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| الكليات الأدبية والتربوية كلية الآثار_ السياسة الاقتصاد _ الآلسن واللغات _ كليات التربية |
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#16
08-01-2011, 12:40 PM
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the importance of being earnest
The Importance of Being Earnest: A Trivial Comedy for Serious People is a play by Oscar Wilde. First performed on 14 February 1895 at St. James's Theatre in London, the play is a farcical comedy in which the protagonists maintain fictitious personas in order to escape burdensome obligations. Working within the social conventions of late Victorian London, the play's major themes are the triviality with which it treats institutions as serious as marriage, and the resulting satire of Victorian ways. Contemporary reviews all praised the play's humour, though some were cautious about its explicit lack of social messages, while others foresaw the modern consensus that it was the culmination of Wilde's artistic career so far. Its high farce and witty dialogue have helped make The Importance of Being Earnest Wilde's most enduringly popular play. The successful opening night marked the climax of Wilde's career but also heralded his downfall. The Marquess of Queensberry, father of Lord Alfred Douglas, an intimate friend of Wilde, planned to present Wilde a bouquet of spoiling vegetables and disrupt the show. Wilde was tipped off and Queensberry was refused admission. Soon afterwards the feud came to a climax in court, and Wilde's new notoriety caused the play, despite its success, to be closed after just 86 performances. After imprisonment, he published the play from Paris but wrote no further comic or dramatic work. The Importance of Being Earnest has been revived many times since its premiere and adapted for the cinema on three occasions, in 1952, 1992 and 2002. Contents [hide]
 Oscar Wilde in 1889 After the success of Wilde's plays Lady Windermere's Fan and A Woman of No Importance, Wilde's producers urged him to write further plays. In July 1894 he mooted his idea for The Importance of Being Earnest to Sir George Alexander, the actor-manager of St. James's Theatre. Wilde summered with his family at Worthing, where he wrote the play quickly in August.[1] Many names and ideas in the play were borrowed from people or places the author had known: Lady Queensberry, Lord Alfred Douglas' mother, for example, lived at Bracknell.[2][Notes 1] Michael Feingold, an American critic, claims that Wilde drew inspiration for his plot from W. S. Gilbert's Engaged.[3] Meticulous revisions continued throughout the Autumn—such that no line was left untouched, "in a play so economical with its language and effects, they had serious consequences".[4] Richard Ellmann argues that Wilde had reached his artistic maturity and wrote this work more surely and rapidly than before.[5] Wilde hesitated about submitting the script to Alexander, worrying that it might be unsuitable for the St. James's Theatre, whose typical repertoire was relatively serious, and explaining that it had been written in response to a request for a play "with no real serious interest".[6] When Henry James's Guy Domville failed, Alexander turned to Wilde and agreed to put on his play.[4] Alexander began his usual meticulous preparations, interrogating the author on each line and planning stage movements with a toy theatre. In the course of these rehearsals Alexander asked Wilde to shorten the play from four acts to three. Wilde agreed and combined elements of the second and third acts.[7] The largest cut was the removal of the character of Mr. Gribsby, a solicitor who comes from London to arrest the profligate "Ernest" (i.e. Jack) for his unpaid dining bills. Algernon, who is posing as "Ernest", will be led away to Holloway Jail unless he settles his accounts immediately. Jack finally agrees to pay for Ernest, everyone thinking that it is Algernon's bill when in fact it is his own.[8] The four-act version was first played on the radio in a BBC production and is still sometimes performed. [edit] Plot synopsis Set in "The Present" (1895) in London, the play opens with Algernon Moncrieff, an idle young gentleman, receiving his best friend, whom he knows as Ernest Worthing. Ernest has come from the country to propose to Algernon's cousin, Gwendolen. Algernon, however, refuses his consent until Ernest explains why his cigarette case bears the inscription, "From little Cecily, with her fondest love to her dear Uncle Jack." "Ernest" is forced to admit to living a double life. In the country, he assumes a serious attitude for the benefit of his young ward, Cecily, and goes by the name of John (or Jack), while pretending that he must worry about a wastrel younger brother named Ernest in London. In the city, meanwhile, he assumes the identity of the libertine Ernest. Algernon confesses a similar deception: he pretends to have an invalid friend named Bunbury in the country, whom he can "visit" whenever he wishes to avoid an unwelcome social obligation. Gwendolen and her formidable mother Lady Bracknell then call on Algernon. As he distracts Lady Bracknell in another room, Jack proposes to Gwendolen. She accepts, but seems to love him very largely for his professed name of Ernest; Jack resolves to himself to be rechristened "Ernest". Lady Bracknell discovers them and interrogates Jack as a prospective suitor. Horrified that he was adopted after being discovered as a baby in a handbag at Victoria Station, she refuses him and forbids further contact. Gwendolen, however, manages covertly to swear her undying love. As Jack gives her his address in the country, Algernon notes it on the cuff of his sleeve; Jack's revelation of his pretty young ward has motivated Algernon to meet her. Act II moves to Jack's country house, the Manor House in Woolton, Hertfordshire, where Cecily is found studying with her governess, Miss Prism. Algernon arrives announcing himself as Ernest Worthing and soon charms Cecily. She loves him, though, in his capacity as Uncle Jack's black sheep younger brother, so Algernon plans for the rector, Dr. Chasuble, to christen him as Ernest. Jack, meanwhile, has decided to put his double life behind him. He arrives in full mourning and announces Ernest's death in Paris of a severe chill, a story undermined by Algernon's presence in the guise of Ernest. When Gwendolen now arrives, having run away from home, she meets Cecily in the temporary absence of the two men, and each indignantly declares that she is the one engaged to "Ernest". When Jack and Algernon reappear, their deceptions are exposed, but they wheedle their way back into the ladies' favour. Act III moves inside to the drawing room. Lady Bracknell arrives in pursuit of her daughter and is surprised to be told that Algernon and Cecily are engaged. The size of Cecily's trust fund soon dispels her initial doubts over Cecily's suitability as a wife for her nephew. However, stalemate develops when Jack refuses his consent to the marriage of his ward to Algernon until Lady Bracknell consents to his own union with Gwendolen. The impasse is broken by the return of Miss Prism. Lady Bracknell recognises the governess: twenty-eight years earlier, as a family nursemaid, she took a baby boy for a walk in a perambulator and never returned. Miss Prism explains that she had abstractedly put the manuscript of a novel she was writing in the perambulator, and the baby in a handbag, which she had left at Victoria Station. Jack produces the very same handbag, showing that he is the lost baby, the elder son of Lady Bracknell's late sister, and thus indeed Algernon's older brother – and suddenly eligible as a suitor for Gwendolen (despite the fact that he and Gwendolen are apparently cousins). Only one obstacle now remains to the young people's happiness. Gwendolen remains firm that she can only love a man named Ernest. What is her fiancé's real first name? Lady Bracknell informs Jack that, as the firstborn, he would have been named after his father, General Moncrieff. Jack examines army lists and discovers that his father's name – and hence his own real name – was in fact Ernest all along. As the happy couples embrace – Ernest and Gwendolen, Algernon and Cecily, and Dr. Chasuble and Miss Prism – Lady Bracknell complains to her new-found relative: "My nephew, you seem to be displaying signs of triviality." "On the contrary, Aunt Augusta", he replies, "I've now realised for the first time in my life the vital Importance of Being Earnest".[edit] Productions [edit] Premiere The play was first produced in St. James's Theatre, London, on St. Valentine's Day 1895.[9] It was freezing cold but Wilde arrived dressed in "florid sobriety", wearing a green carnation.[10] The audience, according to one report, "included many members of the great and good, former cabinet ministers and privy councillors, as well as actors, writers, academics, and enthuasists".[11] Allan Aynesworth, who played Mr Algernon Moncrieff, recalled to Hesketh Pearson that "In my fifty-three years of acting, I never remember a greater triumph than [that] first night."[12] Aynesworth was himself "debonair and stylish", and Alexander, who played Mr. Jack Worthing, "demure".[13] The cast was:
[edit] Revivals Until after Wilde's death his name remained disgraced and few discussed, let alone performed, his work. A collected edition of Wilde's works, published in 1908 and edited by Robert Ross, helped to restore his reputation. In 1912 The Importance of Being Earnest was first revived, and its respectability was assured in 1946 when a charity performance was attended by King George VI.[15] As Wilde's work came to be read and performed again, it was The Importance of Being Earnest which saw the most productions.[16] John Gielgud was possibly the most famous Jack Worthing of the twentieth century, and his 1939 production was seen as a turning point in modern stagings: it quickly served as a model for later performances. Gielgud also directed, produced and acted in the 1948 Broadway production whose cast won a special Tony Award for "Outstanding Foreign Company".[17] The play has been performed at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival five times beginning in 1975 with William Hutt playing "Lady Bracknell" in both the 1975 and 1976 productions. The 2009 production was directed by Brian Bedford.[18] In 2005, the Abbey Theatre produced the play with an all male cast; it also featured Wilde as a character – the play opens with him drinking in a Parisian café, dreaming of his play.[19][20] Lady Bracknell's line, "A handbag?", has been called one of the most malleable in English drama, lending itself to interpretations ranging from incredulous or scandalised to baffled. Dame Edith Evans, both on stage and in the 1952 film, delivered the line loudly in a mixture of horror, incredulity and condescension.[21] Stockard Channing, in the Gaiety Theatre, Dublin in 2010, hushed the line, in a critic's words, "with a barely audible “A handbag?”, rapidly swallowed up with a sharp intake of breath. An understated take, to be sure, but with such a well-known play, packed full of witticisms and aphorisms with a life of their own, it's the little things that make a difference."[22] [edit] Critical reception In contrast to much theatre of the time, The Importance of Being Earnest's light plot does not tackle serious social and political issues, something contemporary reviewers were wary of. Though unsure of Wilde's seriousness as a dramatist, they recognised the play's cleverness, humour and popularity with audiences.[23] George Bernard Shaw, for example, reviewed the play in the Saturday Review, arguing that comedy should touch as well as amuse, "I go to the theatre to be moved to laughter".[24] Later in a letter he said, the play, though "extremely funny" was Wilde's "first really heartless [one]".[25] In The World, William Archer wrote that he had enjoyed watching the play but found it to be empty of meaning, "What can a poor critic do with a play which raises no principle, whether of art or morals, creates its own canons and conventions, and is nothing but an absolutely wilful expression of an irrepressibly witty personality?"[26] In The Speaker, A.B. Walkey admired the play and was one of few see it as the culmination of Wilde's dramatical career. He denied the term "farce" was derogatory, or even lacking in seriousness, and said "It is of nonsense all compact, and better nonsense, I think, our stage has not seen".[27] H.G. Wells, in an unsigned review for the Pall Mall Gazette, called Earnest one of freshest comedies of the year, saying "More humorous dealing with theatrical conventions it would be difficult to imagine."[28] He also questioned whether people would fully see its message, "..how Serious People will take this Trivial Comedy intended for their learning remains to be seen. No doubt seriously."[29] The play was so light-hearted that many reviewers compared it to comic opera rather than drama. W.H.Auden called it "a pure verbal opera", while The Times wrote that "The story is almost too preposterous to go without music".[13] Of the theatre of the period, only the work of Wilde and his fellow Irishman Shaw has survived, as well as the farce Charley's Aunt. The Importance of Being Earnest is Wilde's most popular work and continually revived today.[6] [edit] Themes [edit] Triviality Richard Ellmann says that The Importance of Being Earnest touched on many themes Wilde had been building since the 1880s – the languor of aesthetic poses was well-established and Wilde takes it as a starting point for the two protagonists.