TOPIC 51: OSCAR WILDE. BERNARD SHAW.

1. INTRODUCTION.

2. HISTORICAL BACKGROUND. THE LATE VICTORIAN

PERIOD.
3. OSCAR WILDE (1854 – 1900).

3.1. LITERARY PRODUCTION

4. GEORGE BERNARD SHAW (1856 – 1950) – NOBEL PRIZE IN

1925.
4.1. LITERARY PRODUCTION
5. CONCLUSION.
1. INTRODUCTION
In this unit we will talk about two of the most famous Irish playwrights ever, Oscar Wilde and
Bernard Shaw.

Oscar Wilde, apart from being a playwright, was also a poet and author of numerous short
stories and a novel. Known for his biting wit, he became one of the most successful playwrights
of the Late Victorian Era in London, and one of the greatest celebrities of his day. Several of his
plays continue to be widely performed, especially The Importance of Being Earnest.

On the other hand, George Bernard Shaw, whose first profitable writing was music and literary
criticism, is also best known as a playwright. He authored more than sixty plays, nearly all of
which deal sternly with prevailing social problems although they have a vein of comedy to
make their stark more palatable. Shawn examined education, marriage, religion, government,
among many other themes. He was most angered by the exploitation of the working class.

Relation to curriculum: socio-cultural aspects + R/W +S/L + Language Awareness

2. HISTORICAL BACKGROUND: THE LATE VICTORIAN PERIOD.

For many, the late-Victorian period became a time to question – and challenge – the
assumptions and practices that had firmly rooted in England during the Victorian Era: the
domestic and imperial exploitation, the social differences, and propriety and morality. Political
authors like Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels empowered the working class, setting the
beginnings of socialist and communist ideals. Home-rule for Ireland became an increasingly
controversial topic of debate, caused by social unrest. In 1867, a second Reform Bill was
passed, extending voting rights even further to some working-class citizens.

Regarding culture, many writers struck a ‘fin de siècle’ (or end of century) pose: a transitional
phase between the optimism and promise of the Victorian period and the Modernist
movement, during which artists began to challenge just how genuine that optimism and
promise had been in the first place. Also, there was a rise of Aestheticism, an European arts
movement which centred on the doctrine that art exists for the sake of its beauty alone, and
that it needs serve no political, didactic, or other purpose. The movement began as a reaction
to the prevailing utilitarian social philosophies and to what was perceived as the ugliness of the
industrial age. Its philosophical foundations were laid in the 18 th century by Immanuel Kant,
who postulated the autonomy of aesthetic standards, setting them apart from considerations
of morality, utility, or pleasure.

3. OSCAR WILDE (1854 – 1900).

‘I have nothing to declare but my genius’

Oscar Wilde

Oscar (Fingal O’Flahertie Wills) Wilde was born in 1854 in Dublin, Ireland. His parents were
both professionals, his father was Ireland’s leading ear and eye surgeon and his mother was a
revolutionary poet and an authority on Celtic myth and folklore. So, Wilde’s education was
privileged. He attended the best schools – Trinity College and Magdalene College – and
obtained several scholarships and was awarded with a degree with honours. He won the
coveted Newdigate Prize in 1878 for his long poem Ravenna. He was stimulated by the
teachings of the English writers John Ruskin and Walter Pater on several matters: the
importance of art in life and the stress on the aesthetic intensity by which life should be lived.

In the early 1880s, Wilde was acquainted with social and artistic circles by his wit and
splendour. At that time in the late Victorian period, his devotion to Aesthetics was seen as
unmanly. Nevertheless, wishing to reinforce the Aesthetic movement, Wilde published, at his
own expense, Poems (1881). Eager for further acclaim, Wilde gave some lectures in the United
States and Canada, exhorting Americans to love beauty and art; then he returned to Great
Britain to lecture on his impressions of America.

He married Constance Lloyd with whom he had two children. Once back in London, Wilde set
off on another extensive lecture tour, this time through Britain and Ireland, to bolster his
much-reduced income, which caused him to take up jobs as a reviewer for the Pall Mall
Gazette and editor of Woman’s World.

