant facts by

recognizing his own photograph”

 Presentation of characters from their own perspective, independent of moral

judgements

https://www.bl.uk/people/g-b-shaw

Arms and the Man (1894)

■ The first to be commercially successful

■ Light comedy about the absurdity of war and the mistake of idealising it

■ It overturns all the typical conventions of Victorian heroic melodrama

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BM97d8ZHuYE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVpoi4hT8EE

Mrs Warren’s Profession (1902)

■ Great scandal due to subject matter: prostitution

■ A problem play, of the "unpleasant plays"

■ Denunciation of the hypocrisies associated with prostitution and the lack of

employment opportunities for women in Victorian times

■ Uncompromising ending

■ First performed in 1902 in a private club; in a public theatre in 1925.

Pygmalion (1914)

■ First performed in Vienna in 1913

■ It deals with class society, education, linguistics and social mobility

■ A response to the determinism posed by naturalism and a very strong critique

of the British class system
 ■ Name from Ovid's Metamorphosis: Pygmalion was a sculptor who carved
himself an idealised female figure out of ivory and fell in love with it

■ Shaw reworks the myth to give it a feminist, anti-romantic perspective ̶ Shaw

was determined that Eliza should end up as an empowered, independent
woman

https://www.bl.uk/20th-century-literature/articles/an-introduction-to-pygmalion-a-
romance-in-five-acts

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ygBkAcyYkW0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=uKxd30lQ1f0&list=PLejZncBkF8TJ4Gj6Elsn24LlcIMH9L-Yk

Saint Joan (1924)

■ A problem play disguised as a historical work

■ The play was first performed three years after Joan of Arc’s canonisation by the
Catholic Church

■ The play shows that the people involved in Joan's trial acted according to their
moral principles.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8vrqeTe3So

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQPH7PEkq4M