The Importance of
Being Earnest
By Oscar Wilde
Presented by
Oklahoma Shakespeare in the Park,
Oklahoma City Repertory Theatre, and
Oklahoma City University School of Drama
Directed by D. Lance Marsh
April 5-14, 2013
Dramaturgy Report
Anna Holloway
CityRep Company Dramaturg
28 February 2013
The Importance of Being Earnest
Dramaturgy Report
Table of Contents
Oscar Wilde .....................................................................................................................................2
Early Life .............................................................................................................................2
Acclaimed Works.................................................................................................................3
Personal Life ........................................................................................................................3
Lord Alfred Douglas ................................................................................................3
Trials ....................................................................................................................................6
After Prison ..........................................................................................................................6
Robert “Robbie” Ross ..............................................................................................7
Relationship with Wilde ......................................................................................................7
Wilde Estate .........................................................................................................................8
Wilde’s Literary Legacy ......................................................................................................9
Victorian Sexual Terminology .........................................................................................................9
The Play .........................................................................................................................................10
Social Satire .......................................................................................................................10
Claims of Homosexual Subtext .........................................................................................11
Use of Language ................................................................................................................11
Characterization .................................................................................................................12
Productions ....................................................................................................................................12
Premiere .............................................................................................................................12
Revivals..............................................................................................................................13
Critical Response ...............................................................................................................14
Victorian Society ...........................................................................................................................15
Social Classes.....................................................................................................................15
The Role of Women .......................................................................................................................15
Legal Status of Women ......................................................................................................16
Cultural Taboos Surrounding the Female Body ................................................................17
Victorian Morality and Sexuality.......................................................................................18
Marriage in the Victorian Era ........................................................................................................18
Coming Out........................................................................................................................18
Negotiations .......................................................................................................................20
The Engagement ................................................................................................................21
Tea..................................................................................................................................................22
Afternoon Tea ................................................................................................................................22
Cucumber Sandwiches .......................................................................................................23
Clotted Cream ....................................................................................................................24
High Tea.........................................................................................................................................24
Tea Etiquette ..................................................................................................................................25
Serving Tea ....................................................................................................................................25
“Milk, Sugar, or Lemon?” .................................................................................................26
Tea Service faux pas ..........................................................................................................26
References and Sources .................................................................................................................27
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Oscar Wilde
Early Life
Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was born on
October 16, 1854 in Dublin, Ireland. His father,
William Wilde, was an acclaimed doctor who was
knighted for his work as medical advisor for the Irish
censuses. William Wilde later founded St. Mark's
Ophthalmic Hospital, entirely at his own personal
expense, to treat the city's poor. Oscar Wilde's
mother, Jane Francesca Elgee, was a poet who was
closely associated with the Young Irelander Rebellion
of 1848, a skilled linguist whose acclaimed English
translation of Pomeranian novelist Wilhelm
Meinhold's Sidonia the Sorceress had a deep
influence on her son's later writing.
Wilde in 1889 Wilde was a bright and bookish child. He attended the
Portora Royal School at Enniskillen where he fell in
love with Greek and Roman studies. He won the
school's prize for the top classics student in each of his last two years, as well as second prize in
drawing during his final year. Upon graduating in 1871, Wilde was awarded the Royal School
Scholarship to attend Trinity College in Dublin. At the end of his first year at Trinity, in 1872, he
placed first in the school's classics examination and received the college's Foundation
Scholarship, the highest honor awarded to undergraduates.
Upon his graduation in 1874, Wilde received the Berkeley Gold Medal as Trinity's best student
in Greek, as well as the Demyship scholarship for further study at Magdalen College in Oxford.
At Oxford, Wilde continued to excel academically, receiving first class marks from his
examiners in both classics and classical moderations. It was also at Oxford that Wilde made his
first sustained attempts at creative writing. In 1878, the year of his graduation, his poem
"Ravenna" won the Newdigate Prize for the best English verse composition by an Oxford
undergraduate.
Upon graduating from Oxford, Wilde moved to London to live with his friend, Frank Miles, a
popular portraitist among London's high society. There, he continued to focus on writing poetry,
publishing his first collection, Poems, in 1881. While the book received only modest critical
praise, it nevertheless established Wilde as an up-and-coming writer. The next year, in 1882,
Wilde traveled from London to New York City to embark on an American lecture tour, for
which he delivered a staggering 140 lectures in just nine months.
While not lecturing, he managed to meet with some of the leading American scholars and literary
figures of the day, including Henry Longfellow, Oliver Wendell Holmes and Walt Whitman.
Wilde especially admired Whitman. "There is no one in this wide great world of America whom
I love and honor so much,'' he later wrote to his idol.
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Upon the conclusion of his American tour, Wilde returned home and immediately commenced
another lecture circuit of England and Ireland that lasted until the middle of 1884. Through his
lectures, as well as his early poetry, Wilde established himself as a leading proponent of the
aesthetic movement, a theory of art and literature that emphasized the pursuit of beauty for its
own sake, rather than to promote any political or social viewpoint.
On May 29, 1884, Wilde married a wealthy Englishwoman named Constance Lloyd. They had
two sons: Cyril, born in 1885, and Vyvyan, born in 1886. A year after his wedding, Wilde was
hired to run Lady's World, a once-popular English magazine that had recently fallen out of
fashion. During his two years editing Lady's World, Wilde revitalized the magazine by
expanding its coverage to "deal not merely with what women wear, but with what they think and
what they feel. The Lady's World, wrote Wilde, "should be made the recognized organ for the
expression of women's opinions on all subjects of literature, art and modern life, and yet it
should be a magazine that men could read with pleasure."
Acclaimed Works
Beginning in 1888, while he was still serving as editor of Lady's World, Wilde entered a sevenyear period of furious creativity, during which he produced nearly all of his great literary works.
In 1888, seven years after he wrote Poems, Wilde published The Happy Prince and Other Tales,
a collection of children's stories. In 1891, he published Intentions, an essay collection arguing the
tenets of aestheticism, and that same year, he published his first and only novel, The Picture of
Dorian Gray. The novel is a cautionary tale about a beautiful young man, Dorian Gray, who
wishes (and receives his wish) that his portrait ages while he remains youthful and lives a life of
sin and pleasure.
Though the novel is now revered as a great and classic work, at the time critics were outraged by
the book's apparent lack of morality. Wilde vehemently defended himself in a preface to the
novel, considered one of the great testaments to Aestheticism, in which he wrote, "an ethical
sympathy in an artist is an unpardonable mannerism of style" and "vice and virtue are to the artist
materials for an art." The artists and writers of Aesthetic style tended to profess that the Arts
should provide refined sensuous pleasure, rather than convey moral or sentimental messages.
Wilde's first play, Lady Windermere's Fan, opened in February 1892 to widespread popularity
and critical acclaim, encouraging Wilde to adopt playwriting as his primary literary form. Over
the next few years, Wilde produced several great plays—witty, highly satirical comedies of
manners that nevertheless contained dark and serious undertones. His most notable plays were A
Woman of No Importance (1893), An Ideal Husband (1895) and The Importance of Being
Earnest (1895), his most famous play.
Personal Life
Around the same time that he was enjoying his greatest literary success, Wilde commenced an
affair with a young man named Lord Alfred Douglas. On February 18, 1895, Douglas's father,
the Marquis of Queensberry, who had gotten wind of the affair, left a calling card at Wilde's
home addressed to "Oscar Wilde: Posing Somdomite," a misspelling of sodomite. Although
Wilde's homosexuality was something of an open secret, he was so outraged by Queensberry's
note that he sued him for libel. The decision ruined his life.
Lord Alfred Bruce Douglas (22 October 1870 – 20 March 1945), was a British author, poet and
translator, better known as the intimate friend and lover of the writer Oscar Wilde. Much of his
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early poetry was Uranian (a term for same sex relationships) in theme, though he tended, later in
life, to distance himself from both Wilde's influence and his own role as a Uranian poet.
Douglas was the third son of John Douglas, 9th Marquess of Queensberry and his first wife,
Sibyl née Montgomery. He attended Oxford but left in 1893 without obtaining a degree. At
Oxford, he edited an undergraduate journal The Spirit Lamp (1892-3), an activity that intensified
the constant conflict between him and his father. Their relationship had always been a strained
one and during the Queensberry-Wilde feud, Douglas sided with Wilde, even encouraging him to
prosecute his own father for libel. In 1893, Douglas had a brief affair with George Ives.