In his final years, his private life was even more on the verge of scandal. His homosexuality
played negatively in an anti-homosexual Victorian society. In 1892, Wilde met Lord Alfred
Douglas, nicknamed ‘Bosie’, an attractive young Oxford undergraduate with whom he began a
passionate and controversial relationship, neglecting his wife and children. Bosie’s father, the
Marquis of Queensberry, got to know about his son’s unmanly behaviour, in company of the
greatest playwright Oscar Wilde. The Marquis libelled Wilde, calling him a sodomite. A trial
followed, and as homosexuality was illegal, Wilde was arrested by the Crown, being sentenced
to two years hard labour, the latter part in Reading Gaol. Wilde got very ill in prison. Once
released in 1897, he retuned to Bosie. He died of acute meningitis brought on by an ear
infection in 1900, having embraced Catholicism.

3.1. Literary Production

We could divide Wilde’s literary production according to different genres.

a. Novel:

Wilde wrote only one novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray in 1890. In the novel, Basil Hallward
meets Dorian Gray, who immediately captures Basil’s artistic imagination. Basil is completing
his first portrait of Dorian as he truly is. Lord Henry Wotton, a famous wit who enjoys
scandalizing his friends by celebrating youth, beauty, and the selfish pursuit of pleasure, claims
that the portrait is Basil’s masterpiece. Dorian arrives at the studio. Lord Henry upsets Dorian
with a speech about the transient nature of beauty and youth. Dorian curses his portrait,
which he believes will one day remind him of the beauty he will have lost. In a fit of distress, he
pledges his soul if only the painting could bear the burden of age and infamy, allowing him to
stay forever young. Dorian lives his life according to a single goal: achieving pleasure. His
painted image, his conscience, hound him with the knowledge of his crime: Sibyl Vane and
Basil Hallward.

The major themes of the novel are the following:

- The purpose of art: when The Picture of Dorian Gray was published, it was declared as
immoral. The following year, Wilde included a preface which serves as an explanation
of his philosophy of art. The purpose of art, according to this series of epigraphs, is to
 have no purpose. The Victorians believed that art could be used as a tool for social
education and moral enlightenment, as illustrated in works by writers such as Charles
Dickens. The Aestheticism movement, of which Wilde was a major proponent, sought
to free art from this responsibility.
- The supremacy of Youth and Beauty: the first principle of Aestheticism is that art
serves no other purpose that to offer beauty. It revitalises the wearied senses to
escape the brutalities of the world: Dorian distances himself from the horrors of his
actions by devoting himself to the study of beautiful things – music, jewellery, rare
tapestries. In a society that prizes beauty so highly, youth and physical attractiveness
become valuable commodities.
- The superficial nature of society: it is no surprise that a society that prizes beauty
above all else is a society founded on a love of surfaces. What matters most to Dorian,
Lord Henry and the polite company they keep is not whether a man is good at heart
but rather whether he is handsome. Dorian is never ostracised despite his ‘mode of
life’ because of the ‘innocence’ and ‘purity’ of his face.

b. Drama:

Wilde’s massive popularity relied on his society comedies. Based on the conventions of the
French ‘well-made play’, he resorted to his paradoxical, concise wit to create a new comedy
form in the 19th century English theatre. His first success, Lady Windermere’s Fan, was a clear
hint that he could invigorate his contemporary drama. In the same year, his macabre play
Salome, written in French, was censored for it contained high pitched Biblical references. A
second society comedy, A Woman of No Importance, established him as the forerunner of
modern English drama. In hurried succession, Wilde’s final plays, An Ideal Husband and The
Importance of Being Earnest, were produced. In the latter, his greatest achievement, the
conventional elements of farce are transformed into satiric epigrams revealing Victorian
hypocrisies.

The Importance of Being Earnest (1895)

Jack Worthing, the play’s protagonist, is a pillar of the community in Hertfordshire, where he is
guardian to Cecily Cardew, the pretty eighteen-year-old granddaughter of the late Thomas
Cardew, wo found and adopted Jack when he was a baby. In Hertfordshire, Jack has
responsibilities: he is a major landowner and justice of the peace, with tenants, farmers, and a
number of servants and other employees, all dependent of him. For years, he has also
pretended to have an irresponsible black-sheep brother named Ernest who leads a scandalous
life in pursuit of pleasure and is always getting into trouble of all sort that requires Jack to rush
grimly off to his assistance. In fact, Ernest is merely Jack’s alibi, a phantom that allows him to
disappear for days at a time and do as he likes. No one but Jack knows that he himself is
Ernest. Ernest is the name Jack goes by in London, which is where he really goes on these
occasions – probably to pursue the very sort of behaviour he pretends to disapprove of in his
imaginary brother. Nevertheless, suspicions arise, which lead to the major personality conflict
within the play – revealing unexpected relatives and marriages.

