DOCSLIB.ORG

WOMEN AS FIGURES of DISORDER in the PLAYS of OSCAR WILDE by SARIKA PRIYADARSHINIBOSE

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
WOMEN AS FIGURES of DISORDER in the PLAYS of OSCAR WILDE by SARIKA PRIYADARSHINIBOSE WOMEN AS FIGURES OF DISORDER IN THE PLAYS OF OSCAR WILDE by SARIKA PRIYADARSHINIBOSE A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Arts of the University of Birmingham for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Department of English Faculty of Arts The University of Birmingham March 1999 University of Birmingham Research Archive e-theses repository This unpublished thesis/dissertation is copyright of the author and/or third parties. The intellectual property rights of the author or third parties in respect of this work are as defined by The Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 or as modified by any successor legislation. Any use made of information contained in this thesis/dissertation must be in accordance with that legislation and must be properly acknowledged. Further distribution or reproduction in any format is prohibited without the permission of the copyright holder. Abstract Oscar Wilde's plays on upper-class Victorian society are set apart from contemporary drama both by their wit and their reappraisal of conventions, particularly in dealing with transgressive women. The fallen woman's prominence in popular culture and the stage during a period of intense suffragism attests to woman's role as a touchstone of moral stability, contemporary plays viewing deviant women as threats to a man's world. Wilde mocks society's confinement of women, fallen or not, into prescribed roles and undercuts customary morality but fears self-determining women's disruptive power. A tool of perceiving this ambivalence is the self-fashioning dandy, who repudiates social constraints and yet foils transgressive women's attempts at self-fashioning. The surface mockery of conventional fears of female aspirations as threats to masculine orderliness conceals a greater fear of female autonomy as a threat to masculinity itself. This study locates the dramatic and moral urgency of Wilde's five major plays, Lady Windermere's Fan, A Woman of No Importance, An Ideal Husband, The Importance of Being Earnest and Salome in this conflicting response to the feminine, which also determines his choice of theme and form both in his comedies of manners and symbolic drama. [Approximately 80,000 words] CONTENTS Preface 1 Chapter 1. Introduction: British Theatre of the Nineties and Wilde 5 Chapter 2. The Climate of Opinion 40 Chapters. Lady Winderme re's Fan: The Mother as Homewrecker 82 Chapter 4. A Woman of No Importance: The Devouring Mother 117 Chapter 5. An Ideal Husband: Woman as Predator 150 Chapter 6. The Importance of Being Earnest: Creatures of Caprice 180 Chapter?. Salome: Woman Demonized 211 Chapter 8. Conclusion: Ambivalence and After 245 Bibliography 256 Note on Textual References The texts of Wilde's plays and other works used in this study are from The Works of Oscar Wilde (London: Methuen, 1908), except for Salome, the text of which is Lord Alfred Douglas' translation from the French in John Lane's Bodley Head edition (London, 1907). Following the orthography of this edition, the title is unaccented, while the name is accented. As these editions, like the early editions of all other plays cited, carry no line numbers, references are by page numbers in the editions used. Bibliographic entries are given for longer essays or articles by contemporary writers, but not for play reviews or unsigned articles included in the footnotes. 1 Preface Wilde's plays have been traditionally recognized as satires on his contemporary world of privileged men and women and the conventions by which they lived. His targets are not particular persons but the character types inhabiting the upper reaches of the world of late Victorian Britain and include all relationships, personal and social, the codes that govern them and the principles on which they were founded, especially those of gender identities and sexual conduct. The re-appraising imagination that informs Wilde's plays shapes itself most constantly around the idea of the feminine, which includes the way both men and women think about women's nature and function. Wilde's mockery analyses the conventionality of the idea in all its ramifications and setting it adrift from the security of received wisdom, invites redefinition. Wilde's work may thus be seen as fundamentally subversive, ranging from poking fun at minor follies to