In 1860, Douglas's grandfather had died in what was reported as a shooting accident, but his
death was widely believed to have been suicide. In 1862, his widowed grandmother converted to
Roman Catholicism and took her children to live in Paris. One of his uncles, Lord James
Douglas, was deeply attached to his twin sister and was heartbroken when she married. Over the
course of several years, Lord James abducted a young girl, entered into a bad marriage with a
rich widow, and drank himself into a deep depression; he committed suicide in 1891 by cutting
his throat. Another of Alfred’s uncles, Lord Francis Douglas (1847–1865) had died in a climbing
accident on the Matterhorn, while his uncle Lord Archibald Edward Douglas (1850–1938)
became a clergyman. (Alfred Douglas's only child was in turn to go mad and die in a mental
hospital.)
Alfred Douglas's aunt, Lord James's twin Lady Florence Douglas (1855–1905), was an author,
war correspondent for the Morning Post during the First Boer War, and a feminist. She published
a novel in 1890—Gloriana, or the Revolution of 1900—in which women's suffrage is achieved
after a woman posing as a man named Hector l'Estrange is elected to the House of Commons.
The character l'Estrange is clearly based on Oscar Wilde.
Alfred Douglas met Oscar Wilde in 1891; although the playwright was married with two sons,
they soon began an affair. In 1894, Robert Hichens’s novel The Green Carnation was published
anonymously. Said to be a roman a clef based on the relationship of Wilde and Douglas, it
would be one of the texts used against Wilde during his trials in 1895. Wilde wore a green
carnation to the premiere of Earnest, most likely in ironic tribute to Hichens as well as an
acknowledgement of the relationship with Douglas.
Douglas has been described as spoiled, reckless, insolent and extravagant. He would spend
money on boys and gambling and expected Wilde to share and to contribute to his chosen
pleasures. They often argued and broke up but would also always reconcile.
Douglas had praised Wilde's play Salome in the Oxford magazine, The Spirit Lamp, of which he
was editor (and used as a covert means of gaining acceptance for homosexuality). Wilde had
originally written Salomé in French, and in 1893 he commissioned Douglas to translate it into
English. Douglas's French was very poor and his translation was strongly criticized; for example,
Douglas translated the line, "On ne doit regarder que dans les miroirs" (French for "One should
only look in mirrors"), as "One must not look at mirrors." Douglas's ego would not accept
Wilde's criticism and he claimed that the errors were really in Wilde's original play. This led to a
hiatus in the relationship and a row between the two men, with angry messages being exchanged
and even the involvement of the publisher John Lane and the illustrator Aubrey Beardsley when
they themselves objected to Douglas's work. Beardsley wrote to Robbie Ross, complaining about
the number of telegraph and messenger boys who went back and forth.
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Wilde redid much of the translation himself but, in a gesture of reconciliation, suggested that
Douglas be dedicated as the translator rather than them sharing their names on the title-page.
Accepting this, Douglas, in his vanity, compared a dedication to sharing the title-page as "the
difference between a tribute of admiration from an artist and a receipt from a tradesman.”
When the two were staying together in Brighton, Douglas fell ill with influenza and was nursed
back to health by Wilde; when Wilde fell ill as well, Douglas moved to the Grand Hotel and, on
Wilde's 40th birthday, sent him a letter saying that he had charged him the bill. Douglas also
gave his old clothes to male prostitutes, but failed to remove incriminating letters exchanged
between him and Wilde, which were then used for blackmail.
Alfred's father, the Marquess of Queensberry, quickly suspected the liaison to be more than a
friendship. He sent his son a letter, attacking him for leaving Oxford without a degree and failing
to take up a proper career, such as a civil servant or lawyer. He threatened to “disown [Alfred]
and stop all money.” Alfred responded with a telegram: "What a funny little man you are."
Queensberry was infuriated by this attitude. In his next letter he threatened his son with a
"thrashing" and accused him of being "crazy." He also threatened to "make a public scandal in a
way you little dream of" if he continued his relationship with Wilde.
Queensberry was well known for his temper and for threatening to beat people with a horsewhip.
Alfred sent his father a postcard stating "I detest you" and making it clear that he would take
Wilde's side in a fight between him and the Marquess, "with a loaded revolver."
In answer Queensberry wrote to Alfred (whom he addressed as "You miserable creature") that he
had divorced Alfred's mother in order not to "run the risk of bringing more creatures into the
world like yourself" and that, when Alfred was a baby, "I cried over you the bitterest tears a man
ever shed, that I had brought such a creature into the world, and unwittingly committed such a
crime... You must be demented."
When Douglas' eldest brother, Lord Drumlanrig, heir to the marquessate of Queensberry, died in
a suspicious hunting accident in October 1894, rumors circulated that Drumlanrig had been
having a homosexual relationship with the Prime Minister, Lord Rosebery. The elder
Queensberry thus embarked on a campaign to save his son Alfred, and began a public
persecution of Wilde. In this effort he was aided by Wilde’s public flamboyance; Wilde’s
behavior made the public suspicious even before the trial. Queensberry and a witness confronted
the playwright in his own home; later, Queensberry planned to throw rotten vegetables at Wilde
during the premiere of The Importance of Being Earnest, but Wilde was able to deny him access
to the theatre.
The calling card labeled Exhibit A in the trial (bottom left corner) Queensberry then publicly insulted Wilde by
leaving, at the latter's club, a visiting card on which
he had written: "For Oscar Wilde posing as a
somdomite"–a misspelling of "sodomite." The
wording is in dispute – the handwriting is unclear –
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although Hyde reports it as this. According to Merlin Holland, Wilde's grandson, it is more likely
"Posing somdomite," while Queensberry himself claimed it to be "Posing as somdomite."
Holland suggests that this wording ("posing [as] ...") would have been easier to defend in court.
Trials
In response to this card, and with Douglas's avid support, but against the advice of friends such
as Robbie Ross, Frank Harris (writer and eventual Wilde biographer), and George Bernard Shaw,
Wilde had Queensberry arrested and charged with criminal libel in a private prosecution, as
sodomy was then a crime. Several highly suggestive erotic letters that Wilde had written to
Douglas were introduced into evidence; he claimed that they were works of art. Wilde was
closely questioned about the homoerotic themes in The Picture of Dorian Gray and in The
Chameleon, a single-issue magazine published by Douglas to which he had contributed a short
article. Queensberry's lawyer portrayed Wilde as a vicious older man who habitually preyed
upon naive young boys and seduced them into a life of homosexuality with extravagant gifts and
promises of a glamorous lifestyle.
Queensberry's attorney announced in court that he had located several male prostitutes who were
to testify that they had had sex with Wilde. Wilde then dropped the libel charge, on his lawyers'
advice, as a conviction was very unlikely if the libel were demonstrated in court to be true. Based
on the evidence raised during the case, Wilde was arrested the next day and charged with
committing sodomy and "gross indecency," a vague charge which covered all homosexual acts
other than sodomy.
Douglas's 1892 poem Two Loves, which was used against Wilde at the latter's trial, ends with the
famous line that refers to homosexuality as “the love that dare not speak its name.” Wilde gave
an eloquent but counterproductive explanation of the nature of this love on the witness stand.
The trial resulted in a hung jury.
In 1895, when during his trials Wilde was released on bail, Douglas's cousin Sholto Johnstone
Douglas stood surety for £500 of the bail money.
The prosecutor opted to retry the case. Wilde was convicted on 25 May 1895 and sentenced to
two years' hard labor, first at Pentonville, then Wandsworth, then famously in Reading Gaol.
Douglas was forced into exile in Europe.
While in prison, Wilde wrote Douglas a very long and critical letter entitled De Profundis,
describing exactly what he felt about him, which Wilde was not permitted to send, but which
may have been sent to Douglas after Wilde's release.
While he was in prison, Wilde’s wife divorced him and took the two boys to Europe. She
changed her name and theirs to Holland, and Wilde’s grandson still carries that name.
After Prison
Following Wilde's release (19 May 1897), the Wilde and Douglas reunited in August at Rouen,
but stayed together only a few months owing to personal differences and the various pressures on
them. The friends and families of both men disapproved of their re-connection. Due to financial
pressures and other personal reasons, they separated. Wilde lived the remainder of his life
primarily in Paris, living in cheap hotels and in friends’ apartments. Douglas returned to
England in late 1898.
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Wilde wrote very little during these last years; his only notable work was a poem he completed
in 1898 about his experiences in prison, "The Ballad of Reading Gaol."
Wilde died of meningitis on November 30, 1900, at the age of 46. His friend Robert “Robbie”
Ross (see below) was with him.
The period when the two men lived in Rouen would later become quite controversial. Wilde
claimed that Douglas had offered a home, but had no funds or ideas. When Douglas eventually
did gain funds from his late father's estate, he refused to grant Wilde a permanent allowance,
although he did give him occasional handouts. When Wilde died in 1900, he was still officially
bankrupt and relatively impoverished. Douglas served as chief mourner, although there
reportedly was an altercation at the gravesite between him and Robbie Ross. This struggle would
preview the later litigations between the two former lovers of Oscar Wilde.
