Oscar Wilde's Contribution to the Comedy of Manners

The present study attempts to trace the growth and the development of the comedy of manners through its various phases, up to about 1900. It will especially endeavor to bring together findings concerning the contributions of Oscar Wilde to this type of drama; an incidental problem is to find a link that connects the Victorian period, barren in dramatic expression, to the drama of the gay nineties, a period of revived comedy. |The desirability of this investigation is assured by the fact that the comedy of manners is a type of drama what exhibits characters temporarily involved in humorous or semihumorous complications and misadventure, who eventually solve their difficulties by the application genial good sense. The true mood of according to The Anatomy of Literature, is one of amused tolerance for human fallibilities and amiable enjoyment of life's diverting complexities. It casts light upon human character, illuminates life with its flashes of universal truth. It had definite cultural effects on the life of the people of England at the time covered by this present study. |In keeping with its prevailing spirit comedy substitutes for strong emotional excitement a pleasurable sense of amusement and well-being or graceful sentiment. Its proper concerns are humor, wit, and satire. Pure comedy, for instance, of the type of Twelfth Night, is so called because of its perfect incorporation of the pure spirit of comedy and its lack of any discordant, serious or satirical element. Similarly “romantic comedy”, such as is found in As You Like It, exemplifies the pure comic spirit but adds the glamour of romance to set a pleasant emotional keynote for the play. Of that comedy which introduces satire, the most familiar type, according to Walley and Wilson, is the comedy of manners. This type of literature will be discussed in the second chapter.