Oscar Wilde's Society Plays

by Bennett, Michael Y.

• ISBN13: 9781137410924
• ISBN10: 1137410922
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2015-08-06
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Summary

As the first collection of essays specifically about Oscar Wilde's comedies, the contributors re-evaluate Oscar Wilde's society plays as "comedies of manners" to see whether this is actually an apt way to read Wilde's most emblematic plays. Focusing on both the context and the texts, the collection locates Wilde both in his social and literary settings. It also demonstrates how Wilde both reinvigorated the genre and creatively imbued these plays with an intellectual and social seriousness not seen before in comedies of manners. This collection allows readers to stop laughing solely at the wit when studying the plays, but also uncover new, productive paths to explore these serious (while still very funny) plays.

Author Biography

Michael Y. Bennett is Assistant Professor in the Department of Languages and Literatures at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, USA. He is author of Reassessing the Theatre of the Absurd (2011); Words, Space, and the Audience (2012); and Narrating the Past through Theatre (2012). He is the editor of Refiguring Oscar Wilde's Salome (2011) and the co-editor of Eugene O'Neill's One-Act Plays: New Critical Perspectives (2012).

Table of Contents

Introduction: The Importance of Laughing in Earnest; Michael Y. Bennett
PART I: CONTEXTS
1. Wit in Ernest: Wilde's Irish Word-Play; Jerusha McCormack
2. The Tragicomedies of Oscar Wilde: A Wilde Response to Melodrama; Michael Y. Bennett
3. Oscar Wilde's Unfinished Society Plays: Mr. and Mrs. Daventry, A Wife's Tragedy, and Love Is Law; Joseph Bristow
4. Wilde's Comedic Takes on the New Woman: A Comparison with Ibsen and Shaw; Petra Dierkes-Thrun
5. Three Comedies and a Funeral: The Endgame of The Importance of Being Earnest; Melissa Knox PART II: TEXTS
6. Deconstructive Strategies in Wilde's Social Comedies: From Melodrama to Deconstruction; Steven Price
7. Earnest in Name, But How Earnest in Manner?: Acting in Wilde's Comedy; Richard Allen Cave
8. ". . . Would You Kindly Inform Me Who I Am?": Wilde's Comedies of Manners as Tragedies; Helena Gurfinkel
9. "You will call me sister, will you not?": Friendship, Solidarity, and Conflict between Women in Wilde's Society Plays; Helen Davies
10. Modern Ontologics and the Impotence of Being Earnest; S. I. Salamensky