After Wilde's death, Douglas established a close friendship with Olive Eleanor Custance, an
heiress and poet. They married on 4 March 1902 and had one son, Raymond Wilfred Sholto
Douglas, born on 17 November 1902; as an adult, Raymond developed serious mental illness and
was institutionalized.
More than a decade after Wilde's death, with the release of some of the suppressed portions of
Wilde's De Profundis letter in 1912, Douglas turned against his former friend, whose
homosexuality he grew to condemn. He was a defense witness in the libel case brought by Maud
Allan against Noel Pemberton Billing in 1918. Billing had accused Allan, who was performing
Wilde's play Salome, of being part of a homosexual conspiracy to undermine the war effort.
Douglas also contributed to Billing's journal Vigilante as part of his campaign against Robbie
Ross. He had written a poem referring to Margot Asquith "bound with Lesbian fillets" while her
husband Herbert, the Prime Minister, gave money to Ross. During the trial he described Wilde
as "the greatest force for evil that has appeared in Europe during the last three hundred and fifty
years." Douglas added that he intensely regretted having met Wilde, and having helped him with
the translation of Salome, which he described as "a most pernicious and abominable piece of
work."
Douglas died in 1945.
Robert Baldwin "Robbie" Ross (May 25, 1869 – October 5, 1918) was a Canadian journalist
and art critic. He was born in Toronto and came to England to attend Cambridge University. He
is best known as the literary executor of Oscar Wilde, a dear friend and mentor. His open
homosexuality in a time when homosexual acts were illegal brought him many hardships.
Relationship with Oscar Wilde
As a young Londoner, Ross is alleged to have been Oscar Wilde's first male lover. Ross found
work as a journalist and critic, but he did not escape scandal. In 1893, a few years before
Wilde's imprisonment for homosexuality, Ross had a sexual relationship with a boy of sixteen,
the son of friends. The boy confessed to his parents that he had engaged in sexual activity with
Ross, and also admitted to a sexual encounter with Lord Alfred Douglas while he was a guest at
Ross' house. After a good deal of panic and frantic meetings with solicitors, the parents were
persuaded not to go to the police, since, at that time, their son might be seen not as a victim but
as equally guilty and so face the possibility of going to prison.
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On February 15, 1895, Oscar Wilde, Lord Alfred Douglas and Ross approached solicitor Charles
Octavius Humphreys with the intention of suing the Marquess of Queensberry, Douglas' father,
for criminal libel. Humphreys asked Wilde directly whether there was any truth to Queensberry's
allegations of homosexual activity between Wilde and Douglas, to which Wilde replied in the
negative. Humphreys applied for a warrant for Queensberry's arrest and approached Sir Edward
Clarke and Charles Willie Mathews to represent Wilde. His son Travers Humphreys appeared as
a Junior Counsel for the prosecution in the subsequent case of Wilde vs. Queensbury
Following Wilde's imprisonment in 1895, Ross went abroad for safety's sake, but he returned to
offer both financial and emotional support to Wilde during his last years. Ross remained loyal to
Wilde and was with him when he died on November 30, 1900.
Wilde Estate
After Wilde’s death, Ross became his mentor's literary executor. It meant tracking down and
purchasing the rights to all of Wilde's texts, which had been sold off along with all of Wilde's
possessions when the playwright was declared bankrupt. It also meant fighting the rampant trade,
following Wilde's arrest, in black market copies of his books and, in particular, books, usually
erotic, that Wilde did not write but which were published illegally under his name. He was
assisted in this task by Christopher Sclater Millard, who compiled a definitive bibliography of
Wilde's writings. Ross gave Wilde's sons the rights to all their father's works along with the
money earned from their printing/performance while he was executor.
Robert Baldwin Ross, 1911 In 1908, some years after Wilde's death, Ross produced the
definitive edition of his works. Ross was also responsible for
commissioning modern sculptor Jacob Epstein to produce the
tomb for Wilde. He even requested that Epstein design a small
compartment into the tomb for Ross’ own ashes. Ross' interest
in the arts was particularly strong during this period: from 1901
to 1908, in personal and professional partnership with More
Adey, he managed the Carfax Gallery, a small commercial gallery in London, co-founded by
John Fothergill and the artist William Rothenstein. During this period the Carfax held important
exhibitions of such artists as Aubrey Beardsley, William Blake and John Singer Sargent. After
leaving the Carfax, Ross worked as an art critic for The Morning Post.
As a result of his faithfulness to Wilde even in death, Ross was vindictively pursued by Lord
Alfred Douglas, who repeatedly attempted to have him arrested and tried for homosexual
conduct. During World War I, Ross mentored a group of young, mostly same-sex-orientated
poets and artists; he was also a close friend of Wilde's sons Vyvyan and Cyril Holland.
In early 1918, during the German Spring Offensive, Noel Pemberton Billing, a right-wing
Member of Parliament, published an article entitled The Cult of the Clitoris, in which he accused
friends of Ross of being at the center of 47,000 homosexual traitors who were betraying the
nation to the Germans. Maud Allan, an actress who had played Wilde's Salome in a performance
authorized by Ross, was identified as a member of the "cult." She unsuccessfully sued Billing
for libel, causing a national sensation in Britain, and focusing embarrassing attention on Ross
and his associates.
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In the fall of 1918, Ross was preparing to travel to Australia to open an exhibition at the National
Gallery of Victoria when he died suddenly. In 1950, on the 50th anniversary of Wilde's death,
Ross' ashes were added to Wilde's tomb in Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris.
Wilde’s Literary Legacy
More than a century after his death, Wilde is still better remembered for his personal life—his
exuberant personality, consummate wit and infamous imprisonment for homosexuality—than for
his literary accomplishments. Nevertheless, his witty, imaginative and undeniably beautiful
works, in particular his novel The Picture of Dorian Gray and his play The Importance of Being
Earnest, are considered among the great literary masterpieces of the late Victorian period.
Throughout his entire life, Wilde remained deeply committed to the principles of Aestheticism,
principles that he expounded through his lectures and demonstrated through his works as well as
anyone of his era. "All art is at once surface and symbol," Wilde wrote in the preface to The
Picture of Dorian Gray. "Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril. Those who read
the symbol do so at their peril. It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors. Diversity of
opinion about a work of art shows that the work is new, complex and vital."
Period Sexual Terminology
The word homosexual first occurs in 1869 in German clinical literature about sodomy laws.
Prior to that time, there is no single term for the concept that individuals can have an identity
definded by sexual affinity. It is first used in English in 1892 and is not in common use until
1906. The term Uranian (derived from classical literature) arose about the same time and was
used to refer to third gender love, referring to people with a male body who act as a female in
sexual relationships.
Before the 1860s, sexual behavior was described and defined as behavior—actions—not aspects
of identity. The concept of personal “identity” arises out of the work of Freud and his
colleagues. In this same period, the idea of national identity is also developing, and Europe has
many small wars and conflicts based on nationalism or national identity movements.
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The Play
After the success of Wilde's plays Lady Windermere's Fan and A Woman of No Importance, his
producers urged him to write further plays. In July 1894 he suggested his idea for The
Importance of Being Earnest to Sir George Alexander, the actor-manager of St. James's Theatre.
Wilde summered with his family at Worthing, where he wrote the play quickly in August. His
fame now at its peak, he used the working title Lady Lancing to avoid pre-emptive speculation of
its content. Many names and ideas in the play were borrowed from people or places the author
had known; Lady Queensberry, Lord Alfred Douglas' mother, for example, lived at Bracknell.
Michael Feingold, an American critic, claims that Wilde drew inspiration for his plot from W. S.
Gilbert's Engaged. Meticulous revisions continued throughout the Autumn—such that no line
was left untouched, and “in a play so economical with its language and effects, they had serious
consequences.” SOS Eltis describes Wilde's revisions as a refined art at work: the earliest,
longest handwritten drafts of the play labor over farcical incidents, broad puns, nonsense
dialogue and conventional comic turns. In revising as he did, Wilde transformed standard
theatrical nonsense into the more systemic and disconcerting illogicality which characterizes the
dialogue in Earnest. Richard Ellmann argues that Wilde had reached his artistic maturity and
wrote this work more surely and rapidly than before.
Wilde hesitated about submitting the script to Alexander, worrying that it might be unsuitable for
the St. James's Theatre, whose typical repertoire was relatively serious, and explaining that it had
been written in response to a request for a play “with no real serious interest.” When another play
failed, Alexander turned to Wilde and agreed to put on Earnest. Alexander began his usual
meticulous preparations, interrogating the author on each line and planning stage movements
with a toy theatre. In the course of these rehearsals Alexander asked Wilde to shorten the play
from four acts to three. Wilde agreed and combined elements of the second and third acts. The
largest cut was the removal of the character of Mr. Gribsby, a solicitor who comes from London
to arrest the profligate "Ernest" (i.e., Jack) for his unpaid dining bills. Algernon, who is posing as
“Ernest,” will be led away to Holloway Jail unless he settles his accounts immediately. Jack
finally agrees to pay for Ernest, everyone thinking that it is Algernon's bill when in fact it is his
own. The four-act version was first played on the radio in a BBC production and is still
sometimes performed. Some critics insist that the three-act structure is more effective, and that
the shorter original text is more theatrically resonant than the expanded published edition; it is
the more commonly performed version.