a sustained expose of hypocrisy of tragic proportions. Because of this penetrating search for meaning in the social world as well as in the interior landscape of the individual, Wilde's work, both dramatic and non-dramatic, have come to be viewed as standing apart from run-of-the-mill Victorian self-reflection. Yet Wilde is far less of a maverick than he is often claimed to be. Looking closely at his themes, his plot-design and his stage technique, we find that he depended heavily upon the standards of the theatre for which he wrote. The peculiar force of Wilde's drama arises not from his rejection of contemporary theatre, its techniques and its ethos but from his ability to exploit its resources to engender a contrary reading of the world, especially of women's place in it. It is not surprising that the growing critical awareness of the dynamic of this creative reversal should have encouraged a view of Wilde as a rebel against conventional morality. But it remains to be seen whether his alternative stance warrants placing him so diametrically opposite late nineteenth century views of women as to discover in him a proto-feminist. While confirming Wilde's rebel status, the present study probes further into the nuances of his concept of women. Taking note of the climate of ideas into which he was born and measuring his indebtedness to the theatre tradition of his time, this study examines Wilde's systematic undercutting of his contemporary ideology of the feminine. In the process, however, it discovers a paradox on a deeper level of idea formation in Wilde's representation of women: while Wilde mocks his society's confinement of women into prescribed roles, he also fears the disruptive power of women's self-determination. Regressing through the gender identities and relations that Wilde dramatizes, we discover a constant tension between the assertion of women's autonomy and fear of women's ascendancy over men. We may therefore locate the dramatic and moral urgency of Wilde's plays in a deep-rooted conflict in his response to the idea of women which determines his choice as much of the themes as the forms of his plays, extending from the society comedy of manners to symbolic drama. This study begins with two related surveys, chapters 1 and 2, the first taking note of the state of the British stage in the 1890s and of major critical approaches to Wilde. Chapter 2 summarizes contemporary ideas about women, family and social organization, gender relations and sexual morality, set off against the burgeoning rebellion of a new generation of women against these ideas. The discussion of the individual plays and critical responses to them begins in chapter 3 with Lady Windermere's Fan, which argues that in this play Wilde redesigns the formula of the fallen woman not only by making her a mother but an unrepentant one. While this reversal of a formula compels the viewer to rethink conventional certitudes such as motherhood and womanly virtue, it still places at the root of potential social disorder women's attempts, idealistic as well as selfish, to assume authority over male domains. The next chapter, on A Woman of No Importance, shows how the fallen mother reappears in yet another unusual incarnation, creating the double paradox that the fallen woman is the most virtuous and the best mother the most harmful. Demolishing the conventional constructions of good and bad, Wilde shows how vague labels and legends can be and questions whether it is the brutally self-serving man or the joyless good woman who has the greatest potential for disrupting lives. In An Ideal Husband, the subject of the chapter 5, we see the emergence of the Wildean dandy in his full powers. This chapter shows how by using the dandy's vantage point of detachment, Wilde plays with the familiar figures and motivations of the adventuress, the man with a past, the devoted wife and the selfless friend, in this case, the dandy, to uncover the harm that women's greed as much as rigid idealism can do to a world already weakened by foolish and corrupt men's sins. Chapter 6 finds in Wilde's best-loved play, The Importance of Being Earnest, also his subtlest treatment of plot and character conventions and his most productive ambiguity about conventional thinking and its exposure. All narrative patterns are turned inside out and all positions of status overturned, including the commanding detachment of the dandy, to create a carnival world. In that world women hold the power over men's fate, including that of providing empowering information, but the potential