Episode 253: "An Ideal Husband" by Oscar Wilde, Acts 2 & 3

Summary

The Literary Life Podcast – Episode 253: "An Ideal Husband" by Oscar Wilde, Acts 2 & 3

Release Date: December 3, 2024

---

Introduction

In Episode 253 of The Literary Life Podcast, hosts Angelina Stanford and Thomas Banks delve into Oscar Wilde's classic play, An Ideal Husband, specifically focusing on Acts 2 and 3. Joined by lifelong reader Cindy Rollins, the trio engages in an insightful conversation that explores the intricacies of Wilde's satire, the play's reflection on Victorian society, and its enduring relevance today.

---

Defining Literary Terms: Comedy of Manners and Satire

Comedy of Manners Explained

At the outset, Angelina and Thomas clarify key literary concepts to provide listeners with a foundational understanding:

• Comedy of Manners: A subgenre of comedy that satirizes the behaviors, customs, and social mores of a specific class, typically the upper class. This genre emphasizes witty dialogue and the absurdities of societal norms.

  Thomas Banks [17:16]: "Comedy of manners... has distinctly recognizable social types, usually of the upper class, upper middle class or aristocracy, who are presented as, you know, kind of laughable caricatures."

Satire Distinction

They further distinguish between two types of satire:

• Horatian Satire: Light, playful satire aimed at gentle mockery, often used within a community to highlight shared follies without causing offense.

  Angelina Stanford [28:14]: "The Babylon bees are a great example of that. So it's kind of like we're making fun of ourselves."

• Juvenalian Satire: Harsh, biting satire that criticizes and ridicules societal vices more aggressively.

  Thomas Banks [30:07]: "Jonathan Swift and the person he influenced the most, George Orwell... almost always a comedy of manners is a form of satire."

---

Oscar Wilde's Satirical Genius in An Ideal Husband

Light Satire and Social Hypocrisy

An Ideal Husband embodies Horatian satire, using wit and humor to critique the hypocrisy prevalent among the Victorian elite. The play scrutinizes the facade of moral uprightness maintained by its characters, revealing the underlying flaws and secrets that contradict their public personas.

Notable Quotes:

• Angelina Stanford [09:19]: "We have been conditioned to think of any technological advance as an unambiguous improvement for our lives..."

• Thomas Banks [46:29]: "I find that all just very overwhelming, way too much."

Themes Explored:

1. Hypocrisy of the Upper Class: The characters display a veneer of respectability while concealing personal scandals, highlighting the duplicity within societal elites.

   Angelina Stanford [49:20]: "The heart of the satire that I'm seeing here is the idea of wealth and power and ambition and hypocrisy amongst the wealthy, powerful class."

2. Ambition as a Vice: The podcast hosts discuss the portrayal of ambition in the play as an unscrupulous trait, contrasting it with modern perceptions of ambition as a positive force.

   Angelina Stanford [60:14]: "Ambition has always been a vice. It is always negative."

3. Public Image vs. Private Reality: Characters grapple with maintaining their ideal images in public while managing private indiscretions.

   Thomas Banks [65:05]: "He has just tumbled from my pedestal."

---

Character Analysis and Interactions

Lord Robert Chiltern

Lord Chiltern embodies the conflict between public virtue and private vice. Despite his outward appearance as an ideal husband and politician, his actions reveal underlying moral compromises.

• Confession Scene [54:04]: Lord Chiltern discusses his moment of temptation, likening his pursuit of power to Faustian bargains.

  Angelina Stanford [54:04]:

  "With a strange smile on his pale, curved lips, he led me through his wonderful picture gallery... power over other men, power over the world, was the one thing worth having."
  

Lady Chiltern

Lady Chiltern represents the ideal Victorian woman, upholding societal values while grappling with her husband's fall from grace.

• Confrontation Scene [65:04]: Lady Chiltern confronts Lord Chiltern about his secrets, emphasizing her disillusionment.

  Angelina Stanford [65:04]:

  "Memories of words that made me love you... you were to me something apart from common life."
  

