Abstract
In 1964, Morris Freedman introduced the idea that Oscar Wilde was a tragicomedian, shortly after a time when many critics “want[ed] to dismiss [Wilde] as the greatest ass of aestheticism.”1 I agree with Freedman that Wilde’s comedies of manners are tragicomedies, and in particular with his idea that excess of playfulness results in sadness.2 However, I think that Freedman’s view of the genre (i.e., tragicomedy) was overly influenced by the time period during which Freedman wrote his essay. While Freedman sees Wilde’s plays in a similar vein as the tragicomedy of the 1950s–1960s, I want to suggest, instead, a slightly different generic classification for Wilde’s version of tragicomedy: tragicomic melodrama.3
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes
This is a characterization of how scholars critical of Wilde thought of Wilde’s works: Richard Foster, “Wilde as Parodist: A Second Look at The Importance of Being Earnest,” College English 18.1 (October 1956): 18.
Morris Freedman, “The Modern Tragicomedy of Wilde and O’Casey,” College English 25.7 (April 1964): 527.
(Richard Ellmann, Oscar Wilde [New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1988], 41)
(Oscar Wilde, Intentions [Amherst, New York: Prometheus Books, 2004], 76).
My argument here is not entirely without precedent. Kirsten Shepherd-Barr suggests that Wilde’s Society Plays, especially A Woman of No Importance, were influenced by nineteenth-century melodrama, the well-made play, the problem play, and the English comedy of manners (Kirsten Shepherd-Barr, “Wilde About Ibsen: The Fusion of Dramatic Modes in A Woman of No Importance” Approaches to Teaching the Works of Oscar Wilde, ed. Philip E. Smith II [New York: Modern Language Association of America, 2008], 128).
Similarly, Francesca Coppa reads Lady Windermere’s Fan as an amalgamation of melodrama, modernism, and postmodernism, defying any one theatrical/theoretical category (Francesca Coppa, “Teaching Melodrama, Modernity, and Postmodernity in Lady Windermere’s Fan” Approaches to Teaching the Works of Oscar Wilde, ed. Philip E. Smith II [New York: Modern Language Association of America, 2008], 117).
And finally, Keiko Kawachi suggests that Wilde created his own version of a tragicomedy with A Florentine Tragedy, with Kawachi showing that Wilde “theoretically knew the ways of stirring up human emotions and tempering them” (Keiko Kawachi, “Oscar Wilde and Tragicomedy: On Oscar Wilde’s Unfinished Plays,” Poetica 25–26 [1986]: 184).
Martin Esslin, The Theatre of the Absurd (New York: Anchor Books, 1961), xix.
For a challenge to Esslin’s reading of the Theater of the Absurd, see my book that suggests that these plays, characterized as absurd, rather guide the audience to make life meaningful: Michael Y. Bennett, Reassessing the Theatre of the Absurd: Camus, Beckett, Ionesco, Genet, and Pinter (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011).
Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot (New York: Grove Press, 1954), 8.
Karl S. Guthke, Modern Tragicomedy: An Investigation into the Nature of the Genre (New York: Random House, 1966), 5.
For an in-depth study of the origins of tragicomedy and its development up through the seventeenth century, see Marvin T. Herrick, Tragicomedy: Its Origin and Development in Italy, Trance, and England (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1962)
and Frank Humphrey Ristine, English Tragicomedy: Its Origin and History (New York: Russell & Russell, 1963).
J. L. Styan, The Dark Comedy: The Development of Modern Comic Tragedy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1968), 36. Precisely to avoid the thorny issues surrounding the word and connotations of “tragicomedy,” J. L. Styan writes on “dark comedy,” which encompasses tragicomedy in Styan’s estimation. Although Styan tries to avoid the word and concept of “tragicomedy,” it becomes impossible to completely sidestep the issue. Styan attempts to separate tragedy and tragicomedy by a technical point:
J. L. Styan, The Dark Comedy: The Development of Modern Comic Tragedy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1968), 36–37.
Kavenik argues that the characters often “speak sententiously rather than wittily” (Frances M. Kavenik, British Drama, 1660–1779: A Critical History [London: Twayne Publishers, 1995], 140).
On the other hand, Maximillian E. Novak sees Steele’s The Conscious Lovers coming out of a “sentimental” line started by Shadwell and developed further by Cibber (Maximillian E. Novak, “The Sentimentality of The Conscious Lovers: Revisited and Reasserted,” Modern Language Studies 9.3 [Autumn 1979]: 48).
In his article, Novak “reasserts” that “sentimental” is the correct word for describing The Conscious Lovers, and not “exemplary comedy.” Most of the scholarship surrounding The Conscious Lovers, in fact, deals with it as a “sentimental” play. (See also Frank H. Ellis, Sentimental Comedy: Theory & Practice (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 43–54.)
Mchael M. Cohen, in an article in which he disagrees with that nomenclature for at least a part of the play, points out that Shirley Strum Kenny, F. W. Bateson, and John Loftis have all argued for The Conscious Lovers to be considered a sentimental play, among others that he did not mention (Mchael M. Cohen, “Reclamation, Revulsion, and Steele’s The Conscious Lovers” Restoration and 18th Century Theatre Research 14.1 [1975]: 29).
In Wycherly’s The Country Wife (1675)
and Congreve’s The Way of the World (1700)
Joseph Wood Krutch, Comedy and Conscience After the Restoration (New York: Russell & Russell, 1967), 225.
Peter Raby, in discussing Lady Windermere’s Fan in particular, suggests that Wilde’s play has “echoes of the situations, devices, and style of English comedy, especially Congreve and Sheridan” (Peter Raby, ed., “Introduction,” The Importance of Being Earnest and Other Plays, by Oscar Wilde [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008], ix).
Editor information
Copyright information
© 2015 Michael Y. Bennett
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Bennett, M.Y. (2015). The Tragicomedies of Oscar Wilde: A Wilde Response to Melodrama. In: Bennett, M.Y. (eds) Oscar Wilde’s Society Plays. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137410931_3
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137410931_3
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-56827-7
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-41093-1
eBook Packages: Palgrave Theatre & Performance CollectionLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)