Social Satire
The play repeatedly mocks Victorian traditions and social customs, marriage and the pursuit of
love in particular. In the Victorian period, earnestness was considered to be a significant societal
value; originating in religious attempts to reform the lower classes, the value was claimed by the
upper class as well. The play's title, with its mocking paradox (serious people are so because they
do not see trivial comedies), introduces the theme which continues in the drawing room
discussion: “Yes, but you must be serious about it. I hate people who are not serious about meals.
It is so shallow of them,” says Algernon in Act 1.
Lady Bracknell embodies society's rules and rituals in excruciating exactitude; in many
productions, minute attention to the details of her style can create a comic effect of assertion by
restraint. There is also a contrast between her encyclopedic knowledge of the social distinctions
of London's street names and the obscurity surrounding Jack's parentage. When she questions
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Jack with the famous “A handbag?” line, he replies “The Brighton Line.” In the 1890s, Victoria
Station consisted of two separate but adjacent terminal stations sharing the same name. To the
east was the ramshackle LC&D (London, Chatham & Dover) Railway; on the west was the upmarket LB&SCR (London, Brighton & South Coast Railway)—the Brighton Line, which went
to Worthing, the fashionable, expensive town to which the gentleman who found baby Jack was
travelling at the time (and for which location Jack was named).
Wilde managed both to engage with and to mock the genre while providing social commentary.
The men succumb to traditional matrimonial rites, but the foibles they excuse are ridiculous, and
the farce is built on an absurd confusion of a book and a baby. In turn, both Gwendolen and
Cecily claim the ideal of marrying a man named Ernest, a popular and respected name at the
time, and they indignantly declare that they have been deceived when they find out the men's real
names. When Jack apologizes to Gwendolen during his marriage proposal it is for not being
wicked.
Claims of homosexual subtext
There were few claims at the time of a homosexual subtext, but modern critics often suggest it
may simply have gone unnoticed to the Victorian audience. Theo Aronson has suggested that the
word "earnest" became a code-word for homosexual, used as follows: "Is he earnest?"—in the
same way that "Is he so?" and "Is he musical?" were also employed.
Contrary to claims of homosexual terminology, Sir Donald Sinden, an actor who met two of the
play's original cast (Irene Vanbrugh who played Gwendolen and Allan Aynesworth who played
Algernon), in addition to Lord Alfred Douglas, wrote to The Times to dispute suggestions that
"Earnest" held any sexual connotations:
Although they had ample opportunity, at no time did any of them even hint that "Earnest"
was a synonym for homosexual, or that "bunburying" may have implied homosexual sex.
The first time I heard it mentioned was in the 1980s and I immediately consulted Sir John
Gielgud whose own performance of Jack Worthing in the same play was legendary and
whose knowledge of theatrical lore was encyclopaedic. He replied in his ringing tones:
“No-No! Nonsense, absolute nonsense: I would have known.”
Russell Jackson agrees, noting that “nothing of the overtly Dorian mode is to be found in the
finished play or its drafts.” It is more likely that Wilde may have transposed his apprehension
into Lord Chiltern's (non-sexual) blackmailing situation in the darker, political play, An Ideal
Husband. By contrast, the humor and transformation in The Importance of Being Earnest is
much lighter in tone, though Algernon's protest at his putative arrest, "Well I really am not going
to be imprisoned in the suburbs for dining in the west-end!" ironically foreshadows Wilde's
incarceration a few months later.
The play is dedicated to Robert Baldwin Ross, reputed to be Wilde’s first male lover, and one of
his most faithful friends.
Use of language
There are three different registers of dialogue noticeable in the play. The dandyish insouciance of
Jack and Algernon, established early with Algernon's exchange with his manservant, betrays an
underlying unity despite their differing attitudes. The formidable pronouncements of Lady
Bracknell are clearly defined by her use of hyperbole and rhetorical extravagance as much as by
the disconcerting opinions she expresses. In contrast, the speech of Dr. Chasuble and Miss Prism
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is distinguished by its pedantic and idiosyncratic style. The play is also replete with epigrams and
paradoxes. Max Beerbohm described it as littered with "chiselled apophthegms—witticisms
unrelated to action or character," of which he found at least half a dozen to be of the highest
order.
Characterisation
Though Wilde deployed characters that were familiar by this period—the Dandy lord, the
overbearing matriarch, the woman with a past, the puritan young lady—his treatment is subtler
than in his earlier comedies. Lady Bracknell, for instance, embodies respectable, bourgeois
society in the play. Eltis notes how her development "from the familiar overbearing duchess into
a quirkier and more disturbing character" can be traced through Wilde's revisions of the play.
Productions
Premiere
The play was first produced in St. James's Theatre, London, on St. Valentine's Day 1895. It was
freezing cold but Wilde arrived dressed in "florid sobriety," wearing a green carnation. The
audience, according to one report, “included many members of the great and good, former
cabinet ministers and privy councillors, as well as actors, writers, academics, and enthuasists.”
Allan Aynesworth, who played Mr Algernon Moncrieff, recalled to Hesketh Pearson that “In my
fifty-three years of acting, I never remember a greater triumph than [that] first night.”
Aynesworth was himself “debonair and stylish,” and Alexander, who played Mr. Jack Worthing,
“demure.”
The cast was as follows:
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Mr. John Worthing, J.P. – George Alexander
Mr. Algernon Moncrieff – Allan Aynesworth
The Rev. Canon Chasuble, D.D. – H. H. Vincent
Merriman – Frank Dyall
Lane – F. Kinsey Peile
Lady Bracknell – Rose Leclerq
The Hon. Gwendolen Fairfax – Irene Vanbrugh
Miss Cecily Cardew – Evelyn Millard
Miss Prism – Mrs. George Canninge
The Marquess of Queensberry, the father of Wilde's intimate friend Lord Alfred Douglas (who
was on holiday in Algiers at the time), had planned to disrupt the play by throwing a bouquet of
rotten vegetables at the playwright when he took his bow at the end of the show. Wilde and
Alexander learned of the plan, and the latter cancelled Queensberry's ticket and arranged for
policemen to bar his entrance. Nevertheless, he continued harassing Wilde, who eventually
launched a private prosecution against the peer for criminal libel, triggering a series of trials
ending in Wilde's imprisonment for gross indecency. (See Biography section.) Wilde's ensuing
notoriety caused the play, despite its success, to be closed after only 86 performances.
The play's original Broadway production opened at the Empire Theater on 22 April 1895, but
closed after only twelve performances. Its cast included William Faversham as Algernon, Henry
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Miller as Worthing, Viola Allen as Gwendolen, and Ida Vernon as Lady Bracknell. Almost a
year later, on 11 April 1896, the play received its Australian premiere at the Criterion Theatre in
Sydney, with eminent local stage actress Jenny Watt-Tanner in the role of Lady Bracknell. The
production transferred thence to Brisbane, where it opened at the Opera House on 15 July, and
subsequently embarked upon an eight-week repertory tour of other regional centers in
Queensland, including Charters Towers, Rockhampton, Bundaberg and Maryborough. However,
other major Australian cities, including Melbourne, would not see the play for the first time until
new productions were mounted after Wilde's death.
Revivals
Until after Wilde's death his name remained disgraced and few discussed, let alone performed,
his work. Short-lived Broadway revivals were mounted in 1902 and again in 1910. A collected
edition of Wilde's works, published in 1908 and edited by Robert Ross, helped to restore his
reputation. In 1911 The Importance of being Earnest was revived by Alexander in St. James's; he
and Aynesworth resumed their lead roles. Max Beerbohm (a well known essayist, friend of
Wilde, and half-brother of Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree, an actor and theatre manager) said that
the play was sure to become a classic of the English repertory, that its humour was as fresh then
as when it had been written, and that the actors had “worn as well as the play.” The following
year, a new Australian production was mounted at the Criterion Theatre in Sydney, where the
play had been performed in 1896. Several other productions followed, including those in
Adelaide (Unley City Hall, 1912), Melbourne (Athanaeum Theatre, 1915) and Perth (Town Hall,
1918). Further Broadway revival productions were staged in 1921, 1926, 1939, 1947, and more
recently.
The play's respectability was assured in 1946 when a charity performance was attended by King
George VI. As Wilde's work came to be read and performed again, it was The Importance of
being Earnest which saw the most productions.
John Gielgud was possibly the most famous Jack Worthing of the twentieth century, and his
1939 production was seen as a turning point in modern stagings: it quickly served as a model for
later performances. Gielgud also directed, produced and acted in the 1948 Broadway production
whose cast won a special Tony Award for “Outstanding Foreign Company.” Gielgud's
performance is preserved on an audio recording dating from 1952, which also captures Edith
Evans’s legendary embodiment of Lady Bracknell.
The play has been performed at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival five times beginning in 1975
with William Hutt playing "Lady Bracknell" in both the 1975 and 1976 productions and Brian
Bedford in the 2009 production. A similar twist was incorporated into a 1980 Australian
production at the Bondi Pavilion Theatre in Sydney, where Lady Bracknell was played by female
impersonator Tracey Lee. In 2005 the Abbey Theatre produced the play with an all male cast; it
also featured Wilde as a character – the play opens with him drinking in a Parisian café,
dreaming of his play. More recently the Melbourne Theatre Company staged a production in
December 2011 with Geoffrey Rush playing Lady Bracknell.
Lady Bracknell's line “A handbag?” has been called one of the most malleable in English drama,
lending itself to interpretations ranging from incredulous or scandalized to baffled. Dame Edith
Evans, both on stage and in the 1952 film, delivered the line loudly in a mixture of horror,
incredulity and condescension. Stockard Channing, in the Gaiety Theatre, Dublin, in 2010,
hushed the line, in a critic's words, “with a barely audible ‘A handbag?’, rapidly swallowed up
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with a sharp intake of breath. An understated take, to be sure, but with such a well-known play,
packed full of witticisms and aphorisms with a life of their own, it's the little things that make a
difference.”
In 2011 the Roundabout Theatre Company produced a Broadway revival based on the 2009
Stratford Shakespeare Festival production featuring Brian Bedford as director and as Lady
Bracknell. It opened at the American Airlines Theatre on 13 January and ran until 3 July 2011.
The cast also included Dana Ivey as Miss Prism, Paxton Whitehead as Rev. Chasuble, Santino
Fontana as Algernon and Paul O'Brien as Lane. It was nominated for three Tony Awards: Best
Revival of a Play, Best Costume Design of a Play and Best Leading Actor in a Play for Bedford;
the production won the Tony for costumes. The production was filmed live in March 2011 and
was shown in cinemas in June 2011.
Critical Response
In contrast to much theatre of the time, The Importance of Being Earnest's light plot does not
tackle serious social and political issues, something of which contemporary reviewers were wary.
Though unsure of Wilde's seriousness as a dramatist, they recognized the play's cleverness,
humor and popularity with audiences. George Bernard Shaw, for example, reviewed the play in
the Saturday Review, arguing that comedy should touch as well as amuse, “I go to the theatre to
be moved to laughter.” Later in a letter he said, the play, though “extremely funny” was Wilde's
“first really heartless [one].” In The World, William Archer wrote that he had enjoyed watching
the play but found it to be empty of meaning, “What can a poor critic do with a play which raises
no principle, whether of art or morals, creates its own canons and conventions, and is nothing but
an absolutely wilful expression of an irrepressibly witty personality?”
In The Speaker, A. B. Walkey admired the play and was one of few to see it as the culmination
of Wilde's dramatical career. He denied the term “farce” was derogatory, or even lacking in
seriousness, and said “It is of nonsense all compact, and better nonsense, I think, our stage has
not seen.” H. G. Wells, in an unsigned review for the Pall Mall Gazette, called Earnest one of
the freshest comedies of the year, saying “More humorous dealing with theatrical conventions it
would be difficult to imagine.” He also questioned whether people would fully see its message,
“...how Serious People will take this Trivial Comedy intended for their learning remains to be
seen. No doubt seriously.” The play was so light-hearted that many reviewers compared it to
comic opera rather than drama. W.H.Auden called it “a pure verbal opera,” while The Times
wrote that “The story is almost too preposterous to go without music.” Mary McCarthy, in Sights
and Spectacles (1959), however, and despite thinking the play extremely funny, would call it “a
ferocious idyll” in which “depravity is the hero and the only character.”
Of the theatre of the period, only the work of Wilde and his fellow Irishman Shaw has survived,
as well as the farce Charley's Aunt. The Importance of Being Earnest is Wilde's most popular
work and is continually revived. Max Beerbohm called this play Wilde's “finest, most
undeniably his own,” saying that in his other comedies—Lady Windermere's Fan, A Woman of
No Importance, and An Ideal Husband—the structural plot, following the manner of Victorien
Sardou, is unrelated to the theme, while in Earnest the story is “dissolved” (interwoven) into the
form of the play.
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Victorian Society
Social classes
Different social classes can be (and were by the classes themselves) distinguished by inequalities
in such areas as power, authority, wealth, working and living conditions, life-styles, life-span,
education, religion, and culture.
Early in the nineteenth century the labels “working classes” and “middle classes” were coming
into common usage. The old hereditary aristocracy, reinforced by the new gentry who owed their
success to commerce, industry, and the professions, evolved into an “upper class,” its
consciousness formed in large part by the Public Schools and Universities. This upper class
tenaciously maintained control over the political system, depriving not only the working classes
but the middle classes of a voice in the political process. The increasingly powerful (and class
conscious) middle classes, however, undertook organized agitation in the mid-19th century to
claim some control.
The working classes, however, remained shut out from the political process, and became
increasingly hostile not only to the aristocracy but to the middle classes as well. As the Industrial
Revolution progressed there was further social stratification. Each class included a wide range
of occupations of varying status and income; there was a large gap, for example, between skilled
and unskilled labor. Capitalists, for example, employed industrial workers who were one
component of the working classes, but beneath the industrial workers was a submerged
“underclass” —contemporaries referred to them as the "sunken people”—who lived in poverty.
In mid-century skilled workers had acquired enough power to enable them to establish Trade
Unions which they used to further improve their status; the union movement was part of the
Socialist movement, which became an increasingly important political force. Meanwhile
unskilled workers and the underclass beneath them remained much more susceptible to
exploitation, and were therefore exploited.
This basic (very oversimplified) hierarchical structure—the upper classes, the middle classes, the
working classes with skilled laborers at one extreme and unskilled at the other, and the
impoverished underclass—remained relatively stable despite periodic and frequently violent
upheavals, and despite the Marxist view of the inevitability of class conflict, at least until the
outbreak of World War I. A modified class structure remains in existence today.
The role of women
Women in upper class Victorian society were expected to serve as ornaments. “The Household
General” is a term coined in 1861 by Isabella Beeton in her manual Mrs Beeton's Book of
Household Management. Here she explained that the mistress of a household is comparable to
the commander of an army or the leader of an enterprise. To run a respectable household and
secure the happiness, comfort and well-being of her family, she must perform her duties
intelligently and thoroughly. For example, she had to organize, delegate and instruct her
servants, which was not an easy task as many of them were not reliable. Isabella Beeton's upperand middle-class readers either had or aspired to have a staff requiring supervision by the
mistress of the house. Beeton advises her readers to maintain a "housekeeping account book" to
track spending. She recommends daily entries and checking the balance monthly. In addition to
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tracking servants' wages, the mistress of the house was responsible for tracking payments to
trades such as butchers and bakers. If a household had the means to hire a housekeeper, whose
duties included keeping the household accounts, Beeton goes so far as to advise readers to check
the accounts of housekeepers regularly to ensure nothing was amiss.
The sheer number of Victorian servants and their expected duties makes it clear why expertise in
logistical matters would benefit the mistress of the house. Beeton indicates that the full list of
servants—presented in a table, with appropriate pay depending on whether the servant lived in
the household or not—would be expected in the household of a “wealthy nobleman”; her readers
are instructed to adjust staff size and pay according to the household's available budget and other
factors such as a servant's level of experience.
A wife was expected to organize parties and dinners to bring prestige to her husband, also
making it possible for the men to network within the social stratum. Beeton gives extensively
detailed instructions on how to supervise servants in preparation for hosting dinners and balls.
The etiquette to be observed in sending and receiving formal invitations is given, as well as the
etiquette to be observed at the events themselves. The mistress of the house also had an
important role in supervising the education of the youngest children. Beeton makes it clear that a
woman's place is in the home, and her domestic duties come first. Social activities as an
individual were less important than household management and socializing as her husband's
companion. A woman’s social activities were carefully described:
After luncheon, morning calls and visits may be made and received.... Visits of
ceremony, or courtesy ... are uniformly required after dining at a friend's house, or after a
ball, picnic, or any other party. These visits should be short, a stay of from fifteen to
twenty minutes being quite sufficient. A lady paying a visit may remove her boa or
neckerchief; but neither shawl nor bonnet.... (Beeton, cited in “Women in the Victorian
Era”)
Advice books on housekeeping and the duties of an ideal wife were plentiful during the
Victorian era, and sold well among the middle class. In addition to Mrs. Beeton's Book of
Household Management, there were Infant Nursing and the Management of Young Children
(1866) and Practical Housekeeping; or, the duties of a home-wife (1867) by Mrs. Frederick
Pedley, and From Kitchen to Garret by Jane Ellen Panton, which went through 11 editions in a
decade. Shirley Forster Murphy a doctor and medical writer, wrote the influential Our Homes,
and How to Make them Healthy (1883), before he served as London's chief medical officer in the
1890s.