Mrs. Cheveley

Mrs. Cheveley serves as the antagonist whose manipulative schemes expose the vulnerabilities of the so-called ideal men in the play.

• Blackmail Attempt [74:45]: She attempts to force Lord Goring into marriage through blackmail, showcasing her ruthlessness.

  Thomas Banks [74:48]:

  "Goring says, no, I'm not going to marry you. You're going to hand over this letter to me."
  

---

Modern Relevance and Social Commentary

Media and Scandal

The hosts draw parallels between Wilde's depiction of scandal and modern-day media sensationalism. They discuss how public figures navigate scandals and the role of media in shaping public perception.

• Angelina Stanford [50:21]:

  "...the public handles a scandal, that the public will not handle it. If you say you did nothing wrong, but you come out and cry and say please forgive me..."
  

Gender Roles and Feminism

The conversation touches on the evolving roles of women during the Victorian era, connecting them to contemporary discussions about feminism and societal expectations.

• Angelina Stanford [44:03]:

  "Leisure activities... a generation before might not have been considered... a proper activity."
  

Ambition and Aspiration

The debate over the nature of ambition—its historical perception as a vice versus its modern reinterpretation as a neutral or even positive trait—is a focal point of the discussion.

• Thomas Banks [60:13]:

  "Ambition... represents a failure of character."
  

• Angelina Stanford [62:01]:

  "Ambition is always negative... it's always unscrupulous."
  

---

Key Takeaways and Conclusions

1. Wilde's Satirical Mastery: An Ideal Husband remains a timeless critique of societal hypocrisy, using humor and wit to reveal the contradictions within the upper echelons of Victorian society.

2. Enduring Themes: The play's exploration of ambition, public image, and private morality continues to resonate, reflecting contemporary issues in politics and media.

3. Literary Techniques: Wilde's use of the comedy of manners effectively satirizes social norms, making the play both entertaining and thought-provoking.

4. Modern Implications: The podcast underscores the relevance of studying classic literature to understand and critique ongoing societal dynamics.

---

Notable Quotes with Timestamps

• Angelina Stanford [00:18]:

  "To be enchanted by story is to be granted a deeper insight into reality."
  

• Thomas Banks [06:34]:

  "One of the greatest Juvenilian satirists in the English language are Jonathan Swift and George Orwell."
  

• Angelina Stanford [54:04]:

  "Power over other men, power over the world, was the one thing worth having."
  

• Thomas Banks [74:48]:

  "She is literally a thief."
  

• Angelina Stanford [75:05]:

  "Now, by the time we get to Act 3, he's backtracking on some of that stuff. Ambition is nothing. Love is everything."
  

• Thomas Banks [77:09]:

  "Have you read the Picture of Dorian Gray?"
  

---

Looking Ahead

In this episode's conclusion, Angelina hints at upcoming content, including a 2025 preview and discussions on film adaptations of An Ideal Husband. She also promotes their newly launched publishing arm, Cassiodorus Press, and encourages listeners to explore their Christmas sale at HouseOfHumaneLetters.com.

Closing Remarks:

Angelina and Thomas reiterate the importance of literary exploration and invite listeners to support the podcast through Patreon, emphasizing their commitment to maintaining an advertisement-free platform.

---

Resources and Additional Information

• Pre-order Dr. Jason Baxter's Book: cassiodoruspress.com
• Christmas Sale and Webinars: HouseOfHumaneLetters.com
• Patreon Support: patreon.com/theliterarylife
• Join the Discussion:
  • Facebook Group
  • Member-Only Patreon Forum

---

Final Poem: "Piano" by D.H. Lawrence

Thomas Banks concludes the episode with a poignant reading:

Softly in the dusk a woman is singing to me,
Taking me back down the vista of years
Till I see a child sitting under the piano
In the boom of the tinkling strings
And pressing the small poised feet of a mother
Who smiles as she sings in spite of myself
The insidious mastery of song betrays me
Back till the heart of me weeps
To belong to the old Sunday evenings at home
With winter outside and hymns in the cozy parlor,
The tinkling piano our guide.
So now it is vain for the singer to burst into clamor
With the great black piano. Appassion.
The glamour of childish days is upon me.
My manhood is cast down
In the flood of remembrance.
I weep like a child for the past.

