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Must redeem within 90 days. See full terms and conditions and this month's choices. More books from this author: Oscar Wilde. See more by Oscar Wilde. Sep 11, Tosh rated it it was amazing. Reading an Oscar Wilde play is sort of like life being perfect.
The structure of the work is faultless, the dialogue is uber-clever and fantastic. What's wrong with Wilde? He's perfect. I can't imagine any writer who wrote so beautifully in his native language. There are some people who are born with 'it' and Wilde is one of them.
Of course for someone so perfect he would have to get involved in some nasty social business via his decade. But when you look back at Wilde, one realizes tha Reading an Oscar Wilde play is sort of like life being perfect.
But when you look back at Wilde, one realizes that he is someone from the 19th Century who is saying goodbye to the Victorian era and culture. It's like he couldn't wait to jump into the 20th Century. Which makes it sad that we didn't accept Wilde with our open arms. We killed the thing that was so beautiful and right. Wilde was born in and died in I was born in and was convinced I would be dead by the year - just because of Wilde. It's silly and egotistic on my part, yet it also shows how much I love Wilde.
View all 22 comments. We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars. And while all is resolved in a neat package by the end of Act IV, it is not as satisfying most of Wilde's work. Lady Windermere's Fan is a social comedy, as is most of Wilde's work. It looks at the social norms, expectations and mannerisms of the time.
And while it use We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars. And while it uses humor to criticize class situations, the humor is much more subtle than one would expect from Wilde. In his letters, Wilde claimed that he did not want the play to be viewed as "a mere question of pantomime and clowning"; he was interested in the piece as a psychological study. In this, Wilde has succeeded.
View all 6 comments. This is a brilliant play written by Oscar Wild. From the first dialogue, I knew I'm in for a treat. And yes indeed I was. There was so much in this play - humour, satire, witty dialogues, drama, excitement, sensitivity and a heartwarming story full of wisdom. All of these features were clustered into a Four-Act play.
If this is not brilliance, what is? Writing a short work is quite challenging. One has to balance the elements very carefully. And it is by no means an easy task. But Oscar Wild has had no difficulty in accomplishing this feat. Most of his works are short and they are nothing but great literary productions. I have not read many classical playwrights to draw comparisons. I've enjoyed their plays, it is true. But to me, Oscar Wild is one step ahead of them.
This is a very sensitive play. Under the humour and satire, there is depth and wisdom. The story takes us deep into Victorian marital relationships, the ideals surrounding them, the myths and the realities, and how susceptible they are. The story also brings to light the deception that is forced upon women with the full sanction of the society to enter into marriage, to make an advantageous match.
Underneath the fine layers, there is the hypocrisy of convention and etiquette of the upper class. There are also secrets, lies, and blackmail in abundance carried out shamelessly. With his ingenuity, Oscar Wild exposes all this ugliness in his play under the guise of satire. Even the upper-class theatergoers, could enjoy it and laugh at their own follies.
But what struck me most is the extent of a mother's love and sacrifice that she can make for her child which Oscar Wild has so sensitively portrayed. It was the ray of light that illumined the beautiful side of this dark and ugly picture. Sep 08, Melissa rated it really liked it Shelves: plays.
Wilde's wit never bores me, which is why he is one of my favorite authors. Below are a few quotations I particularly liked from Lady Windermere's fan: " One is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it. A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing. They always want one to be good. And if we are good, when they meet us, they Wilde's wit never bores me, which is why he is one of my favorite authors. They like to find us quite irretrievably bad, and to leave us quite unattractively good.
And besides, if a woman really repents, she has to go to a bad dressmaker, otherwise no one believes in her. And nothing in the world would induce me to do that. Realities are better. View 2 comments. May 19, Maria Espadinha rated it really liked it. Saviour Silences and Devastating Truths! People are either charming or tedious. I take the side of the charming Forget about Badness! Take the Charming Boat! All Aboard?! View all 7 comments. Dec 06, Elyse Walters rated it it was amazing.
Full cast Oscar Wilde play Erlynne hopes to win over a married aristocrat, Mr. Windermere Full cast Oscar Wilde play News of their flirting becomes a scandal.
She knew her husband was having an affair. This is a light-hearted, but complex play— romantic rendezvous Witty, clever, hilarious, evocative, and wonderful. As for the title of this play Other than to say I plan to watch it. Apr 04, Anne On semi-hiatus rated it really liked it Shelves: britain , classics , , audio , drama.