for disruption of social order is eventually lost to conformity with the comic tradition of ending the action with weddings. The last chapter on the plays considers Salome, perhaps Wilde's most ambitious venture in its symbolist dimensions. One finds in it the reiteration of patterns of action and character from the society plays, such as the high-born lady and the seductress, but this familiarity only emphasizes the alienness of the hidden impulses behind human action, especially the dark power of femininity. This chapter studies the encounter between the familiar and the mysterious in the play as Wilde's demonstration that only through the symbolic reading of the familiar may one enter the rationally unchartable territories of human nature. The critical inferences reached in the discussion of the plays are gathered in the concluding chapter of the dissertation, which returns to the question of Wilde's uncertain location between tradition and individuality, arguing that this ambivalence explains both his enduring interest for students of British drama and his popular image as no more than a brilliant but insubstantial commentator on manners.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • The Player and the Playing: an Interpretive Study of Richard
    DOCUMENT RESUME ED 442 143 CS 510 330 AUTHOR Henry, Mallika TITLE The Player and the Playing: AA Interpretive Study of Richard Courtney's Texts on Learning through Drama. PUB DATE 1999-00-00 NOTE 411p.; Doctoral dissertation, School of Education, New York University. PUB TYPE Dissertations/Theses Doctoral Dissertations (041) EDRS PRICE MFO1 /PC17 Plus Postage. DESCRIPTORS *Drama; *Learning Processes; Metaphors; Qualitative Research; *Scholarship ABSTRACT Using qualitative and interpretive methodologies, this dissertation analyzed Richard Courtney's writings to interpret his basic ideas on learning through drama. It focused on later writings (1989, 1990, 1995, 1997) in which Courtney distilled ideas he had been working on for as many as 30 years. It approached Courtney's texts using dramatistic metaphors which concretized his predominantly abstract writings. These metaphors focused on finding the basic elements of a drama: the setting, the act, the actor, and the Other. Through the lenses afforded by these metaphors, the thesis examined Courtney's wide-ranging, eclectic and often imprecise ideas to distill major themes. Courtney used notions like metaphor, symbol, ritual, Being, mind, perspective, oscillation and quaternity with apparently shifting definitions and loosely circumscribed meanings. It collected and analyzed Courtney's meanings recursively, both distilling Courtney's meanings and expanding them through concrete hypothetical examples. Courtney wrote about drama in abstract terms, using notions he had garnered from other disciplines to describe the process of learning through drama. The final construction that emerged in this dissertation represents the experience of the actor/learner: it is concentric, radiating from a nub which represents the feelings and imagination of the actor.
    [Show full text]
  • POEMS for REMEMBRANCE DAY, NOVEMBER 11 for the Fallen
    POEMS FOR REMEMBRANCE DAY, NOVEMBER 11 For the Fallen Stanzas 3 and 4 from Lawrence Binyon’s 8-stanza poem “For the Fallen” . They went with songs to the battle, they were young, Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow. They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted, They fell with their faces to the foe. They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old: Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun and in the morning We will remember them. Robert Laurence Binyon Poem by Robert Laurence Binyon (1869-1943), published in by the artist William Strang The Times newspaper on 21st September 1914. Inspiration for “For the Fallen” Laurence Binyon composed his best-known poem while sitting on the cliff-top looking out to sea from the dramatic scenery of the north Cornish coastline. The poem was written in mid-September 1914, a few weeks after the outbreak of the First World War. Laurence said in 1939 that the four lines of the fourth stanza came to him first. These words of the fourth stanza have become especially familiar and famous, having been adopted as an Exhortation for ceremonies of Remembrance to commemorate fallen service men and women. Laurence Binyon was too old to enlist in the military forces, but he went to work for the Red Cross as a medical orderly in 1916. He lost several close friends and his brother-in-law in the war. .
