![]() ![]() This collection also features two other plays that Wilde penned earlier in his career, LADY WINDERMERE'S FAN and AN IDEAL HUSBAND, that also display his ability to convey warmth and wit through his hilarious characters and their outlandish situations. Hailed as the first modern comedy in England, THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST is Wilde's most famous work. His plays continue to dazzle audiences even a century after his death. His fame as a dramatist rests on four comedies Lady Windermere’s Fan, A Woman of No Importance, An Ideal Husband, The Importance of Being Earnest, and the tragedy Salom. However, their deceptions eventually cross paths, resulting in a series of crises that threaten to spoil their romantic pursuits. Wilde wrote nine plays in all between 18. Meanwhile, Algernon follows Jack's scam, but his imaginary friend, Bumbury, provides a convenient method of adventuring in the country. Jack invents an imaginary brother, Ernest, whom he uses as an excuse to escape from his dull country home and gallavant in town. Jack Worthing and Algernon Moncrieff, who bend the truth in order to add excitement to their lives. ![]() Considered one of the greatest THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST is a farce, playing with love, religion, and truth as it tells the tale of two men. A leading wit and conversationalist in London society, his career was destroyed at its height when he was impriso. He is the author of, among others, The Secret Library: A Book-Lovers’ Journey Through Curiosities of History and The Great War, The Waste Land and the Modernist Long Poem.Oscar Wilde created his final and most lasting play, comic masterpieces of all time, THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST, in 1895. Dublin, 1854) was an Irish playwright, who wrote one of the best loved comedies in the English language - The Importance of Being Earnest (1895). ![]() The author of this article, Dr Oliver Tearle, is a literary critic and lecturer in English at Loughborough University. But in a career spanning some twenty years, Wilde created a body of work which continues to be read an enjoyed by people around the world: a novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray short stories and fairy tales such as ‘ The Happy Prince’ and ‘ The Selfish Giant’ poems including The Ballad of Reading Gaol and essay-dialogues which were witty revivals of the Platonic philosophical dialogue.īut above all, it is Wilde’s plays that he continues to be known for, and these include witty drawing-room comedies such as Lady Windermere’s Fan, A Woman of No Importance, and The Importance of Being Earnest, as well as a Biblical drama, Salome (which was banned from performance in the UK and had to be staged abroad). The life of the Irish novelist, poet, essayist, and playwright Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) is as famous as – perhaps even more famous than – his work. The repeated line, ‘Each man kills the thing he loves’, takes on a wider metaphorical significance in the context of Wilde’s own life.įor a good edition of Oscar Wilde’s poetry, we recommend Complete Poetry (Oxford World’s Classics). In November 1895, having spent a short time in Wandsworth prison, Wilde was moved to HM Prison, Reading to serve the rest of his two-year sentence of hard labour.īut Wilde’s poem was inspired not only by his own incarceration there, but by the execution of a soldier – the first at the prison for eighteen years – for the murder of his wife. From East Tucson Take Broadway Boulevard west until it turns into Congress Street, then turn left on Scott Avenue. The Temple of Music and Art is located in downtown Tucson on Scott Avenue between 14th and McCormick streets and between 6th and Stone avenues). We conclude this list with Wilde’s most famous poem. Arizona Theatre Company at the Temple of Music and Art. The Gaslight Theatre is a Musical Melodrama Theater in Tucson, Arizona. In this poem, which is a prime example of the luxurious indulgence of Decadent poetry, the narrator encounters the mysterious sphinx (‘half woman and half animal’: the sphinx being a cross between a woman and a cat) and, essentially, asks her some very personal questions about the lovers she’s had over the centuries.Ī fine example of fin de siècle decadence, and one of Wilde’s most intriguing poems. SOLD OUT-Just One Look, A Tribute to Linda Ronstadt. Wilde wrote on a number of occasions about sphinxes, with one of his characters describing women, memorably, as ‘sphinxes without secrets’. In a dim corner of my room for longer thanĪ beautiful and silent Sphinx has watched me This poem, which addresses Persephone from the world of mythology, may not be the finest example of a villanelle, but it shows Wilde’s virtuosity in verse as well as, perhaps, highlighting the limits of his own verse. Wilde didn’t write hundreds of poems, but among the small number he did write we find sonnets, ballads, narrative poems, elegies, and many others – including this attempt at the restrictive and challenging form of the villanelle. In a separate post, we’ve compiled some of the best villanelles written in English, but we didn’t include this Wilde poem on the list. So begins this poem, an example of the villanelle form. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |