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So I'm taking an english class and we're studying this play by Wilde. I don't really understand why it's so special, tbh. I can pick up on the light satire that's going on, and the bantering is pretty clever, but I don't see any real depth to it, or the real reason why a bunch of people (my prof included, although he's not wild about Wilde) think it's his best work.
Anyone (think?) care to enlighten me?
I performed in this play in High School. I don't know why people think it's his best work, as I've never read any other Wilde plays, but who knows, maybe I've seen and read a ton.
I do remember thinking this play was hilarious though.
the charm lies in colin firth
the mirth of Firth does not birth worth
it's more or less wilde himself distilled into play form, imo
so how well did you know wilde gwahir?
i've read a fair bit of what he had to say as well as read about his life and times and know pretty well what he was about
pretty poor attempt at a smartass response
lol fair enough
yeah i know, what can i say, i'm bored at work.
with a comment like that though did you really expect no one to say anything.
i figured it would either be ignored as unhelpful or someone would eventually ask me to elaborate
makes sense.
im sorry btw, i didn't mean to come off as a smartass. i knew you were obviously referring to some kind of knowledge you had about him, i was just taking it out of context and implying you knew him in person.
yeah its my silly sense of humour raising its head again.
hmm... that kind of sucks because i don't really care about Wilde so much as whatever it is i need to pull from this play. maybe i'm overanalyzing, though
SF, why you gettin all apologetic and shit?
it's been too long since i've read it for me to actually help youQuote:
Originally Posted by coqauvin
I assume that The Importance of Being Earnest was the turn of the century equivalent of Forgetting Sarah Marshall.
People watched it and thought, "Yeah that was pretty good" until they realized that everything else in the theater was terrible that year and all of a sudden they felt the need to heap on to it more praise than it deserved.
im overly nice
Wahahhhhh I love this play. Wasn't it because it was quite controversial, if you think about the context, it rejected the social order of the time, ridiculing it. I guess the upper class Victorian English which would have being able to afford to visit the theatre would have had their eyes opened because it made them realise how seriously they took everything. eg. the bit where the guy thinks his style of piano playing is substantially more important than his accuracy, which is how Victorian England saw manners... (manners more important than actual substance or what is being said). I think it's really really clever satire with regard to Victorian life because the system was so corrupt, i mean the quality of life you had just depended on whether you were rich or poor and the rich didn't really focus on actual morality of what they were doing. I think it probably has more significance in the context rather than now. It reminds me of Albert Camus's novel 'The Outsider' (epic book: everyone should read it) because the guy in it rejects the social norm by being completely honest about every single minute thing - makes you realise how much everyone in our society depends on lying to get by.
Essay over.
^ this was really helpful!
Speaking of Camus, I read the short story at the Lisbon Plate by a black lesbian crazy lady who really hates white boys and it mentioned the Outsider, specifically the scene where he shot that Arab. She re-wrote it from the perspective of the Arab (a really good breakdown of it, according to my prof - i haven't read the book myself) and mentioned something about Europeans always shooting dark people anyways.
I find that really interesting, because The Outsider is set in Algeria and at the time the Arab race was actually dominant and the French/White would have been the minority so I don't really think that Camus was making a racist dig, if anything I suppose the fact that it is a white shooting an Arab is yet another rejection of the norm. I'm going to check out that short story though - it sounds good. What do you study?
nothing specific, just doing a general level intro to lit course until i find something i really want to dig into.
I also don't think Camus was making a racist dig, Dionne Brand's point, I think, was that racists have (to her, at least), used the Outsider as "...the ultimate in alienation", while she says there's nothing alienating about a white guy who doesn't give a fuck and shoots brown people.
It's not as big as I'm making it sound
Ponyboy was an Arab?(huhu)
I quite enjoyed the play, mainly due to the lighthearted and frank nature of it. I didn't think it would bear close scrutiny, so didn't attempt it.