Inhaltsangabe
This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text, images, or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1902. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... OSCAR WILDE AS A DKAMATIST. December 9, 1900. I. With the morals of the man I have nothing to do; I have to deal with the artist who has gone, for that artist has left his mark upon literature and upon the stage. He was, not so vei-y long ago, one of the nimblest intellects the English world could boast of. Oscar Wilde's legacy as essayist, fanciful story-teller, poet, and novelist, will probably be dealt with by others. I say probably, for the numerous band that used to consecrate panem et circenses to him, and was only too glad to obtain leave to hold one of the multi-coloured streamers waving from his triumphal car,--that band has dwindled down to a few stray devotees, fair friends in bad weather. The rest have shunned the artist because the man had gone under. But I wish to speak here of the dramatist who raised such great hopes, who did so much in a short I space of time, and then suddenly withered like a tree | struck by lightning. Oscar Wilde has contributed but four plays to our stage, "Lady Windermere's Fan," "A I v Woiiiari Of ho Importance," "An Ideal Husband," and " The Importance of being Ernest," while a fifth, "Salome,"' which was perhaps his best, was written in French and prohibited by the Censor. These four plays all run more or less on the same lines. They are what one could call society plays, pictures of fashionable life in which an unmistakable air of reality is happily wedded to playful satire. Their greatest merit is their dialogue; the plot is of secondary importance, and the characterisation is such as one would expect from an observant man who has seen much and read more. In other words, Oscar Wilde did not dive very deeply below the surface of human nature, but found, to a certain extent rightly, that there is more1 on the s...
Die Inhaltsangabe kann sich auf eine andere Ausgabe dieses Titels beziehen.