[30] While Salomé, An Ideal Husband and The Picture of Dorian Gray had dwelt on more serious wrongdoing, vice in Earnest is represented by Algy's craving for cucumber sandwiches. Wilde told Robert Ross that the play's theme was "That we should treat all trivial things in life very seriously, and all serious things of life with a sincere and studied triviality."[30] The theme is hinted at in the play's ironic title, and "earnestness" is repeatedly alluded to in the dialogue, Algernon says in Act II, "one has to be serious about something if one is to have any amusement in life' but goes on to reproach Jack for 'being serious about everything'".[31] Blackmail and corruption had haunted the double lives of Dorian Gray and Sir Robert Chiltern (in An Ideal Husband), but in Earnest the protagonists' duplicity ("bunburying") is merely to avoid unwelcome social obligations.[30] While much theatre of the time tackled serious social and political issues, The Importance of..is superficially about nothing at all. It "refuses to play the game" of other dramatists of the period, for instance George Bernard Shaw, who used their characters to draw audiences to grander ideals.[23] [edit] As a satire of society The play repeatedly mocks Victorian mores and social customs, marriage and the pursuit of love in particular.[32] In Victorian times earnestness was considered to be the over-riding societal value, originating in religious attempts to reform the lower classes, it spread to the upper ones too throughout the century.[33] The play's very title, with its mocking paradox (serious people are so because they do not see trivial comedies) introduces the theme, it continues in the drawing room discussion, "Yes, but you must be serious about it. I hate people who are not serious about meals. It is so shallow of them" says Algernon in Act 1; allusions are quick and from multiple angles.[34] Wilde embodied society's rules and rituals artfully into Lady Bracknell: minute attention to the details of her style created a comic effect of assertion by restraint.[35] In contrast to her encyclopaedic knowledge of the social distinctions of London's street names, Jack's obscure parentage is subtly evoked. He defends himself against her "A handbag?" with the clarification, "The Brighton Line". At the time, Victoria Station consisted of two separate but adjacent terminal stations sharing the same name. To the east was the ramshackle LC&D Railway, on the west the up-market LB&SCR—the Brighton Line, which went to Worthing, the fashionable, expensive town the gentleman who found baby Jack was travelling to at the time (and after which Jack was named).[36] Wilde managed both to engage with and to mock the genre. The men follow traditional matrimonial rites, but the foibles they excuse are ridiculous, and the farce is built on an absurd confusion of a book and a baby.[37] In turn, both Gwendolen and Cecily have the ideal of marrying a man named Ernest, a popular and respected name at the time, and they indignantly declare that they have been deceived when they find out the men's real names. When Jack apologises to Gwendolen during his marriage proposal it is for not being wicked:[38] JACK: Gwendolen, it is a terrible thing for a man to find out suddenly that all his life he has been speaking nothing but the truth. Can you forgive me?[edit] Homo***ual subtexts The name Ernest, it has been posited, might also have an ulterior meaning. John Gambril Nicholson wrote in 1892, "Though Frank may ring like silver bell, And Cecil softer music claim, They cannot work the miracle, –'Tis Ernest sets my heart a-flame."[39] Theo Aronson has suggested that the word "earnest" became a code-word for homo***ual, as in: "Is he earnest?", in the same way that "Is he so?" and "Is he musical?" were also employed.[40] Contrary to claims of homo***ual terminology, Sir Donald Sinden, an actor who met two of the play's original cast (Irene Vanbrugh, Gwendolen and Allan Aynesworth, Algernon), and Lord Alfred Douglas, wrote to The Times to dispute suggestions that 'Earnest' held any ***ual connotations: "Although they had ample opportunity, at no time did any of them even hint that "Earnest" was a synonym for homo***ual, or that "bunburying" may have implied homo***ual ***. The first time I heard it mentioned was in the 1980s and I immediately consulted Sir John Gielgud whose own performance of Jack Worthing in the same play was legendary and whose knowledge of theatrical lore was encyclopaedic. He replied in his ringing tones: "No-No! Nonsense, absolute nonsense: I would have known" (it is relevant that Gielgud was well-known in theatrical circles to be gay).