This is not my favorite Oscar Wilde play, but it doesn't have to be. Everything Oscar Wilde writes is brilliant and this play is no exception.
Wilde's works range from serious to comedic and this one has elements of both. Wilde is concerned in this play about the British obsession with keeping up appearances, with the expectations of one's social class, and the hypocrisy of double standards.
He uses his characters brilliantly to examine these themes. This play had me rapt with attention from be This is not my favorite Oscar Wilde play, but it doesn't have to be. This play had me rapt with attention from beginning to end, wondering about the meaning of the fan.
I'm not telling. You have to watch, listen to or read the play to find out. You won't be sorry. I listened to the audio recording with Juliet Stevenson. What a treat! Highly recommended. View all 32 comments. Oct 05, Sawsan rated it liked it. A combination of drama and humor as usual, Wilde criticizes appearances and social hypocrisy of the aristocratic society and the different view of actions of men and women and the most important point about the harsh judgments of people over others while it's so normal for the human nature to fluctuates between right and wrong this play was published at A combination of drama and humor as usual, Wilde criticizes appearances and social hypocrisy of the aristocratic society and the different view of actions of men and women and the most important point about the harsh judgments of people over others while it's so normal for the human nature to fluctuates between right and wrong this play was published at Aug 20, Nora Kovacs rated it it was amazing.
This is my favourite Oscar Wilde play. I loved this play even before I read it. The fantastic film adaptation, The Good Woman, has been one of my favourite movies. After reading the play, I can appreciate how perfect the casting is even more.
Helen Hunt as Mrs. There aren't many things in this world that I dislike more then verbal compliments. There are many ways to show appreciation, love or admiration and I think if the best you can do is utter a few meaningless words, you better just shut up.
Nov 20, Jasmine rated it really liked it Shelves: fiction , classics , victorian , in-english , plays , To shut one's eyes to half of life that one may live securely is as though one blinded oneself that one might walk with more safety in a land of pit and precipice. Oscar Wilde is my favorite author of all time, and this play in four acts is as delightful as I expected.
It is short, but packed with nuances and insight. It put a huge smile on my face, for hours. Apr 07, Loretta rated it really liked it Shelves: myreading-challenge , plays , classic , april Many Goodread members classify Lady Windermere's Fan as a comedy and although there are definitely some witty parts, you know the Oscar Wilde wit, but I found the play to be more of a drama. Slightly disappointed that I figured out who Mrs. Erlynne was before I got to the end and what part she really played.
Four stars. Feb 21, Fenia rated it it was amazing Shelves: favorite-classics. Oscar Wilde is a genius! This was so realistic, there was so much wisdom pouring out of it. It was entertaining and short, straight forward, full of cherished quotes. Loved it! Lady Windermere's Fan is classified as a Comedy of Manners, and while there are certainly humorous elements present in the usual clever Wilde manner, I would contend that there is more of drama here than comedy.
The story at the base of this play is quite serious. The subject of the ease with which a person particularly a woman could be ruined and expelled from society something that Wilde, even as a man, knew something of is a serious topic for Wilde. The instinctive love of a mother is a s Lady Windermere's Fan is classified as a Comedy of Manners, and while there are certainly humorous elements present in the usual clever Wilde manner, I would contend that there is more of drama here than comedy.
The instinctive love of a mother is a serious topic for me. As is so often Wilde's technique, there is much misunderstanding and confusion that leads characters to do foolish or socially dangerous things. Erlynne might be a bad woman, but she does a very good thing; Lady Windermere prides herself on being a good woman, but she does a very bad thing.
Perhaps the lines are not that clear or delineated. I particularly enjoy the progress that Lady Windermere makes in her thinking by the end of the play. I also enjoy the contrivance in which we, the audience, share in a secret that the Lady does not know. Plays are meant to be seen, not read.
I have never had the privilege of seeing this play produced, but in a movie was made based on this play entitled "A Good Woman" and starring Helen Hunt. If you have not seen it, it is worth seeking out. I think Oscar Wilde would be proud. View all 8 comments. Nov 23, Liam rated it really liked it Shelves: of-plays , on-gender , on-manhood. Video Review I grew up with a girl who wrote love letters to a prisoner during our teens, and during this period she told me on rough days that "We're all in the gutter but some of us are looking at the stars".
