Episode 252: “An Ideal Husband” by Oscar Wilde, Intro and Act 1

Welcome back to The Literary Life Podcast and a new series on Oscar Wilde’s play An Ideal Husband. This week hosts Angelina Stanford and Thomas Banks will give an introduction to Oscar Wilde and the time period in which he wrote this play, then discuss Act 1. They discuss the cultural pendulum swing that happened in the Late Victorian period into the Edwardian era, as well as the Aesthetic Movement as it relates to literary development. As they begin the discussion of this play itself, they talk about how Wilde wrote his plays not just for the stage but also to be read. Thomas and Angelina talk a little about each character who is introduced in this first act and make some notes about the elements also found in Greek plays.

This is the time to purchase any of the pre-recorded classes you’ve had your eye on at HouseofHumaneLetters.com because the Christmas sale is on now through December 31, 2024. For those who want a way to keep track of their HHL webinars, conferences, and mini-classes, here is a handy spreadsheet to help you out! Just copy the document into your own files, and you can edit it as you please!

Episodes Mentioned:

Hard Times by Charles Dickens (Episodes 139-144)

The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde (Episodes 36-43)

Agnes Grey by Charlotte Bronte (Episodes 224-227)

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Commonplace Quotes:

I believe that Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare. It is as silly to imagine that Francis Bacon or Edward de Vere wrote Shakespeare’s plays as to try to prove that Rod Serling’s “The Twilight Zone” teleplays were really written by J. Edgar Hoover.

Br. Daniel Heisey, O. S. B.

According to this tradition, man and world were made for one another. We belong to it, as much as it belongs to us. The natural world is a great book of “symbols,” that is, natural phenomena that–somehow, someway–resonate and awaken some inner part within us. When we look at the moon over the sea–or a waterfall or cliff or a skylark or nightingale–we sense a corresponding quality within. The world is like a tuning fork, which, brought near to a second tuning fork–in this case, our hearts–causes the latter to vibrate as well. Inspired by what we see, we reach down in the inner depth, and if we are able, we pull out words or images or chords and scales for what we find, words or pictures or sounds we did not previously know we had. In this way, the natural symbol draws out something that had been “deeper down” and hidden within.

Dr. Jason Baxter, from Why Literature Still Matters

The Thought

by Humbert Wolfe

I will not write a poem for you,
because a poem, even the loveliest,
can only do what words can do -
stir the air, and dwindle, and be at rest.

Nor will I hold you with my hands, because
the bones of my hands on yours would press,
and you'd say after, "Mortal was,
and crumbling, that lover's tenderness."

But I will hold you in a thought without moving
spirit or desire or will
for I know no other way of loving,
that endures when the heart is still.

Book List:

An Ideal Husband by Oscar Wilde

Tess of the D’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy

The Temptation of St. Anthony by Gustave Flaubert

Against the Grain by Joris Karl-Huysmans

The Mind of the Maker by Dorothy L. Sayers

Marius the Epicurean by Walter Pater

The Renaissance by Water Pater

Salome by Oscar Wilde

George Moore

John Ruskin

W. B. Yeats

Bram Stoker

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