[41] Russell Jackson agrees, noting that "nothing of the overtly Dorian mode is to be found in the finished play or its drafts."[42] Instead, Wilde may have transposed his apprehension into Lord Chiltern's (non-***ual) blackmailing situation in his darker and political play, An Ideal Husband. By contrast, the humour and transformation in The Importance of Being Earnest is much lighter in tone, though Algernon's protest at his putative arrest, "Well I really am not going to be imprisoned in the suburbs for dining in the west-end!" ironically foreshadows Wilde's incarceration a few months later.[43] 
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#17
08-01-2011, 12:42 PM
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She Stoops to Conquer
She Stoops to Conquer is a comedy by the Irish author Oliver Goldsmith, son of an Anglo-Irish vicar, first performed in London in 1773. The play is a great favourite for study by English literature and theatre classes in Britain and the United States. It is one of the few plays from the 18th century to have an enduring appeal, and is still regularly performed today. It has been adapted into a film several times, including in 1914 and 1923. Initially the play was titled Mistakes of a Night, and indeed, the events within the play happen during the very limited time frame of one night. In 1778 John O'Keeffe wrote a loose sequel Tony Lumpkin in Town.
Contents [hide]
One of the sub-plots to this is a comic misunderstanding between Hastings, Marlow and Mr. Hardcastle. Before his acquaintance with Kate, Marlow sets out for the Hardcastles' manor with his friend George Hastings, himself an admirer of Miss Constance Neville, another young lady who lives with the Hardcastles. During the journey, the two men become lost and stop off at The Three Pigeons pub for directions. Tony Lumpkin (the son of Mrs. Hardcastle and who will acquire a fortune when becoming of "age"), encounters the two strangers at the alehouse, and realizing their identities, plays a practical joke by telling them that they are a long way from their destination and will have to stay overnight at an inn. He furthers the joke by telling the twosome the Hardcastles' old house is the inn, thus the pair arrive and treat it as such, and also treat Hardcastle as the mere inn keeper. This leads to Hardcastle becoming both enraged and convinced that Marlow is inappropriate for his beloved Kate; he changes his mind when realizing the truth behind Marlow’s behavior. Another sub-plot is that of the secret affair between Miss Neville and Hastings. Neville desperately wants her jewels that were left for her, and that are guarded by her aunt and Tony's mother, Mrs. Hardcastle; the latter wants Neville to marry her son to keep the jewels in the family. Tony despises Constance (Miss Neville), and thus agrees to steal his mother's jewels for Miss Neville, so she will then flee to France with Hastings. The play concludes with Kate's plan succeeding, thus she and Marlow become engaged. Tony discovers he is of "age", despite his mother not telling him so, thus he receives the money he is entitled to. He refuses to marry Neville, who then is eligible to receive her jewels and to get engaged to Hastings; this she does.[1] [edit] Productions The original production opened in London at Covent Garden Theatre on 15 March 1773 and was an immediate success.[2] Lionel Brough is supposed to have played Tony Lumpkin 777 times. In 1881, Lillie Langtry had her first big success in the work. "She Stoops to Conquer" was recently (Summer 2008) performed by the Oxford University Dramatic Society. The show toured around the country, finishing with a run at the Edinburgh Festival, and finished on the 17th of August 2008. Perhaps one of the most famous incarnations of "She Stoops to Conquer" was Peter Hall's version, staged in 1993 and starring Miriam Margolyes as Mrs. Hardcastle - another is the 1971 BBC version featuring Ralph Richardson, Tom Courtenay, Juliet Mills and Brian Cox, with Trevor Peacock as Tony Lumpkin - this version sits in the BBC archive and deserves a long awaited repeat showing on TV - it was shot on location near Ross-on-Wye, Herefordshire, and is not just a filmed version of the stage play. In December 2008 an edited version of the