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An ideal husband: A 1895 stage play by Oscar Wilde

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Albert Edward, the future King Edward VII, was the eldest son of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. Although he was heir to the throne, his mother did not entrust him with royal duties or make any attempts to prepare him for his future role as king. Instead, the Prince of Wales (known as Bertie to his family and friends) became the most prominent member of a group of highly elite socialites, the Marlborough House Set, named for the house Albert Edward occupied with his wife and family. Even after he married Princess Alexandra of Denmark (an arranged marriage), Bertie was notorious for his extravagant lifestyle and his string of mistresses, ranging from actresses to the wives of other noblemen, one of whom was at his bedside when he died. He fathered a number of illegitimate children, some of them passed off as the children of their mothers’ husbands.

Gerald Barry created the 2011 opera, The Importance of Being Earnest, commissioned by the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Barbican Centre in London. It premiered in Los Angeles in 2011. The stage premiere was given by the Opéra national de Lorraine in Nancy, France in 2013. [114] Costa, Maddy (29 January 2008). "Handbags at dawn". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 29 January 2008. Several theories have also been put forward to explain the derivation of Bunbury, and Bunburying, which is used in the play to imply a secretive double life. It may have derived from Henry Shirley Bunbury, a hypochondriacal acquaintance of Wilde's youth. [86] Another suggestion, put forward in 1913 by Aleister Crowley, who knew Wilde, was that Bunbury was a combination word: that Wilde had once taken a train to Banbury, met a schoolboy there, and arranged a second secret meeting with him at Sunbury. [87] Bunburying [ edit ] Of the two young ladies Cecily and Gwendolen, does either seem more sincere, more “earnest” than the other? In what ways are they different? In what ways are they the same? Fourth Street Chekov Theatre / City Center / The New York Public Library Theatre Collection / The Shakespearewrights / The Threepenny Opera (1956)Atkinson, Brooks (9 March 1947). "John Gielgud's Version of Oscar Wilde's Play". The New York Times . Retrieved 29 January 2023. Alan Bennett, Peter Cook, Jonathan Miller and Dudley Moore / Irving Berlin / W. McNeil Lowry (1963) World Magazine, 20/2/1895, cited by Ruth Robbins, York Notes Advanced on The Importance of Being Ea (...) At the height of his fame and success, while The Importance of Being Earnest (1895) was still being performed in London, Wilde prosecuted the Marquess of Queensberry for criminal libel. [3] The Marquess was the father of Wilde's lover, Lord Alfred Douglas. The libel trial unearthed evidence that caused Wilde to drop his charges and led to his own arrest and trial for gross indecency with men. [4] After two more trials he was convicted and sentenced to two years' hard labour, the maximum penalty, and was jailed from 1895 to 1897. [5] During his last year in prison he wrote De Profundis (published posthumously in 1905), a long letter that discusses his spiritual journey through his trials, forming a dark counterpoint to his earlier philosophy of pleasure. On his release, he left immediately for France, and never returned to Ireland or Britain. There he wrote his last work, The Ballad of Reading Gaol (1898), a long poem commemorating the harsh rhythms of prison life. Sunday-Night Theatre: An Ideal Husband". BBC Genome Project. 28 December 1958 . Retrieved 12 April 2023.