Legal status of women
Women did not have independent legal status, for the most part. The law regarded men as
persons, and legal recognition of women's rights as autonomous persons would be a slow
process, and would not be fully accomplished until well into the 20th century. Women lost the
rights to the property they brought into the marriage, even following divorce; a husband had
complete legal control over any income earned by his wife; women were not allowed to open
banking accounts; and a married woman could not conclude a contract without her husband's
legal approval. These property restrictions made it difficult or impossible for a woman to leave a
failed marriage, or to exert any control over her finances if her husband was incapable or
unwilling to do so on her behalf.
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Great changes in the situation of women took place in the 19th century, especially concerning
marriage laws and the legal rights of women to divorce and/or gain custody of children. The
situation that fathers always received custody of their children, leaving the mother without any
rights, slowly started to change. The Custody of Infants Act in 1839 gave mothers of
unblemished character access to their children in the event of separation or divorce, and the
Matrimonial Causes Act in 1890 gave women limited access to divorce. But while the husband
only had to prove his wife's adultery, a woman had to prove her husband had not only committed
adultery but also incest, bigamy, cruelty or desertion in addition. In 1873 the Custody of Infants
Act extended access to children to all women in the event of separation or divorce. In 1878, after
an amendment to the Matrimonial Causes Act, women could secure a separation on the grounds
of cruelty and claim custody of their children. Magistrates even issued protection orders to wives
whose husbands have been convicted of aggravated assault. An important change was caused by
an amendment to the Married Women's Property Act in 1884. This legislation recognized that
wives were not chattel, or property belonging to the husband, but an independent and separate
person. Through the Guardianship of Infants Act in 1886, women could be made the sole
guardian of their children if their husband died. Women slowly had their rights changed so that
they could eventually leave their husbands for good.
Cultural taboos surrounding the female body
The ideal Victorian woman was pure, chaste, refined, and modest. This ideal was supported by
etiquette and manners. The etiquette extended to the pretension of never acknowledging the use
of undergarments (indeed, they were sometimes generically referred to as "unmentionables").
The discussion of such a topic, it was feared, would gravitate towards unhealthy attention on
anatomical details. As one Victorian lady expressed it: “[those] are not things, my dear, that we
speak of; indeed, we try not even to think of them.” The pretense of avoiding acknowledgement
of anatomical realities met with embarrassing failure on occasion. In 1859, the Hon. Eleanor
Stanley, wrote about an incident where the Duchess of Manchester moved too quickly while
maneuvering over a stile, tripping over her large hoop skirt:
[the Duchess] caught a hoop of her cage in it and went regularly head over heels lighting
on her feet with her cage and whole petticoats above, above her head. They say there was
never such a thing seen – and the other ladies hardly knew whether to be thankful or not
that a part of her undergarments consisted in a pair of scarlet tartan knickerbockers (the
things Charlie shoots in) which were revealed to the view of all the world… (Cunnington,
cited in “Women in the Victorian Era”)
However, despite the fact that Victorians considered the mention of women's undergarments in
mixed company unacceptable, men's entertainment made great comedic material out of the topic
of ladies’ bloomers, including men's magazines and music hall skits.
Equestrian riding, expected among the upper classes, became popular as a leisure activity among
the growing middle classes. Many etiquette manuals for riding were published for this new
market. For women, preserving modesty while riding was crucial. Breeches and riding trousers
for women were introduced, for the practical reason of preventing chafing, yet these were worn
under the dress. Riding clothes for women were made at the same tailors that made men's riding
apparel, rather than at a dressmaker, so female assistants were hired to help with fittings.
Women's physical activity was a cause of concern at the highest levels of academic research
during the Victorian era. A series of letters, published in a medical journal in Ontario on 1896,
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expressed concern that women seated on bicycle seats could have orgasms. Fearful of unleashing
and creating a nation of “over-sexed” females, some physicians urged colleagues to encourage
women to avoid “modern dangers” and to pursue traditional leisure pursuits. However, not all
medical colleagues were convinced of the link between cycling and orgasm, and this debate on
women’s leisure activities continued well into the 20th century.
Victorian morality and sexuality
Women were expected to have sex with only one man, their husband. However, it was
acceptable for men to have multiple partners in their life. If women did have sexual contact with
another man, they were seen as ruined or fallen. Victorian literature and art was full of examples
of women paying dearly for straying from moral expectations. Adulteresses met tragic ends in
novels such as Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina and Flaubert’s Madame Bovary, while in Tess of the
d'Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy depicts a heroine punished by her community for losing her
virginity before marriage—as the result of being raped. While some writers and artists showed
sympathy towards women's subjugation, some works were didactic and reinforced the cultural
norm.
Women were rarely given the opportunity to attend university. It was even said that studying was
against their nature and could make them ill. They were to stay more or less an "ornament of
society." Available educational opportunities were usually specialized by gender. Women were
provided with the opportunity to study refined subjects such as history, geography and general
literature—all of which would provide them with interesting but noncontroversial topics for
discussion. Despite the restrictions and stigma attached to challenging the social standards, some
women did excel in "male" subjects such as law, physics, engineering, science and art. Such
women were often under-rewarded or were considered odd and “unwomanly.”
As an indicator of how women’s education was viewed in the period, Oxford first allowed
women to be examined at a roughly undergraduate level in 1875; women were not allowed to
take degrees and be admitted as members of the University until 1920.
Marriage in the Victorian Era
Marriage was a career move (rather than a romantic interlude) for young men, as all of a
woman's property reverted to him upon marriage. Therefore courting was taken very seriously by
both parties. Men and women had to be careful not to lead the other on unnecessarily, since legal
action could result.
From early in girlhood, a woman was groomed for the role of dutiful wife and mother. Properly
trained, she learned to sing, play piano or guitar, dance and be conversant about light literature of
the day. She also learned French and the rules of etiquette as well as the art of conversation and
the art of silence. She might also learn embroidery or painting; if she was from the moneyed or
upper class, or aspired to marry into it, she would also learn household management.
Coming Out
When a young woman had completed her education and was officially available on the marriage
mart, she had a “coming out.” In the aristocracy, or if there was enough money in the family,
she would also be presented at one of the Queen’s audiences. Financial or family circumstances
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might delay or move up a girl's debut, though typically, she came out when she was seventeen or
eighteen. A new wardrobe for the season would be purchased for her, and the court dress alone
could be prohibitively expensive.
A girl was under her mother's wing for the first few years of her social life. She used her
mother's visiting cards, or that of another female relative if her mother was dead. This same
person usually served as her chaperone. A single girl was never allowed out of the house by
herself, especially in mixed company.
Courtship advanced by gradations, with couples first speaking, then walking out together, and
finally keeping company after mutual attraction had been confirmed. But a gentleman had to take
care in the early stages of courtship. If he was introduced to a lady at a party for the purpose for
dancing, he could not automatically resume their acquaintance on the street. He had to be reintroduced by a mutual friend. And then, only upon permission of the lady or under the guidance
of her mother or guardian.
The lower classes had opportunities to socialize at Sunday Service, Church suppers and holiday
balls, while upper classes held their social events throughout the season, which ran from April to
July. Some families arrived in town earlier if Parliament was in session. A typical debutante's
day meant she rose at 11a.m. or 12 noon, ate breakfast in her dressing room, attended a concert
or drove in the Park, dined at eight, went to the opera, then to three or four parties until 5 a.m—
all under the watchful eye of her chaperone.
Great care had to be taken at these public affairs, so as not to offend a possible suitor or his
family. Following are some rules of conduct a proper female must adhere to:
•
She never approached people of higher rank, unless being introduced by a mutual friend.
•
People of lesser rank were always introduced to people of higher rank, and then only if
the higher-ranking person had given his/her permission.
•
Even after being introduced, the person of higher rank did not have to maintain the
acquaintance. They could ignore, or 'cut' the person of lower rank.
•
A single woman never addressed a gentleman without an introduction.
•
A single woman never walked out alone. Her chaperone had to be older and preferably
married.
•
If she had progressed to the stage of courtship in which she walked out with a gentleman,
they always walked apart. A gentleman could offer his hand over rough spots, the only
contact he was allowed with a woman who was not his fiancée.
•
Proper women never rode alone in a closed carriage with a man who wasn't a relative.
•
A gentlewoman would never call upon an unmarried gentleman at his place of residence.