—D.H. Lawrence

---

Stay tuned for the next episode as Angelina and Thomas continue their exploration of An Ideal Husband, examining its film adaptations and offering insights into its lasting impact on literature and society.

---

Disclaimer: The summary above is crafted based on the provided transcript and podcast information, aiming to encapsulate the essence and depth of the discussion for those who have not listened to the episode.

Transcript

[Angelina Stanford]

This is not just another book chat podcast. Lifelong reader Cindy Rollins joins teachers Angelina Stanford and Thomas Banks for an ongoing conversation about the skill and art of reading. Well, explore the lost intellectual tradition and discover how to fully enter into the great works of literature. Learn what books mean while delighting in the sheer joy of imagination. Each week we will rescue story from the ivory tower and bring it to your couch, your kitchen, and your commute. The Literary life is for everyone because in the words of Stratford Caldecott, to be enchanted by story is to be granted a deeper insight into reality. Join us for an ever unfolding discussion of how stories will save the world. This is the Literary Life Podcast. Welcome back to the Literary Life Podcast. I'm Angelina Stanford and I am here with my slightly less than ideal husband.

[Thomas Banks]

Slightly less. I think that's what I'm taking away from this play. There. There's no ideal anyone.

[Angelina Stanford]

I didn't feel like I could call you my ideal husband after getting that. No scathing reprimand from Lord Tilton and.

[Thomas Banks]

Not gonna wear that one. Nope.

[Angelina Stanford]

Not gonna wear that one.

[Thomas Banks]

No. No, I'm not gonna mount that pedestal.

[Angelina Stanford]

I'm not allowed to make you my false idol.

[Thomas Banks]

Pretty much.

[Angelina Stanford]

Pretty much rebuked by Oscar Wilde. And we're just getting started. We are talking about Oscar Wilde's play An Ideal Husband, and today we're gonna be talking about ACT as well as throwing in some other literary knowledge for you. We got really great feedback on the first episode in this series that people said they really appreciated the background we gave.

[Thomas Banks]

Yeah.

[Angelina Stanford]

So there'll be some more of that as. As we go along. But before we jump in, let's just remind everybody. Tis the season. Tis the season for our annual Christmas sale at the House of Humane Letters. So everything that you've been having your eye on over the last year, the fairy tale class, the Harry Potter class, the medieval cosmology class, the Shakespeare classes.

[Thomas Banks]

The various Christmas offerings.

[Angelina Stanford]

Dickens, Dickens, always a big seller at this time of year. The. The mini class that you and I did on A Christmas Carol, which some fine work there. The how to read Beowulf class, the Plato webinar, the how to read a Symphony webinar, and on and on and on. Far too much to list, loads and loads. So, yeah, if you've been listening to the podcast and you'd like to give some of our other offerings a try, go a little deeper into some things, now's a great time to get some. Some really good savings on some things. And we also have gift cards available if you want to ask for a gift from the House of Humane Letters? We have, we have those gift cards available and a great way if you want to introduce a friend to the things we have going on. So yeah, we'll link in the show notes, the Google Doc listing all of the webinars and various mini classes that have available. And this year you will not need a discount code. Atley went and put all of the discounts into all of the classes manually for you so you won't have to have a discount code this year. So in addition to what we've got going on in the store where everything is 20% off except for year long classes and live events, you have a live event coming up?

[Thomas Banks]

I do. My, my sometime collaborator Michael Williams and I are going to be giving a guest or excus me a joint lecture on the 19th century French nun and saint Therese of Le sue, the Little Flower. So if you are interested in the history of spiritual life of Saint Therese herself, the Little Flower as she is known, and the kind of France in the Fond de Sile, we will be talking about all of these things. So yes, on December 9, by all means, jump in and join us so.