We drew a lot of optimism and strength from that quote. It stopped her dropping out of school, it stopped me dropping out of friendships. We knew Oscar Wilde wrote it, but we weren't sure where it came from. And then I just forgot about it, books took a backseat, growing up was hectic. More than a decade later, I'm considering quoting this in my PhD thesis. And so I looked it up and found it was in Lady Windermere's Fan.
Lady Windermere's Fan is a pretty fantastic and enjoyable play, as you'd imagine from Wilde. It is quite silly, but less so than most comedies, and is full of tension and painful dramatic irony. He called a character Dumby, so it's a light jest of a play. But the quote is so much different than I thought. It's not about optimism at all!
It's a response to a bunch of drunk men talking about what women want. He is declaring all men are immoral but love makes them long to be better. It isn't that women want a man to be bad and good, it's that a woman's love reforms a man.
The gutter is a moral one not a miserable one, and the star is a lover not happiness. Women don't want men to change, they don't need to. They know that a man that loves them will change for the better, and that most men are capable of changing for the better.
It's not one-sided, it's cooperation. Society keeps men down so that they can be raised, through love. And with this recognition, it has sexualized what was this innocently motivating aphorism I've had in my head for over a decade. I'm still processing it, I feel like I've been lied to by my own ignorance.
That's psychological development for you. Funny enough, to date, GoodReads users have liked this cherished quote, but only GoodReads users have rated this book with less than reviews total. This means that more than half of the people who like this quote have never actually read it in its very different context!
My sympathies in advance for those of you who reach the awareness that what you were hanging onto were misinterpretations, but it happens to us all at some point. But one thing that's obvious to me now, is that even if social justice didn't float your boat, there's a very good practical, self-centred reason for reading diversely. Oscar Wilde dissects problems with heterosexual relationships and marriage in a way heterosexual writers simply couldn't, even if censorship wasn't an issue, due to them being biased and part of the problem.
How many heterosexual men write about good women in a way that is believable and unbiased, and vice-versa? Is it impossible for men and women to be friends, as this play suggests? But our best hope and identifying and reforming bad elements like this will be be through the eyes of 'others'. We learn so much more from people different from us, that the differences themselves are never as important as the amount we can learn from working together.
And frankly, our diversity also extends to the realm of humour. Life is also just funnier reading diversely, because Oscar Wilde can make jokes no sane heterosexual would dare to, and it probably wouldn't be as funny even if they had the charisma for it.
So yes, this play is light, true, serious and fun. It's jokingly provocative. It's light satire that calls for decency. That's more than a play needs to be, really. Jul 30, Duane rated it really liked it Shelves: book-challenge , english-calssics , rated-books , plays-theater , reviewed-books. I think these classic plays are better enjoyed on stage than by reading.
That seems so obvious that it seems silly to say. But the problem for most of us is, we haven't seen them on stage and probably won't. There is enough going on in this play though to make it a fun read. I use the word fun rather loosely because, even though it is a comedy, it doesn't seem like one to me. Maybe that is one of the things lost in reading versus watching, I don't know.
I think it's a subtle style of humor that I think these classic plays are better enjoyed on stage than by reading. It felt more like a drama to me. But it has stood the test of time, performed first in London in , and throughout the world during the 20th century, with a major production as late as at the Harmen Center in Washington D. Beyond the appreciation level, my meager vocabulary could ever achieve! Jun 30, Vanessa J.
Well, it seems that my liking of Wilde's works follows a graphic like this one: I am not kidding you. Every time I read another play, I think it's better than the one I read before.
Perhaps I'm reading them in some particular order unknown to me, or my opinion is starting to get biased. In any case, I enjoyed this immensely. This one involves more drama and problems than the plays I read previous to this one.
It has a jealous wife, there's blackmailing, there are some misunderstood things that lea Well, it seems that my liking of Wilde's works follows a graphic like this one: I am not kidding you. It has a jealous wife, there's blackmailing, there are some misunderstood things that lead to more problems, etc. In short, it was brilliant. My favourite of these plays keeps being The Importance of Being Earnest , even when I said my enjoyment for them has been growing exponentially.
In the end, I recommend this wholeheartedly. It's really funny, cynical, satirical and easy to read. There's none of that complex or dense writing that characterizes many Victorian works. Plus, it's written by the one and only Oscar Wilde. Need I say more?
They're the only things we can pay.
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