    [Show full text]
  • New Arabian Nights
    1882 NEW ARABIAN NIGHTS Robert Louis Stevenson Stevenson, Robert Louis (1850-1894) - Scottish novelist, poet, and essayist, best known for his adventure stories. Stevenson was a sickly man (he died of tuberculosis) who nevertheless led an adventurous life. He spent his last five years on the island of Samoa as a planter and chief of the natives. The New Arabian Nights (1882) - A collection of tales including “The Suicide Club,” “The Rajah’s Diamond,” “The Pavilion on the Links,” and more. This was Stevenson’s first published collection of fiction. TABLE OF CONTENTS NEW ARABIAN NIGHTS . 2 CONTENTS . 2 STORY OF THE YOUNG MAN WITH THE CREAM TARTS . 3 STORY OF THE PHYSICIAN AND THE SARATOGA TRUNK . 16 THE ADVENTURE OF THE HANSOM CABS . 27 THE RAJAH’S DIAMOND, STORY OF THE BANDBOX . 36 STORY OF THE YOUNG MAN IN HOLY ORDERS . 47 STORY OF THE HOUSE WITH THE GREEN BLINDS . 53 THE ADVENTURE OF PRINCE FLORIZEL AND A DETECTIVE . 66 THE PAVILION ON THE LINKS TELLS HOW I CAMPED IN GRADEN SEA-WOOD, AND BEHELD A LIGHTIN THE PAVILION . 69 TELLS OF THE NOCTURNAL LANDING FROM THE YACHT . 73 TELLS HOW I BECAME ACQUAINTED WITH MY WIFE . 75 TELLS IN WHAT A STARTLING MANNER I LEARNED THAT I WAS NOT ALONE IN GRADEN SEA-WOOD . 79 TELLS OF AN INTERVIEW BETWEEN NORTHMOUR, CLARA, AND MYSELF83 TELLS OF MY INTRODUCTION TO THE TALL MAN . 85 TELLS HOW A WORD WAS CRIED THROUGH THE PAVILION WINDOW 88 TELLS THE LAST OF THE TALL MAN . 91 TELLS HOW NORTHMOUR CARRIED OUT HIS THREAT .
    [Show full text]
  • 'Music and Remembrance: Britain and the First World War'
    City Research Online City, University of London Institutional Repository Citation: Grant, P. and Hanna, E. (2014). Music and Remembrance. In: Lowe, D. and Joel, T. (Eds.), Remembering the First World War. (pp. 110-126). Routledge/Taylor and Francis. ISBN 9780415856287 This is the accepted version of the paper. This version of the publication may differ from the final published version. Permanent repository link: https://openaccess.city.ac.uk/id/eprint/16364/ Link to published version: Copyright: City Research Online aims to make research outputs of City, University of London available to a wider audience. Copyright and Moral Rights remain with the author(s) and/or copyright holders. URLs from City Research Online may be freely distributed and linked to. Reuse: Copies of full items can be used for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-profit purposes without prior permission or charge. Provided that the authors, title and full bibliographic details are credited, a hyperlink and/or URL is given for the original metadata page and the content is not changed in any way. City Research Online: http://openaccess.city.ac.uk/ [email protected] ‘Music and Remembrance: Britain and the First World War’ Dr Peter Grant (City University, UK) & Dr Emma Hanna (U. of Greenwich, UK) Introduction In his research using a Mass Observation study, John Sloboda found that the most valued outcome people place on listening to music is the remembrance of past events.1 While music has been a relatively neglected area in our understanding of the cultural history and legacy of 1914-18, a number of historians are now examining the significance of the music produced both during and after the war.2 This chapter analyses the scope and variety of musical responses to the war, from the time of the war itself to the present, with reference to both ‘high’ and ‘popular’ music in Britain’s remembrance of the Great War.