The major themes of the play are the following:

- The Nature of Marriage: Marriage motivates the plot and is a subject for philosophical
speculation and debate. The question of the nature of marriage appears for the first
time in the opening dialogue and from this point on the subject never disappears for
very long. Whether a marriage proposal is a matter of ‘business’ or ‘pleasure’, these
 assumptions reflect the conventional preoccupations of Victorian respectability –
social position, income and character. The play is an ongoing debate about whether
marriage is ’pleasant’ or ‘unpleasant’.
- The Constraints of Morality: Morality and the constraints it imposes on society is a
favourite topic of conversation in The Importance of Being Earnest. These restrictions
and assumptions suggest a strict code of morals that existed in Victorian society. Wilde
makes fun of the whole Victorian idea of morality. The very title of the play is a double-
edged comment on the phenomenon. The play’s central plot – the man who both is
and isn’t Ernest/earnest – presents a moral paradox. Earnestness, which refers to both
the quality of being serious and the quality of being sincere, is the play’s primary
object of satire.

c. Poetry:

Among Wilde’s poetic achievements, we should mention Ravenna, which was awarded with
the Newdigate Prize in 1878; his books Poems and Poems in Prose; and last but not least, The
Ballad of the Reading Gaol, written in prison after having been found guilty in the above-
mentioned trial.

Other works by Wilde include:

- Intentions: A collection of essays including The critic as an Artist.

- Lord Arthur Saville’s Crime and Other Stories: A collection of short stories including The
Canterville Ghost.
- The Happy Prince and Other Stories: A collection of short stories including The Selfish
Giant.
- De Profundis: a letter dedicated to his lover, Bosie.

4. GEORGE BERNARD SHAW (1856 – 1950) – NOBEL PRIZE IN 1925

Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself’
G.B. Shaw.

George Bernard Shaw was born in Dublin, Ireland. Although the Shaw family belonged to the
landed Irish gentry, they were poor. His father was a low-ranking civil servant, then an
unsuccessful grain merchant. His mother was a professional singer. Shaw disliked formal
education and avoided school as much as possible. Shaw’s mother introduced him to the arts,
including music, fine art, and literature. She frequently took him to the National Gallery of
Ireland. Shaw’s parents divorced in 1872 – his mother left for London taking Shaw’s sister with
her.

Shaw stayed behind in Dublin with his father for a time. In 1876, at the age of 20, Shaw joined
his mother in London. His mother gave him a pound a week allowance so he could visit the
British Museum reading room and public libraries. Shaw completed his first semi-
autobiographical novel, Immaturity, in 1879. The book was rejected by every published in
London, but he continued writing. By the mid-1880s, Shaw became self-supporting, writing
book reviews for the Pall Mall Gazette, art criticism for the World, and musical columns for the
Star.
George Bernard Shaw was an advocate for the working class and joined the Fabian Society in
1884. The group wanted to transform Britain into a socialist democracy through permeation –
spreading socialist theory by word of mouth to create an intellectual political base. Other
famous Fabians included H. G. Wells, Virginia Woolf, and E. Nesbit. In 1889, Shaw edited
Fabians Essays in Socialism.

In his long lifetime Shaw wrote more than sixty plays. He released collections of his early
dramas, labelling them Plays Pleasant and Plays Unpleasant. The unpleasant ones violated the
Victorian expectations for light entertainment and laid groundwork for his later works. Shaw
had strong ideas about socialism, marriage, vegetarianism, religion, eugenics, and many other
matters, but his plays included characters who disagreed with his philosophies.

Shavian drama is deeply influenced by the ideals proposed by Norwegian playwright Henrik
Ibsen, whose dramas represented the beginnings of modern European drama. His influence in
establishing serious drama based on moral and social issues hung over what has been called
‘the minority theatre’, represented for the smaller playhouses.