[Angelina Stanford]

You can find out about this webinar as well as the Christmas sale over at house of humane letters.com and I want to point out too that the Christmas sale goes through December 31st and not just through December 25th. And that is because this business is run by a former homeschool mom, me. And I well remember Christmas sales coming and going and not having cash before Christmas to be able to spend money on the things I really wanted. And because I would get, I would get spending money for, for Christmas as part of my presents, my parents would always give me money and it would be too late at that point to use that money on the sales. And so I thought, you know what, I'm not going to make my Christmas sale like that. I'm going to make mine go through the end of the year. So 12 days of Christmas, it will, it will, will continue on. And if you got, if you're, if you're like me and you got money for Christmas and you're like, I would really like to be able to use this on some sale items. You can.

[Thomas Banks]

Now here's something. The Victorian expression pin money, is that kind of what we're talking about here, like discretionary money that a woman has at her disposal to spend on this or that thing?

[Angelina Stanford]

Yeah.

[Thomas Banks]

Is that the correct use of that expression? Well, I encountered it in a social.

[Angelina Stanford]

History different because pin money would be more part of the family budget.

[Thomas Banks]

The family budget.

[Angelina Stanford]

Family budget. So, yeah, like, it would be like her free. It would be her free spending money as part of the family budget. And I'm talking about gifts. Like, my parents would always give me cash for Christmas, which was greatly appreciated. And my mother would always write, do not spend this on the kids.

[Thomas Banks]

Okay.

[Angelina Stanford]

In the card. You have to. You have to spend this on yourself. And I never knew what to buy with that, but then I would. I would buy books or other things that I was interested in for. For myself.

[Thomas Banks]

Yarn, probably in your case, yarn, maybe.

[Angelina Stanford]

So, yeah, Fancy yarns. Yeah. So that's going on HouseOfHumaneLetters.com all right, well, shall we each share a commonplace quote? What do you have for us today?

[Thomas Banks]

So I have two. I think you should go first.

[Angelina Stanford]

My quote comes from the same place as last week, which is A quote from Dr. Jason Baxter's brand new book, why Literature Still Matters, which is being published by the brand new Cassiodorus Press, the publishing arm of the House of Humane Letters. And we could not be more excited. I actually got to see the final layout proof right before it got sent to the printers. And I just had a moment where I was like, ah, we started a publishing house. We made a book. So we're very excited about it and I know you guys are going to love it. So get those pre orders in and I am going to give you a quote there to just tease you a little bit and wet your whistle and get you guys just rabid with anticipation and excitement. And if you are one of our international listeners and we have many, many, and you've reached out to us, is there going to be international shipping? Yes, there will. We are finalizing that. Perhaps by the time this episode airs, we'll have that all set. But yes, you will be able to purchase this book. And we are getting international shipping taken care of. Now, the Canadian Postal Service strike, that's on, y'all. There's nothing I can do about that, but we will have distributors in place. All right, so this is a quote. When I was going through the book and I was thinking, what can I pick? That's going to be kind of provocative. I thought this is a good. This is a quote from chapter three. We have been conditioned to think of any technological advance as an unambiguous improvement for our lives. And so we eagerly wait for the next model of phone or the next generation of car and dutifully upgrade our systems and download the latest app, the Fact that Lewis imagines the possible downsides of labor saving devices comes as a surprise. But that is not the only time that Lewis worried about our relationship to machines. The same theme comes up in that hideous strength and abolition of man, as well as in the lecture he gave when he assumed his academic chair at Cambridge, Di Descriptione Temporum. In that lecture, Lewis provocatively claimed that we have less in common with our grandparents. Grandparents than they had in common with Caesar, Beowulf, Achilles or the Pharaohs. He arrives at this stupefying assertion by reflecting on a fascinating question. What would happen if we spent more time around our machines than we spent with the natural world? What would happen if machine metaphors got into our imagination so deeply that we forgot they were there? And thus, without us even knowing it, we began to think and feel about ourselves and our lives and our goals as if we were machines. Our work functions too.

[Thomas Banks]

That's a wonderful passage. And the whole book is really that good? I mean, I'm prejudiced. We're prejudiced, of course, but it really is a very fine book.

[Angelina Stanford]

Yes and no. I mean, I wouldn't have published it if I didn't think it was great.

[Thomas Banks]

Yes, yes.