    [Show full text]
  • The Visual Staging of Audio Plays
    Virginia Commonwealth University VCU Scholars Compass Theses and Dissertations Graduate School 2016 The Visual Staging of Audio Plays Alex P. Burkart Virginia Commonwealth University Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/etd Part of the Acting Commons, and the Other Theatre and Performance Studies Commons © The Author Downloaded from https://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/etd/4106 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at VCU Scholars Compass. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of VCU Scholars Compass. For more information, please contact [email protected]. The Visual Staging of Audio Plays A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Fine Arts in Theatre at Virginia Commonwealth University by Alex Paul Burkart BFA, Webster University, 2008 MFA, Virginia Commonwealth University David Emerson Toney Assistant Professor/Artistic Director, Department of Theatre Virginia Commonwealth University School of the Arts Virginia Commonwealth University Richmond, VA April 18, 2016 Acknowledgment Special thanks to my incredible mentors at TheatreVCU: David Emerson Toney, Dr. Noreen Barnes, David Leong, Ron Keller, and Thomas Cunningham Susan Schuld for giving me the opportunity to stage my first radio play. My family: Emily A. Fisher, Paul and Susan Burkart, Nathan, Tyler, Meg, and Jess My past mentors, who ignited my love for theatrical performance: Doug Finlayson, Kat Singleton, Byron Grant, Steven Woolf, Josh Burton, and Edie Baran Ken Regez for sharing your voice and blazing passion for nostalgia My fellow graduate students, for being the sturdiest of sounding boards.
    [Show full text]
  • 3. Terence Rattigan- First Success and After
    DIPLOMARBEIT Titel der Diplomarbeit „In and out of the limelight- Terence Rattigan revisited“ Verfasserin Covi Corinna angestrebter akademischer Grad Magistra der Philosophie (Mag.phil.) Wien, 30. Jänner 2013 Studienkennzahl lt. Studienblatt: A 343 Studienrichtung lt. Studienblatt: 343 Diplomstudium Anglistik und Amerikanistik UniStG Betreuer: Ao. Univ.-Prof. Dr. Rudolf Weiss Table of contents 1. Introduction……………………………………………………....p.4 2. The History of the Well-Made Play…………………………......p.5 A) French Precursors.....................................................................p.6 B) The British Well-Made Play...................................................p.10 a) Tom Robertson and the 1870s...........................................................p.10 b) The “Renaissance of British Drama”...............................................p.11 i. Arthur Wing Pinero (1855-1934) and Henry Arthur Jones (1851- 1929)- The precursors of the “New Drama”..............................p.12 ii. Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)..............................................................p.15 c) 1900- 1930 “The Triumph of the New Drama”...............................p.17 i. Harley Granville-Barker (1877-1946)………………................p.18 ii. William Somerset Maugham (1874-1965)..................................p.18 iii. Noel Coward (1899-1973)............................................................p.20 3. Terence Rattigan- first success and after...................................p.21 A) French Without Tears (1936)...................................................p.22
    [Show full text]
  • The Life and Times of Mary, Dowager Duchess of Sutherland
    The Life and Times of Mary, Dowager Duchess of Sutherland The Life and Times of Mary, Dowager Duchess of Sutherland: Power Play By Catherine Layton The Life and Times of Mary, Dowager Duchess of Sutherland: Power Play By Catherine Layton This book first published 2018 Cambridge Scholars Publishing Lady Stephenson Library, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2PA, UK British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Copyright © 2018 by Catherine Layton All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. ISBN (10): 1-5275-0550-2 ISBN (13): 978-1-5275-0550-6 TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Illustrations ................................................................................... viii Acknowledgements ..................................................................................... x Introduction ................................................................................................. 1 Chapter One ................................................................................................. 6 She Began Life Humbly Enough Chapter Two .............................................................................................. 19 Scenes from an Oxford Childhood Chapter Three ...........................................................................................