Jill Matthews, Good and Mad Women: The Historical construction of femininity in Twentieth Century A (...) Wilde did not meet Walter Pater until his third year, but had been enthralled by his Studies in the History of the Renaissance, published during Wilde's final year in Trinity. [42] Pater argued that man's sensibility to beauty should be refined above all else, and that each moment should be felt to its fullest extent. Years later, in De Profundis, Wilde described Pater's Studies... as "that book that has had such a strange influence over my life". [43] He learned tracts of the book by heart, and carried it with him on travels in later years. Pater gave Wilde his sense of almost flippant devotion to art, though he gained a purpose for it through the lectures and writings of critic John Ruskin. [44] Ruskin despaired at the self-validating aestheticism of Pater, arguing that the importance of art lies in its potential for the betterment of society. Ruskin admired beauty, but believed it must be allied with, and applied to, moral good. When Wilde eagerly attended Ruskin's lecture series The Aesthetic and Mathematic Schools of Art in Florence, he learned about aesthetics as the non-mathematical elements of painting. Despite being given to neither early rising nor manual labour, Wilde volunteered for Ruskin's project to convert a swampy country lane into a smart road neatly edged with flowers. [44] a b Edwards, Owen Dudley (2004). "Wilde, Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills (1854–1900), writer". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (onlineed.). Oxford University Press. doi: 10.1093/ref:odnb/29400 . Retrieved 29 January 2023. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)Cheryl Crawford / Equity Liberty Theatre / Barry Manilow / National Theatre of the Deaf / Diana Ross / Lily Tomlin (1977) The Importance of Being Earnest 's popularity has meant it has been translated into many languages, though the homophonous pun in the title (" Ernest", a masculine proper name, and " earnest", the virtue of steadfastness and seriousness) poses a special problem for translators. The easiest case of a suitable translation of the pun, perpetuating its sense and meaning, may have been its translation into German. Since English and German are closely related languages, German provides an equivalent adjective ("ernst") and also a matching masculine proper name ("Ernst"). The meaning and tenor of the wordplay are exactly the same. Yet there are many different possible titles in German, mostly concerning sentence structure. The two most common ones are "Bunbury oder ernst / Ernst sein ist alles" and "Bunbury oder wie wichtig es ist, ernst / Ernst zu sein". [75] In a study of Italian translations, Adrian Pablé found thirteen different versions using eight titles. Since wordplay is often unique to the language in question, translators are faced with a choice of either staying faithful to the original – in this case, the English adjective and virtue earnest – or creating a similar pun in their own language. [101] Wilde, drawn in 1896 by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec Oscar Wildewas born in Dublin, Ireland, moved to England to attend Oxford University, and then moved to London. Wildehad been rejected by his first love, but in London met and married Constance Lloyd, with whom he had two children.

The play was put into rehearsal in December 1894 and opened on 3 January 1895, billed as "A new and original play of modern life". It ran at the Haymarket for 111 performances, regarded as a good run at the time. [a] In April, on the last day of the Haymarket run, Wilde was arrested for gross indecency; his name was removed from the playbills and programmes when the production transferred to the Criterion Theatre, where it ran for a further 13 performances, from 13 to 27 April. [4] The play could have run longer at the Criterion, but the theatre was required by its proprietor, Charles Wyndham, for a new production. [5] Rosemary Harris / Marin Mazzie / Terrence McNally / Sonny Tilders and Creature Technology Company / Jason Michael Webb / Harold Wheeler (2019) Koerble, Betty (1952). W. S. Gilbert and Oscar Wilde – A Comparative Study. Madison: University of Wisconsin. OCLC 55806177.Cecily: This is no time for wearing the shallow mask of manners. When I see a spade I call it a spade. Leonard Bernstein / Carol Burnett / Rex Harrison / The National Theatre Company of Great Britain / The Negro Ensemble Company (1969) Passive-Aggressive Kombat: When Gwendolen and Cecily mistakenly come to believe that they are both engaged to the same man, they engage in an incredibly vicious yet polite catfight. The unstated rule is that they must insult each other while maintaining the appearance of civility and the one who loses her temper first loses. Cecily wins. Consider the title of the play. What is the meaning of the title? Why is the title ironic? To whom does the title apply? Imagine Spot: In the 2002 movie, Cecily has several involving her as a maiden being rescued by a knight. When she meets "Ernest" (Algie), she imagines him as a knight and then imagines his visor snapping shut when she learns he isn't really named Ernest.

George VI was not the first British king who had attended a performance of the play: his grandfather Edward VII, when Prince of Wales, was in the audience for the first production. [51]

Suivez-nous

Molly Tracy (2017). "Odyssey Opera Announces The Importance of Being Earnest As Part of Wilde Night Opera Series, 3/17-18". BroadwayWorld.com . Retrieved 15 November 2019.

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