Discussion is of key importance in Shaw’s drama. All his heroes and heroines are, in a sense,
polished debaters, but the with they show is not the epigrammatic with of Oscar Wilde, but
rather the best expression of their convictions. Shaw’s early plays revealed the hypocrisies of
society, and his later ones drew attention to its complexities and dilemmas. His alteration of
the traditional genres, and the simplified characterisation which these genres implied, was
ultimately a rejection of the simplified and false view of the world they represented. His
achievement was that he opened up the stage for serious debate and proved that it could be
invigorating.

He is the first person to have won both an Oscar and the Novel Prize in Literature for the same
work – Pygmalion. The play was later reworked into the popular musical My Fair Lady.

4.1. Literary Production

a. Drama:

Pygmalion (1913)
Two old gentlemen meet in the rain one night at Covent Garden. Professor Higgins is a scientist
of phonetics and Colonel Pickering is a linguist of Indian dialects. The first bets the other that
he can, with his knowledge of phonetics, convince high London society that, he will be able to
transform the cockney speaking Covent Garden flower girl, Eliza Doolittle, into a woman as
poised and well-spoken as a duchess in a matter of months.

The next morning, the girl appears at his laboratory on Wimpole Street to ask for speech
lessons, offering to pay a shilling, so that she may speak properly enough to work in a flower
shop. Higgins makes merciless fun of her but is seduced by the idea of working his magic on
her. Pickering goads him on by agreeing to cover the costs of the experiment if Higgins can
pass Eliza off as a duchess at an ambassador’s garden party. The challenge is taken.

Pygmalion derives its name from Ovid’s Metamorphoses in which Pygmalion decides to live
alone and unmarried. With wondrous art, he creates a beautiful statue more perfect that any
living woman. He wishes that she were more than a statue. Pygmalion goes to the temple of
the goddess Venus and prays that she gives him a lover like his statues; Venus is touched by his
love and brings Galatea to life. When Pugmalion returns from Venus’ temple and kisses his
statue, he is delighted to find that she is warm and soft to the touch.
The major themes in Pygmalion are:
- Language: language is present in all its forms in Pygmalion: everything from slang and
‘small talk’ to heartfelt pleas and big talks about soul and poverty. Depending on the
situation, language can separate or connect people, degrade or elevate, transform or
prevent transformation. Language can deceive as easily as it can reveal the truth. It is,
ultimately, what binds Pygmalion together, and it pays to read carefully.
- Manipulation: In Pygmalion we see different types of influence and control, sometimes
literal and other times metaphorical: the teacher training his students, the artist
shaping his creation… That said, these roles are not always well-defined; they can
change easily, without warning. Shaw wants us to observe the consequences of
control, to see how these changes occur.
- Society and class: we observe a society divided, separated by language, education and
wealth. Shaw gives us a chance to see how that gap can be bridged, both successfully
and unsuccessfully. As he portrays it, London society cannot simply be defined by two
terms, ‘rich’ and ‘poor’. Within each group there are smaller, less obvious distinctions,
and it is in the middle that many of the most difficult questions arise and from which
the most surprising truths emerge.

Other dramatical works by Shaw include Major Barbara, which poses question such as in which
hands the world is, whether God’s or military industrialism’s; Saint Joan, about Joan of Arc,
who had to be killed because the world was not prepared for her yet. Man and Superman,
John Bull’s Other Island and Androcles and the Lion are other of the finest dramatical plays by
Shaw. Nevertheless, he is also known because of his collections of plays, Plays Pleasant, which
includes Arms and the Man, Candida, and You Never Can Tell; and his Plays Unpleasant,
including Widower’s Houses, The Philanderer, and Mrs. Warren’s Profession.

Last but not least, we have to mention yet another collection of plays, Three Plays for Puritans,
which includes The Devil’s Disciple, Caesar and Cleopatra, and Captain Brassbound’s
Conversion.

b. Other Works

Shaw also wrote criticism and political propaganda, as it is reflected in his work as a journalist
and in The Intelligent Woman’s Guide to Socialism and Capitalism.

5. CONCLUSION