    [Show full text]
  • Catalogue 16
    CATALOGUE 16 CATALOGUE 16 4 E. Holly St., Suite 217, Pasadena, Ca 91103 · Tel. (626) 297-7700 · [email protected] www.WhitmoreRareBooks.com Books may be reserved by email: info @WhitmoreRareBooks.com and by phone: (626) 297-7700 We welcome you to come visit our gallery by chance or appointment at: 4 E. Holly St., Suite 217, Pasadena, Ca 91103 For our complete inventory, including many first editions, signed books and other rare items, please visit our website at: www.WhitmoreRareBooks.com Follow us on social media! @WRareBooks @whitmorerarebooks whitmorerarebooks The Writings of Benjamin Franklin - item 28 Catalogue 16 First Edition of Sebastian Brant’s Greatly Expanded Aesop With Numerous Woodcuts. 1. Aesop, Sebastian Brant Appologi sive Mythologi cum quibusdam Carminum et Fabularum additionibus Sebastiani Brant Basel: Jacob Wolff of Pforzheim, 1501. First edition thus. An early illustrated edition of Aesop’s Fables, augmented and edited by Sebastian Brant, and the first edition to include his additional 140 sections. Two parts in one volume, folio (leaves measuring 297 x 208 mm). Collates complete, retaining one of the two blank leaves (M6 lacking). Collation identical to the Fairfax-Murray copy: a-b8, c6-o8 (alternately), p-s6 (s6 blank and original); A-B8, C-D6, E8-K6 (alternately), L4, M5, (M6, final blank, lacking). With the famous woodcut portrait of Aesop on the verso of a1 and a smaller woodcut portrait of Brant on the verso of A1 in part two. A total of 335 woodcuts divided into 194 in part one and 141 in part two (inclusive of the portraits).
    [Show full text]
  • An Introduction to Lady Windermere's Fan
    An introduction to Lady Windermere's Fan Article written by: Andrew Dickson Themes: Fin de siècle, Popular culture Published: 5 Nov 2018 Andrew Dickson explores some of complexities of Oscar Wilde’s first hit play, Lady Windermere’s Fan. Oscar Wilde’s first hit play, Lady Windermere’s Fan (1892), is a hectic upper-class comedy, in which the tangled complexities of the plot are rivalled only by Wilde’s sparkling and witty dialogue. Relating an enjoyably unlikely story of a wife who suspects her husband of having an affair, only for the ‘other woman’ to be unmasked as her own mother, the drama was a hit on the London West End stage, and made Wilde rich. But despite its diamond-sharp one-liners, there is more to Lady Windermere’s Fan than mere entertainment: it is above all a subtle social satire, particularly pointed about the hypocrisy of Victorian attitudes to women and sex. Its meticulous construction and deft balance between comedy and seriousness point the way towards Wilde’s later scripts An Ideal Husband and The Importance of Being Earnest, perhaps his masterworks. The background to the play By the early 1890s, it looked as if Wilde – then in his late 30s – might never have a successful career as a dramatist. Born in Dublin in 1854 and educated at the University of Oxford, Wilde spent his 20s as a freelance poet, lecturer, critic, and well-dressed man about town, yearning all the time to be taken seriously as a playwright. His first play, a tragedy called Vera (1881), failed when it was produced in New York; his second, a dour historical work in Shakespearian verse called The Duchess of Padua, was rejected by the actress who commissioned it.
    [Show full text]
  • The Work of the Little Theatres
    TABLE OF CONTENTS PART THREE PAGE Dramatic Contests.144 I. Play Tournaments.144 1. Little Theatre Groups .... 149 Conditions Eavoring the Rise of Tournaments.150 How Expenses Are Met . -153 Qualifications of Competing Groups 156 Arranging the Tournament Pro¬ gram 157 Setting the Tournament Stage 160 Persons Who J udge . 163 Methods of Judging . 164 The Prizes . 167 Social Features . 170 2. College Dramatic Societies 172 3. High School Clubs and Classes 174 Florida University Extension Con¬ tests .... 175 Southern College, Lakeland, Florida 178 Northeast Missouri State Teachers College.179 New York University . .179 Williams School, Ithaca, New York 179 University of North Dakota . .180 Pawtucket High School . .180 4. Miscellaneous Non-Dramatic Asso¬ ciations .181 New York Community Dramatics Contests.181 New Jersey Federation of Women’s Clubs.185 Dramatic Work Suitable for Chil¬ dren .187 4 TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE II. Play-Writing Contests . 188 1. Little Theatre Groups . 189 2. Universities and Colleges . I9I 3. Miscellaneous Groups . • 194 PART FOUR Selected Bibliography for Amateur Workers IN THE Drama.196 General.196 Production.197 Stagecraft: Settings, Lighting, and so forth . 199 Costuming.201 Make-up.203 Acting.204 Playwriting.205 Puppetry and Pantomime.205 School Dramatics. 207 Religious Dramatics.208 Addresses OF Publishers.210 Index OF Authors.214 5 LIST OF TABLES PAGE 1. Distribution of 789 Little Theatre Groups Listed in the Billboard of the Drama Magazine from October, 1925 through May, 1929, by Type of Organization . 22 2. Distribution by States of 1,000 Little Theatre Groups Listed in the Billboard from October, 1925 through June, 1931.25 3.
