LADY WINDERMERE'S Oscar Wilde had made himself notorious in affecting to write only to the few. In 'Lady Winder mere's Fan' he throws his dart directly at popularity with the many. Nothing in Wilde's career is more perverse and more character istic than the extraordinary success of his series of comedies beginning in 1892 with 'Lady Windermere's Fan.' This success is secured by an impudent practice of all the codes he had preached in his early career. And now his affronts to the public bring him fortune as well as fame. In the 80's Wilde had been enfant terrible of the British Isles; he had shocked the prudes; he had pained the apostles of beauty for man's sake with his impious con tempt for the British middle-class man. He had got himself lampooned and made the cen tral figure of a Gilbert and Sullivan opera, but still he was poor. Now at the age of 38 he turns respectable as to morals and conventional as to artistic manners. Nothing could be more lofty, more smug, more British middle-class than the morals of 'Lady Windermere's Fan> ; nothing could be more au fait according to the current English imitations of French seri ous drama than the innocent-guilty intrigue that it propounds. The men are long-winded grat ers, wise and witty and sophisticated as to words, impeccable as to their private lives. The women are dowagers and faithful wives. If any has sinned it was very long ago. The young girls are silent. In all these respects Wilde was giving the respectable English audi ence what it wanted. He knew that the audi ence would accept any amount of banality in the theatre if only it were given a dash of piquant French sauce. Above all it must not be called upon to think; it must not be brought tip short with an arresting observation of real life. It would enjoy risque allusions but only
as verbal 'badinage. It resented bitterly any at tempt on the part of the dramatist to be honest. Wilde was never more witty and in genious than he was in 'Lady Windermere's Fan) and the succeeding plays. Never, save in 'The Importance of Being Earnest,' which is a true farce, was he less honest. In his earlier work, with all his absurdities, he had been a corrective for characteristic British faults. In his society plays he pampers and coddles these faults and prospers upon them. Wilde's wit and paradox and epigram have become famous. The verbal brilliancy of his plays is'what gives them continuing life. The stories are second rate ; the characters are not differentiated. All are artificial creations in a fictitious code. But the author's own quips of observation, his turn of phrase and observation, the heartless polish of his contemptuous comedy, make the play memorable among the few examples of English comedy of manners. 'Lady Windermere's Fan) was produced by George Alexander at the Saint James' Theatre, 22 Feb. 1892; it was revived at the same theatre 19 Nov. 1904 and 14 Oct. 1911. Its first production in America was at the Columbia Theatre, Boston, 1893. It has been one of the most popular stock plays for revivals in this country, in England and on the Continent. Consult Ransome, A., 'The Life of Oscar Wilde, a Critical Study' (1912) ; Sherard, R. H., 'Oscar Wilde' (1906) ; 'The Real Oscar Wilde' (1915) ; Wilde, 0., 'The Truth of Masks, in Intentions' (1891).