Lady Windermere's Fan

1892, in 1980 Penguin edition of Play: Oscar Wilde
Oscar Wilde
Lady Windermere's Fan
Original and purchase price unknown
Worn paperback
B-


This play was performed in 1892 and published in '93.  As with Wilde's other plays, I'll be going with the earliest possible date, and in any case this is his first successful stage production, as well as his first society play.  The title "character" is a prop that incriminates Lady W., until Mrs. Erlynne, a woman with a bad reputation, who's secretly Lady W.'s mother, takes the fall.  The title could also refer to Lord Darlington, who offers to be Lady W.'s darling when it looks like Lord W. is cheating on her with Mrs. E.


I find the play to be more quotable than notable.  My favorite two quotations are "Life is far too important a thing ever to talk seriously about it" and "History is merely gossip. But scandal is gossip made tedious by morality," although this is where the definition of a cynic comes from: "A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing."  The plot itself is contrived, particularly Lord Windermere's behaviour.  Yes, he's in a difficult spot, financially supporting his secret mother-in-law, while his wife thinks Mummy died when she was a baby, rather than ran off with a lover.  But Lord W.'s insisting on inviting the scandalous Mrs. E. to Lady W.'s coming-of-age party seems only a device to introduce her to the audience, and a dilemma to his wife.  And then later, when he thinks that Lady W. was in a man's rooms late at night, he forbids his wife to visit her.  By the end, he's flip-flopping on whether he should reveal Mrs. E.'s identity to his wife.  The other characters make mistakes, but his annoy me the most.

I do like that a "fallen woman" is allowed to be the true heroine, making a sacrifice for her daughter, although if you look at the ending, it's not too unhappy for her, as she wins back her suitor, Lord Augustus.  His nickname is Tuppy, which kept reminding me of Bertie Wooster's chum.  Wilde definitely had an influence on P.G. Wodehouse, conscious or not.