musical (The Kissing Dance, edited by Howard Goodall) will be performed at Queen's College, Taunton. [edit] Type of Comedy The type of comedy She Stoops to Conquer is has been much disputed. However there is a consensus amongst audiences and critics that the play is a comedy of manners (see below for details). It can also be seen as one of the following comedy types: [edit] A Laughing Comedy or Sentimental Comedy When the play was first produced, it was discussed as an example of the revival of laughing comedy over the sentimental comedy seen as dominant on the English stage since the success of The Conscious Lovers, written by Sir Richard Steele in 1722. In the same year, an essay in a London magazine, entitled "An Essay On The Theatre; Or, A Comparison Between Laughing And Sentimental Comedy", suggested that sentimental comedy, a false form of comedy, had taken over the boards from the older and more truly comic laughing comedy. Some theatre historians believe that the essay was written by Goldsmith as a puff piece for She Stoops to Conquer, as an exemplar of the laughing comedy Goldsmith (perhaps) had touted. Goldsmith's name was linked with that of Richard Brinsley Sheridan, author of The Rivals and The School for Scandal, as standard-bearers for the resurgent laughing comedy. [edit] A Comedy of Manners The play can also be seen as a comedy of manners, where, set in a polite society, the comedy arises from the gap between the characters' attempts to preserve standards of polite behaviour, that contrasts to their true behaviour. [edit] A Romantic Comedy It also seen by some critics as a romantic comedy, which depicts how seriously young people take love, and how foolishly it makes them behave (similar to Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream); in She Stoops to Conquer, Kate’s stooping and Marlow’s nervousness are good examples of romantic comedy. [edit] A Satire Alternatively, it can be seen as a satire, where characters are presented as either ludicrous or eccentric. Such a comedy might leave the impression that the characters are either too foolish or corrupt to ever reform, hence Mrs Hardcastle. [edit] A Farce or a Comedy of Errors The play is sometimes described as a farce and a comedy of errors, because it is based on multiple misunderstandings, hence Marlow and Hastings believing the Hardcastles' house is an inn. [edit] Title The title refers to Kate's ruse of pretending to be a barmaid to reach her goal. It originates in the poetry of Dryden, which Goldsmith may have seen misquoted by Lord Chesterfield. In Chesterfield's version, the lines in question read: "The prostrate lover, when he lowest lies, But stoops to conquer, and but kneels to rise." it is the first class comedy [edit] Characters
The Unity of Action - This is the one Unity that Goldsmith does not rigorously follow; there is the inclusion of the Constance-Hastings eloping sub-plot that distracts from the main narrative of the play. However, it shares similar themes of relationships and what makes the best ones (mutual attraction or the arrangement of a parent or guardian). Furthermore, the sub-plot is inter-weaving with the main plot, for example, when Hastings and Marlow confront Tony regarding his mischief making. The Unity of Time - The alternative title of Mistakes of the Night illustrates that the Unity of Time is carefully observed. With all of the events occurring in a single night, the plot becomes far more stimulating as well as more plausibility being lent to the series of unlucky coincidences that conspire against the visitors. The Unity of Place - Whilst some may question whether She Stoops to Conquer contains the Unity of Place — after all, the scene at the "The Three Pigeons" is set apart from the house — but the similarity between the alehouse and the "old rumbling mansion, that looks all the world like an inn" is one of close resemblance; enough that in past performances, the scenes have often doubled up the use of the same set back drop. Also, there is some debate as to whether the excursion to "*****skull common" counts as a separate setting, but since the truth is that the travellers do not leave the mansion gardens, the Unity of Place is not violated.
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#18
09-01-2011, 07:27 PM
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يا افاضل لو سمحتم اى ملخص او مراجع لاولى تربية انجلش الامتحان خلاص ياريت لو phonetics او دراما وتاريخ اللغة بليز بسرعة
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