An Ideal Husband by Oscar Wilde Literature Essay Example

Oscar Wilde was a writer of the transitional epoch, which was reflected in all aspects of his life and work. He became a person that expressed the spirit of Fin-de-Siecle. It was the time of the sudden change in the established beliefs and values as well as the emergence of new kinds of arts. Oscar Wilde’s works remain ambiguous and cause debates among critics, researchers, and authors of numerous books and critical articles. His writing is characterized by the use of permanent motifs, images, and techniques. At the same time, Oscar Wilde worked in a wide range of genres: poems, ballads, novels, fairy tales, and plays. His comedies are still popular among viewers and readers. They are funny, witty and, instructive. The purpose of the paper is to investigate the problems of Wilde’s comedy An Ideal Husband. This play has been recognized as one of the best dramatic works of the writer, even by those critics who did not consider Oscar Wilde a playwright of the high class. The range of issues on which the comedy is based is quite wide. The problems of the comedy are characterized by depth and relevance. In the play, the characters address a wide range of issues such as social life and politics, manners and morals, marriage and family. However, the ease with which the characters deal with troubles expresses special Oscar Wilde’s attitude to the norms of bourgeois society. Wilde did not want to take seriously the principles of this environment. He was very disrespectful towards its shrines, which he through his characters touched at every turn.

The play An Ideal Husband is one of the most famous comedies of Oscar Wilde. It was first performed in January 1895. The study of the problems of the comedy will help to prove that Oscar Wilde is a great playwright who, with his original paradoxical style, raised English drama to the next level.

Biography of Oscar Wilde

Oscar Wilde is a poet, playwright, and novelist, who most fully embodied the artistic principles of English aestheticism. Oscar Wilde was born in Dublin in 1854 in the family of Sir William Wilde, Dublin ophthalmologist. He was a very prominent figure. Wilde’s father wrote many books on geography, history, and medicine. However, people called him the dirtiest man in Ireland. Oscar’s mother, Jane Francesca Agnes, was a fine lady. In her tastes and manners, there was a tone of immoderate theatricality. In this insincere air, among fake smiles, adultery, theatrical postures, and words, Oscar Wilde grew up. Naturally, the parents gave their son, who came from the privileged class of the Irish, decent education. Oscar Wilde received classic humanitarian education. He studied at Trinity College in Dublin and College of St. Magdalena in Oxford. “When Wilde was still an undergraduate at Oxford, he had already succeeded in becoming an outstanding personality” (Aransaez 16). At Oxford, Wilde created himself. He developed a perfect English accent. After graduation, the future writer settled down in London. Wilde’s university professors, important figures in British culture, largely influenced the formation of his aesthetic views. With the help of his talent, wit, and ability to attract attention, Wilde quickly joined the social life of London. He performed the most necessary revolution for English society – a revolution in fashion. He appeared in personally invented mind-blowing costumes.

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His first collection of poems was written in the spirit of the Pre-Raphaelites. It was published in 1881, shortly before Oscar Wilde went to lecture in North America. His lectures were extremely popular there. Posture and esthetic extremes of Oscar Wilde caught the public’s eye. Moreover, the irreconcilable protest was obviously based on the artist’s rigid position, taking into account the history of art, the conditions of its development, and the actual state.

After the marriage with Constance Lloyd in 1884, the writer published a series of storybooks for children, originally written for his sons. The next period of his life was very fruitful. He wrote many stories and worked as a journalist. In 1890, Wilde published the novel The Picture of Dorian Gray. After its release, the British critics wrote hundreds of slashing reviews, incriminating Oscar Wilde that the novel was written for the most depraved members of society and that the author sympathized with vice. In 1891, he published a collection of theoretical articles Intensions. In the articles, Wilde presented his symbol of faith to readers, his aesthetic doctrine. In the same year, he wrote a treatise The Soul of Man under Socialism, which rejected marriage, family, and private property. 1895 became very successful for Wilde’s creative progress. He wrote two brilliant
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