Oscar Wilde

             Lady Windermere's Fan, A Well Made Play
             The tradition of the well-made play emerged in the nineteenth century. It was also called "piece bien faite", meaning 'Second Empire Drama'. It was first made popular by the works of Eugene Scribe and Victorien Sardou of France. The tradition reached it's peak with Sardou's works in which the techniques of construction invented by Scribe were completely used. Construction and stagecraft are exploited fully rather than characterization and ideas. In the plot construction of the well-made play, an action turns on artificial complications that are easily solved by ingenious solutions. The plays are made up with only four scenes, and props become important in detailed realism. The stage is set up in a drawing room setting, with doors that open and close. The problem or secret in the play is revealed in the obligatory scene, where often it causes a sudden change. Eventually, the play ends happily and agreeably tying up all loose ends. I will discuss Lady Windermere's Fan by Oscar Wilde, and why it is considered a well-made play.
             Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde (1854-1900) was an Anglo-Irish dramatist, novelist, essayist, short-story writer, critic, and poet. He was part of the Decadence, a loosely affiliated coterie of writers and artists of the 1890s whose lives and works manifested a highly stylized, decorative manner, a fascination with morbidity and perversity, and an adherence to the doctrine "art for art's sake." He viewed life more critically than others. He often focused in on the upper class, and wrote of their absurdity, superficiality, and snobbery. Yet mainly, he wrote of what he felt at the time and what is around him. In the beginning he tried to be a serious writer, but failed miserably. It was believed that as an entertainer he was more morally clear-sighted (Bryfonski).
             Although he was full of strong idealism and human sympathy, hi...

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Oscar Wilde. (1969, December 31). In MegaEssays.com. Retrieved 18:44, March 28, 2024, from https://www.megaessays.com/viewpaper/89664.html