    [Show full text]
  • Katharine Worth Collection MS 5531
    University Museums and Special Collections Service Katharine Worth Collection MS 5531 Production design material for the 1955 Waiting for Godot set by Peter Snow - including a model of the set; theatre memorabilia, correspondence, notes of Katharine Worth; Beckett related VHS and cassette tapes. The Collection covers the year’s 20th century. The physical extent of the collection is 5 boxes and 5 framed prints. MS 5531 A Research files 1950s-1990s MS 5531 A/1 Folder of research entitled Beckett Festival Dublin 1991 1991 Includes press cutting, press release, letters relating to the festival 1 folder Katharine Worth gave a lecture Beckett's Ghost, with C.V. for Katharine Worth and Julian Curry MS 5531 A/2 Folders of research entitled Beckett and Music 1980s-1995 Includes hand written notes and typed notes made by Katharine Worth and correspondence relating to her Samuel Beckett and Music article 2 folders MS 5531 A/3 Folders of research entitled Cascando 1981-1984 Includes letter from David Warrilow, annotated script for Cascando, 5 black and white photographs of a production, correspondence relating to the production of Cascando by Katharine Worth and David Clark of the University of London Audio-Visual Centre and some handwritten notes 2 folders MS 5531 A/4 Folders relating to Company 1989-1991 Includes Mise en Scene by Pierre Chabert for his stage adaptation of Compagnie [in French], correspondence relating to Page 1 of 13 University Museums and Special Collections Service a proposed production of Company by Katharine Worth and Iambic
    [Show full text]
  • Oscar Wilde Against the Marquess of Bannard, 1899
    CHAPTER 5 ‘I HAVE GOT AS FAR AS THE HOUSE OF DETENTION’ LEFT: The Boulevard from Quelques On 5 April 1895, the jury at the Old Bailey returned a verdict of ‘not aspects de la vie de Paris, by Pierre guilty’ in the libel trial brought by Oscar Wilde against the Marquess of Bannard, 1899. On his release from prison Queensberry. The verdict indicated that Queensberry had been justified in in May 1897, Oscar Wilde settled for a calling Wilde a sodomite in the public interest. The packed court room time in Berneval-sur-Mer, claiming: ‘If I had cheered and the judge passed Queensberry’s counsel, Edward Carson, live in Paris I may be doomed to things I a note congratulating him on his ‘searching crossXam’ and having ‘escaped don’t desire. I am afraid of big towns.’ Less the rest of the filth’. Within minutes of the collapse of the case, the trial than a year later, however, a letter to the papers had been sent to the Director of Public Prosecutions. publisher Leonard Smithers from Naples The press almost universally crowed at the result: announced ‘I shall be in Paris on Sunday next. It is my only chance of working. I There is not a man or woman in the English-speaking world possessed of the miss an intellectual atmosphere, and I am treasure of a wholesome mind…not under a deep debt of gratitude to the tired of Greek bronzes...My life has gone to Marquess of Queensberry for destroying the High Priest of the Decadents.
    [Show full text]