Masaryk University Faculty of Arts Department of English and American Studies English Language and Literature Mária Heribanová The Importance of Being Earnest: A Comparative Analysis of Oscar Wilde’s Play and Two of Its Film Adaptations Bachelor’s Diploma Thesis Supervisor: Stephen Paul Hardy, PhD. 2017 I declare that I have worked on this thesis independently, using only the primary and secondary sources listed in the bibliography. …………………………………………….. Author’s signature 2 Acknowledgements I would like to thank my supervisor Stephen Hardy for his kind guidance and valuable advice, and my family and friends for their support during the writing. 3 Table of Contents Introduction.......................................................................................................................5 1. Life of Oscar Wilde……………...................................................................................8 1.1. Early Years.............................................................................................................8 1.2 Major Works..........................................................................................................11 1.3. Queensberry and Jail………………………………..……………..……………13 2. Manners, Gender, and Sexuality in The Importance of Being Earnest ……….…….16 2.1. The Appearance and Manners…………………..………………………………16 2.2. Men and Women…………………………………………………….………….18 2.3. The Androgyne of Manners…………………………..………………………20 3. Introduction to the Theory of Adaptation………………………………...………..25 3.1. Theory of Adaptation………………………………………...………………….25 3.2. Approaches to a Film Analysis………………………………………………..28 4. Analysis of the Two Film Adaptations ………………………………...……………31 4.1. The Importance of Being Earnest (1952) by Anthony Asquith……...………….31 4.2. The Importance of Being Earnest (2002) by Oliver Parker…………...………...37 Conclusion………………………………………………………………...……………44 Works Cited……………………………………………………….…………................46 Resumé (English)………………………………………………………………………50 Resumé (Czech)……………………………………………………………….………..51 4 Introduction Oscar Wilde is a famous Irish writer of the 19th century. He is the author of essays, articles, fairytales, a novel, and famous plays, which sustained their popularity to the present day and are still played all around the world. The audiences are attracted by his brisk, witty humour, as well as the smartness and depth of his plays. They often offer many options how they may be perceived, based not only on how they are written, but also how actors portray them. Because of this, it can happen that Wilde’s original ideas are misinterpreted or entirely omitted in works that adapt his and deliver a completely different meaning to the audience. This thesis is dealing with a play by Oscar Wilde The Importance of Being Earnest with a focus on gender and sexuality, and how they were depicted in two of its film adaptations. The two film adaptations in question are The Importance of Being Earnest from 1952 by Anthony Asquith and The Importance of Being Earnest from 2002 by Oliver Parker. These adaptations were chosen, as Asquith’s adaptation is considered to be one of the best film adaptations of a play, while Parker’s represents a more modern take on this play. A book to film transition can not only be different in its medium, it can also mean a shift in portrayal which may lead the audience to a different conclusion. The goal of this thesis is to compare the original play to two of its film adaptations and analyse the differences. It will analyse Wilde’s ideas captured in the film adaptations to see, whether there is something concerning gender and sexuality that is portrayed differently and could mean a twist in perception of the films as opposed to the original play. The thesis is divided into four chapters. The first chapter offers a biography of Oscar Wilde’s life, from his early years, through the time of his greatest productivity 5 and popularity as a writer, to his downfall and death that followed soon after. Wilde’s works often resemble his life and various similarities can be found between them. In connection to Earnest these aspects are: homosexuality, Wilde’s interests in aesthetism and decadence, just like his passion for words and appearance. The aim of this chapter is therefore to provide a better understanding of the play in relation to the author. This is done with the help of his biography by Frank Harris who was his friend and contemporary, and therefore reports an authentical portrayal of Wilde. A biography by Richard Ellmann is also essential for this chapter, as it is one of the most respected biographies of Wilde. The second chapter offers analysis of the play from the point of manners, gender, and sexuality in Earnest, as all of these aspects are closely intertwined in this play. This chapter provides the evidence of the presence of these elements in the play. It also serves as a guide to analysis of the same themes in the two film adaptations in Chapter 4. This chapter heavily draws from Camille Paglia and her work Sexual Personae, where she is dealing