Activity 3. Genre exploration

Introduction: in this task, you’re going to consider how Wilde uses different genres of theatre to create dramatic effects.

Student guidance:

Wilde plays with a variety of genres in An Ideal Husband. In the first column some genres that Wilde uses are listed. Perhaps you can think of more. Research the genres, and note their features in the second column of the table below. Next, find a section of the play that is faithful to the genre or deviates from it. Find a key quote from the section and write this in the third column. Then explain how it is faithful to or deviates from the genre. Finally, think about why Wilde uses the genres and what dramatic effects he hopes to generate. Be prepared to discuss your findings with the class.

Genre / Conventions of the genre / Quotation / Faithful to genre? / Diverging from genre? / Purpose/effect
Melodrama / Heightened emotion / ‘That great inheritance throw not away – that tower of ivory do not destroy.’ (Lady Chiltern; 1:1163) / Rhetoric: syntactic parallelism
Antiquated, formal grammatical structure
Both suggest heightened emotions. / Touching on a contemporary debate, which belongs to the ‘problem play’ genre, but couching it in the language of melodrama. / To make Lady Chiltern’s ideals sound unrealistic.
The play’s earnest debate about morality had to be couched in the language of melodrama. If the dialogue had suddenly become naturalistic, it would have jarred with the artificiality that the rest of the play delights in.

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Oscar Wilde: An Ideal Husband

Typically includes a ‘damsel in distress’ / ‘Lady Chiltern: I! In danger? What do you mean?
Lord Goring: Danger is too great a word. It is a word I should not have used. But I admit I have something to tell you that may distress you.’ (4:335)
Stock characters include a hero, a heroine, a villain, and an aged parent
Farce / Situations are so improbable they are humorous / ‘Lord Goring: I forbid you to enter that room.
Sir Robert Chiltern: Stand back. My life is at stake.’ (3:562) / The confusions at Lord Goring’s house are farcical, but they conclude with Sir Robert displaying heightened emotions, and this is more like melodrama
Problem play / Characters debate social issues / Debate about impossibility of living up to high moral ideals was personal to Wilde, and it was his aim to make drama as personal as a sonnet, according to his letters.
Well-made play / An important piece of information is kept from some characters and known to others, including the audience
A letter gets into the wrong person’s hands

Version 1 4 © OCR 2016

Oscar Wilde: An Ideal Husband