•
A gentlewoman couldn't receive a man at home if she was alone. Another family member
had to be present in the room.
•
A gentlewoman never looked back after anyone in the street, or turned to stare at others
at church, the opera, etc.
•
No impure or improper conversations were held in front of single women, or in front of
gentlewomen (“mixed company”).
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•
No sexual contact was allowed before marriage. Innocence was demanded by men from
girls in his class, and most especially from a future wife.
•
Intelligence was not encouraged, nor was any interest in politics.
A woman was allowed to flirt with her fan, as this behavior was within the protocol of accepted
behavior. Some of the signals of fan flirting are as follows:
Fan fast
Fan slow
Fan with right hand in
front of face
Fan with left hand in
front of face
Fan open and shut
Fan open wide
Fan half open
Fan shut
I am independent
I am engaged
Come talk to me
Leave me (for now)
Kiss me
Love
Friendship
Dislike/Go away
Negotiations
By the end of the season, many relationships had been cemented, with an eye to the future. Thus
began the serious chase, with marriage the ultimate goal. If it had not already been done, a man
with serious intentions (or who was a serious target) was introduced to girl's parents and her peer
group.
There was a camaraderie among upper class (married) women. They advised, gossiped, told
secrets and wrote passionate letters to each other. They were the chief arrangers of social affairs,
but woe to anyone who made an enemy of them, as they could be ostracized forever from
society. When a young girl was on good terms with these social select, she could expect help in
making an advantageous match.
There were rules to follow even here, however. Until 1823, the legal age in England for marriage
was 21 years for both men and women. After 1823, a male could marry as young as 14 without
parental consent and a girl at 12. Most girls, however, married between the ages of 18 and 23,
especially in the upper classes.
It was illegal to marry a deceased wife's sister, but first cousins could legally marry. The social
attitude toward first-cousin marriages had swung to disapproval by the end of the century.
Marriage was encouraged only within one's class. To aspire higher, one was considered an
upstart. To marry someone of lesser social standing was considered marrying beneath oneself.
In upper class marriages, the wife often brought a generous dowry. In return, money from her
future husband would be “settled” on her to use during her marriage. The financial aspects of a
marriage were openly discussed, much like the pre-nuptial agreements of today. Both parties
disclosed their fortunes. A man had to prove his ability to keep his wife in the style of life to
which she was accustomed. A woman, often looking to improve her social standing, might use a
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dowry as a lure. To protect an heiress, her family could set up an estate trust for her so that her
property would be controlled by Chancery Court. The woman would have access to this property
if she applied to her Trustee, but her husband could not touch it.
An unmarried woman of 21 could inherit and administer her own property. Even her father had
no power over it. Once she married, however, all possessions reverted to her husband. She
couldn't even make a will for her personal property, while a husband could will his wife's
property to his illegitimate children. Therefore, marriage, although her aim in life, had to be very
carefully contemplated.
Because many marriages were considered a business deal, few started with love. Although as the
years passed, many couples grew tolerably fond of each other, often resulting in a bond almost as
deep as love.
Queen Victoria’s romantic marriage to her cousin Albert set the fashion for “love matches” in
the upper classes. While still not a primary concern, actual affection and sexual attraction
became issue that were discussed and considered in planning marriages.
The Engagement
Assuming that social and financial criteria have been met, the man must seek permission for
asking for the daughter's hand in marriage from bride's father, although the gentleman could wait
until he had his bride's consent before asking.
A proposal was best made in person, with clear, distinct language, so the girl might not
misunderstand the gentleman's intent. If he could not bring himself to propose in person, he
could do so in writing. A girl was not socially required to accept her first proposal.
A short time was allowed to elapse before an engagement was announced, except to the most
intimate friends/family of both parties. This was a precaution, because it would be extremely
embarrassing to announce the engagement and then have it ended by either party.
The mothers hosted dinner parties once the engagement was announced; there was the formal
party by the bride’s family to introduce the prospective groom to his fiancée’s relatives, followed
by the same sort of thing from the groom’s family. This could be a very trying time for a young
girl, as a mother-in-law's eye was often critical.
After the engagement was announced to the family, the bride wrote to the rest of her friends with
the news. At the same time, her mother wrote to the elders of these families. Engagements lasted
from six months to two years depending upon ages and circumstances.
The engagement was finalized with a ring. The size and stone depended upon the groom's
finances. They could be in the form of a love knot, a simple band, or a band embedded with
different stones whose initials spelled out a name or word of love. For example, the Prince of
Wales, Albert Edward, gave Princess Alexandra of Denmark a 'gypsy ring' with the stones Beryl,
Emerald, Ruby, Turquoise, Iacynth and Emerald, to spell out his nickname, "Bertie."
A woman could also give her fiancé a ring, although it was not socially required.
The couple were permitted to become a little more intimate once they were engaged. They could
stroll out alone, hold hands in public, and take unchaperoned horseback rides together (usually in
public parks). At this point, it was permitted for the man to put his hand around her waist and a
chaste kiss (no tongue) or a pressing of the hand were also allowed. They could also visit alone
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behind closed doors in a public room of the house. They had to be in separate rooms (or in
company) by the end of the day. Thus, if the engagement was broken, the girl would not suffer
the consequences of a ruined reputation. An honorable man never broke an engagement;
however, if the engagement was to be dissolved, it was considered the responsibility of the man
to “cry off” since it would be damaging for the girl to do so.
When engagements did end, if the decision was over the protest of one party, a "breach of
promise" suit might result. This almost always resulted in a settlement of some kind, with one
party paying for the other's damages, such as cost of a wedding gown and trousseau. Very few
breach of promise cases made it into the courts, and they were great scandals. This was one
reason news of the betrothal was often kept from family and friends. It wasn't considered official
until announced in the papers, and therefore could not be “breached.” Women were even
cautioned as to what they wrote in letters and journals, should the case go that far.
Tea
Tea is a term used to refer to a variety of small meals that take place throughout the day in
Britain. The common terms are elevenses, afternoon (or low) tea, and high tea.
Elevenses is morning tea, a snack that is similar to afternoon tea, but eaten in the mid- to late
morning. It is generally less savory than brunch, and might consist of some cake or biscuits
(cookies) with a cup of coffee or tea.
Afternoon Tea
Afternoon tea or low tea is a small meal snack typically eaten between 4pm and 6pm.
Observance of the custom is documented as far back as the 1740s, although social mythology
accords the “invention” of tea as a social ritual to Anna Maria Russell, Duchess of Bedford
(1778-1861) and friend of Queen Victoria. By the end of the nineteenth century, afternoon tea or
low tea had developed into its current form and was observed by both the upper and middle
classes; “the table was laid...there were the best things
with a fat pink rose on the side of each cup; hearts of
lettuce, thin bread and butter, and the crisp little cakes
that had been baked in readiness that morning”
(Pettigrew, 102-105).
Afternoon tea finger foods Traditionally, loose tea is brewed in a teapot and
served with milk and sugar. The sugar and caffeine of
“the genial beverage” provided additional energy for
the working poor of 19th and early 20th century England who had a significantly lower calorie
count diet and more physically demanding work than most Westerners today.
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In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, methods of preparing and serving afternoon tea were the
subject of much snobbery. In a letter to Nancy Mitford, a social commentator and great satirist of
upper class behavior, the author Evelyn Waugh
mentions a mutual friend who uses the expression
“rather milk in first” to express condemnation of
those lower down the social scale. This expression
was used by the Georgian and Victorian elite to
deride their middle-class governesses for the
practice of pouring milk into the cup first, dubbing
them “milk-in-first misses.” In the British film
Gosford Park the tension is depicted as continuing
to exist; Lady Sylvia McCordle sneers at the police
Inspector Thomson for putting the “milk in first”
and in the film he quickly realizes how the act
demonstrates his social “inferiority” and becomes embarrassed. Nowadays the “milk in first” vs.
“tea in first” debate is altogether more light-hearted, but nonetheless everyone has his or her
preferred method of making tea.
For laborers in the period, tea was sometimes accompanied by a small sandwich or baked snack
(such as scones) that had been packed for them in the morning. For the more privileged,
afternoon tea was accompanied by luxury ingredient sandwiches (customarily cucumber, egg and
cress, fish paste, ham, and smoked salmon), scones (with clotted cream and jam, see cream tea)
and usually cakes and pastries (such as Battenberg cake, fruit cake or Victoria sponge). In hotels
and tea shops the food is often served on a tiered stand; there may be no sandwiches, but bread or
scones with butter or margarine and optional jam or other spread, or toast, muffins or crumpets.
Afternoon tea was served in the garden where possible; otherwise it was usually taken in a day
room, library or salon where low tables (like a coffee table) were placed near sofas or chairs
generally (one origin for the name “low” tea).