with sexuality in various works including Importance of Being Earnest. Here she shares valuable insights regarding the play and the argument of Sexual Personae that is further analysed in this chapter. Chapter three offers an introduction to the film theory, to give the reader a better idea how to judge the film adaptations of the play. Its aim is to emphasize, that an adaptation should be considered another piece of art, not only a mere copy of the original literary work, as it is often misjudged. The goal of this chapter is therefore to lead the reader to a more objective conclusion. It also mentions the differences between the two mediums that should be taken into consideration upon judging the two adaptations. The fundamental source for this chapter is a lecture “From Page to Stage to 6 Screen: The Age of Adaptation” by Linda Hutcheon, where she is dealing exactly with the issues listed above. Finally, in the last chapter, an analysis of the two film adaptations is provided: first both films are compared to the play in a general manner to provide a better picture of the differences between the two mediums and then they are both analysed from the point of manners, gender, and sexuality. 7 Chapter 1: Life of Oscar Wilde The opening chapter of this thesis provides a detailed background to the life of Oscar Wilde. Wilde, apart from being a famous playwright, is also known for his intimate relationships with various men, most famous of which is Lord Alfred Douglas. Hints of these relationships, still prohibited in the 19th century, translated into Wilde’s works what often made them scandalous at that time. Similarly, Wilde was known as an aesthete, which is another aspect that reflects in his writings. Therefore the information mentioned in this chapter is important for a better understanding of the play and the analysis later provided in this paper, as Wilde’s life in many occasions mirrors his literary pieces. This chapter firstly focuses on Wilde’s life as a student, the years that followed soon after he graduated, and his first works. This is followed by a section listing his most famous works, as these were all created in a very similar time, and a short analysis provided to some of them. Lastly, the focus moves back to happenings in Wilde’s life, his lover Douglas, the time in jail, and the exile before his death. 1.1. Early Years Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde, also known simply as Oscar Wilde, was born in October 16th, 1854 in Dublin, Ireland to a family of a protestant origin. His father was a known doctor and his mother, who was of an Italian descent and known under her penname “Speranza” (Italian for “hope”), was a poet. As Joseph Bristow mentions in his short biography of Oscar Wilde, Lady Wilde was an Irish nationalist who was famous for writing poetry for the revolutionaries (1). This character trait transferred to Oscar, whose works were also revolutionary in the question of homosexuality at that time. According to Joachim Zelter, in his paper on Wilde “Oscar 8 Wilde: The Importance of Being Irish”, Wilde’s mother used to treat him and dress him as a girl when he was a child (6). This could be one of the factors that helped to attract him to beauty and art later in his life. Wilde was at first educated at home until the age of nine and afterwards started attending the Portora Royal School in Enniskillen, located southwest in the Northern Ireland. Frank Harris, who was also Wilde’s contemporary, managed to obtain for his biography of Wilde a description of him as a student by his peer, Sir Edward Sullivan. He claims that Wilde was: "Even as a schoolboy he was an excellent talker: his descriptive power being far above the average, and his humorous exaggerations of school occurrences always highly amusing” (24). According to this, Wilde was already showing a potential for writing early in his life. After Portora, Wilde continued his education on a royal scholarship at the Trinity College in Dublin where he studied the classics. Here he became more interested in Greek ideal and Greek literature, thanks to professor Mahaffy. Wilde described him as “an artist in vivid words and eloquent pauses” (41) and who had, according to Bristow,” a surprisingly liberal view of homosexuality in ancient Greece” (1). At Trinity, Wilde excelled as a student and won a gold medal for Greek and a demyship, a form of scholarship awarded at Magdalen College, Oxford, which allowed him to study there. Here, Wilde became acquainted with the works of Algernon Charles Swinburne, which were a source of inspiration for Wilde’s own work, Poems, a collection later published in 1881. Oxford was also the place where Wilde became enlightened by the philosophy of aestheticism, introduced to him by two of his professors, Walter Pater and John Ruskin (2), along with New Hellenism, English Renaissance and the role of beauty (Zelter 2). He was also recognised in his 9 involvement with the decadent movement, which is further discussed in The Last Testament of Oscar Wilde by Peter Ackroyd.