Cucumber sandwiches
Cucumber sandwiches contain little protein and so are generally not considered sustaining
enough to take a place at a full meal. This is deliberate; cucumber sandwiches have historically
been associated with the Victorian era upper classes of the United Kingdom, whose members
were largely at leisure and who could therefore afford to consume foods with little nutritive
value. Cucumber sandwiches formed an integral part of the stereotypical afternoon tea affair. (By
contrast, people of the era's lower working classes were thought to prefer a coarser but more
satisfying protein-filled sandwich, in a "meat tea" that might substitute for supper.)
Some writers have attempted to draw out an association between the daintiness of the sandwich
and the perceived effeteness of the British aristocracy. Cucumber sandwiches are often used as a
kind of shorthand in novels and films to identify upper-class people, occasionally in a derogatory
manner. In the first act of The Importance Of Being Earnest (1895), cucumber sandwiches that
have expressly been ordered and prepared for Lady Bracknell's expected visit are all voraciously
eaten beforehand by her nephew and host, Algernon Moncrieff; consequently he is forced to tell
a lie, with his butler's connivance: that “there were no cucumbers in the market this morning...
not even for ready money” (cash). In addition, the sandwiches were once considered appropriate
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delicacies to offer to visiting clergy, in times when such visits were still a common feature of
English middle class life.
The popularity of the cucumber sandwich reached its upper-class zenith in the Edwardian era,
when cheap labor and plentiful coal enabled cucumbers to be produced in hotbeds under glass
through most of the year.
Clotted Cream
Clotted cream (sometimes called clouted cream or Devonshire cream) is made by indirectly
heating full-cream cow's milk using steam or a water bath and then leaving it in shallow pans to
cool slowly. During this time, the cream content rises to the surface and forms clots or “clouts.”
Clotted cream is an essential part of a cream tea.
Cream tea prepared in the Devonshire method Although its origin is uncertain, the cream's production is
commonly associated with dairy farms in South West England and
in particular the counties of Cornwall and Devon.
Clotted cream has been described as having a “nutty, cooked milk
flavour”, and a “rich sweet flavour” with a texture that is grainy, sometimes with oily globules
on the crusted surface. It is a thick cream, with a very high fat content (a minimum of 55%, but
an average of 64%); in the United States it would be classified as butter. Despite its popularity,
virtually none is exported due to it having a very short shelf life.
The largest commercial producer today is Rodda's in Redruth, Cornwall, which produces up to
25 tonnes (25,000 kg; 55,000 lb) of clotted cream each day. In 1998 the term Cornish clotted
cream became a Protected Designation of Origin (PDO) by European Union directive, as long as
the milk is produced in Cornwall and the minimum fat content is 55%.
High tea
High tea (also known as meat tea) is the evening meal or dinner of the working class, typically
eaten between 5pm and 7pm.
High tea typically consists of a hot dish such as fish and chips, shepherd's pie, or macaroni
cheese, followed by cakes and bread, butter and jam. Occasionally there would be cold cuts of
meat, such as ham salad. Traditionally high tea was eaten by middle to upper class children
(whose parents would have a more formal dinner later) or by laborers, miners and the like when
they came home from work. The term was first used around 1825 and high is used in the sense of
well-advanced (like high noon, for example) to signify that it was taken later in the day.
The term “high tea” was used as a way to distinguish it from afternoon tea. Some believe that
since high tea is a meal eaten at a dinner table, and afternoon tea is eaten at garden tables, the
terms “high” and “low” might refer to the different table heights. Americans tend to believe that
“high” tea is classier, but it’s actually “low” tea that is an upper-class tradition.
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Tea Etiquette
Holding a Tea Cup: In order for one not to spill the hot liquid
onto oneself, the proper way to hold the vessel of a cup with no
handle is to place one’s thumb at the six o'clock position and
one’s index and middle fingers at the twelve o'clock position,
while gently raising one’s pinkie up for balance.
Tea cups with a handle are held by placing one’s fingers to the
front and back of the handle with one’s pinkie up; again, this
allows for better balance.
Never wave or hold your tea cup in the air. When not in use,
place the tea cup back in the tea saucer.
If you are at a buffet tea hold the tea saucer in your lap with your left hand and hold the tea cup
in your right hand. When not in use, place the tea cup back in the tea saucer and hold in your
lap. The only time a saucer is raised together with the teacup is when one is at a standing
reception.
Pinkies Up: Originally, all porcelain teacups were made in China, starting around 620
A.D. These small cups had no handles. In order for one not to spill the hot liquid onto oneself,
the proper way to hold the vessel was to place one's thumb at the six o'clock position and one's
index and middle fingers at the twelve o'clock position, while gently raising one's pinkie up for
balance.
Pinkie up does mean straight up in the air, but slightly tilted. It is not an affectation, but a
graceful way to avoid spills. Never loop your fingers through the handle, nor grasp the vessel
bowl with the palm of your hand.
Using Teaspoons: Do not stir your tea in sweeping circular motions; instead, place your tea
spoon at the six o'clock position and softly fold the liquid towards the twelve o'clock position
two or three times.
Do not clatter your tea cup, saucer, or spoon.
Drinking Tea: Do not use your tea to wash down food. Sip, don’t slurp, your tea and swallow
before eating.
Serving Tea
Tea is either brought in by the servants on a tea tray, or a tea cart may be brought it where the tea
is made in the room with boiling water (usually boiled over a spirit lamp). The water is poured
over loose leaves in a porcelain or silver teapot. The tea steeps for several minutes, and then is
poured into individual cups through a special tea strainer. (Note: modern teapots often have a tea
strainer built into them, but this is not traditional.)
It is an honor for a guest to be invited to “pour out” the tea. The pourer holds the tea strainer in
one hand while lifting the teapot and pouring with the other hand. She then holds the teacup and
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saucer in her left hand and asks each guest (ladies first) whether they prefer their tea strong or
weak.
For strong tea: Pour the cup three-fourths full to prevent the tea spilling into the saucer. Then
ask, "With milk, sugar, or lemon?" Add the requested ingredients (see below) and place a spoon
on the saucer if it is not already there.
For weak tea: Pour the cup about one-half full, leaving space for the addition of hot water. Add
the hot water (brought in with the tea service) and then ask, "With milk, sugar, or lemon?" Add
the requested ingredients (see below) and place a spoon on the saucer if it is not already there.
The pourer hands a teacup to a gentleman who hands it to a lady. This continues until all the
ladies have been served. Then the gentlemen may have theirs.
“Milk, Sugar, or Lemon?”
These ingredients are always added after the tea is poured, as follows depending on the request
of the guest.
Lemon: Serve lemon in slices, not wedges. Either provide a small fork or lemon fork for your
guests, or the tea pourer may use a lemon fork to neatly place a slice in the tea cup after the tea
has been poured.
Lemon and sugar: Add sugar before lemon; otherwise the citric acid of the lemon prevents the
sugar from dissolving readily.
Milk: pour a small amount of milk. If the guest is particular, she may (unobtrusively) ask for a
little more milk at an opportune moment as the tea is being served.
Milk and sugar: Add sugar before milk; it will begin dissolving before the milk begins to cool
the tea.
Sugar may be specified as “Two lumps, please.” If no sugar is requested, do not insist upon it.
If the guest says “Plain,” then no addition of milk, sugar, or lemon is required, and it is not
necessary to place a spoon on the saucer.
Tea Service faux pas
Never fill the tea cup to the brim.
Never add lemon with milk since the lemon's citric acid will cause the proteins in the milk to
curdle.
Cream is not served with tea; it is too heavy and masks the taste of the tea. “Half cream” is a
formal name for the modern “half and half” which is also not used for tea.
Granulated sugar is messy and “common”; in a proper tea, lump sugar is used.
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References and Sources
“Afternoon Tea – High Tea.” What’s Cooking America. Feb 26 2013.
http://whatscookingamerica.net/History/HighTeaHistory.htm
Cody, David. “Social Class.” The Victorian Web. Last modified 22 July 2002. Feb 26 2013.
http://www.victorianweb.org/history/Class.html
“Is the Duchess of Bedford a Fraud?” Tea Geek Blogs. Feb 26 2013.
http://www.teageek.net/blog/?p=299
"Oscar Wilde." 2013. The Biography Channel website. Feb 25 2013,
http://www.biography.com/people/oscar-wilde-9531078.
Pettigrew, Jane. A Social History of Tea. London: The National Trust. 2001. pp. 102–105.
“The Importance of Being Earnest.” Wikipedia. Feb 25 2013.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Importance_of_Being_Earnest.
“Women in the Victorian Era.” Wikipedia. Feb 26 2013.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_the_Victorian_era
Many other sources went in to this report; these may be of use. Also, see Miss Manners’ Guide
to Excruciatingly Correct Behavior for proper tea service, Russian dinner service, and
which fork to use.
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