[Angelina Stanford]

So we're proud of the book we've published.

[Thomas Banks]

That leads very nicely to my first commonplace. It's. And so this is from the 20th century literary scholar and translator F.L. lucas, who's best known for his book on style, just on literary style. In another one of his books, which is entitled the Art of living studies in 4 18th century minds, he is talking about how one's personal prejudices, tastes, etc. Can find their way even to one's philosophy. If one is a philosopher. And he brings up the example of Baruch Spinoza, and he writes, when Spinoza says that God loves no one, only himself with infinite intellectual love, it may perhaps be inferred that Spinoza was on no bad terms with Spinoza. And my other commonplace.

[Angelina Stanford]

That kind of reminds me of when Lord Goring makes that joke about to.

[Thomas Banks]

Be in love with oneself is a lifelong romance. Yeah. So this, this next commonplace comes from an essay published in the 1950s called Delinquents in the Snow. And I'm going to read this to you, and you might be able to guess, but you might not who the author is. At my front door, there are once every year the voices of the local choir, those of boys or children who have not even tried to learn to sing or to memorize the words of the piece they are murdering. The instruments they play with real conviction are the doorbell and the knocker and money is what they are really after. So if you were not able to place that, that was C.S. lewis and something. So it's appropriate this time of year. Well, maybe it's radically inappropriate, but I'm going to say anyway, it turns out CS Lewis really did not like carolers or the Christmas season in general. Not Christmas itself, but kind of everything that goes along with Christmas. He didn't like writing Christmas cards, did not like receiving them. In one of his letters, he even thanks a friend for not sending him a Christmas card, which seems kind of ironic when you say that in a letter that you're sending him anyway. But I digress. Yeah. And he didn't like gift giving or receiving and this is a constant refrain in his diaries and letters at every stage of his life that Christmas. So this has become, I guess more widely known in recent years. And when you Google search CS Lewis Grinch, you actually get more hits than you might anticipate. So C S Lewis was Scrooge, kind.

[Angelina Stanford]

Of in a matter I feel seen.

[Thomas Banks]

I feel, because you don't really get into the big swing of things either. Yeah.

[Angelina Stanford]

Here's another Angelina controversial opinion that will have people coming from my heads, but you know, I'm safe at my house behind this microphone. You don't know where to find.

[Thomas Banks]

Some people actually do.

[Angelina Stanford]

Oh, well, don't remind me of that. I just like to pretend no one listens to this and then I just freely say it. But yes, as my husband can attest, I despise Christmas caroling and Christmas carols, the caroling process, the idea of going up to strangers houses knocking on their doors and inflicting your singing on them seems like just a Dante in level of hell to me. And I got, I got. Yes, I know they're saying no. Half of the people going, yes, preach, exactly. It's so annoying. And the other half is going, how could she hate?

[Thomas Banks]

I myself used to engage in caroling, actually. But you didn't know this when we got married. This is something. This is one of those things. This is like Chilton's secrets, Mr. Banks's dark past. Yeah.

[Angelina Stanford]

Christmas caroling on the pedestal ship you anymore. Oh, this is. This is terrible. I went to a church for a long time that did Christmas caroling and I'm very, very sensitive to reading other people. And I can tell you in all the years that they forced me to do it and acted like, you know, I was spitting on Jesus in the manger if I didn't go Christmas caroling With them. I don't think I ever one time remember somebody opening the door and being happy to see us. It was more like, we're tolerating you. Oh, my gosh. You know, like, oh, oh. And just not even coming all the way outside of their house and just being like, are you. Are you done yet? Yes. And I didn't enjoy it any more than they did. So my gift to the world is that I will not, this Christmas, show up at your house and sing Christmas carols.

[Thomas Banks]

I think that probably the people who do enjoy it, and I, like. Like I said, I myself enjoy it. I think it's a very natural thing to do. But I.

[Angelina Stanford]

We're gonna need marriage counseling.

[Thomas Banks]

Well, I know, but. Yeah. When I. When I did this, I mean, I was. I and my friends were, you know, young, middle school, junior high. And I think a lot of people were sort of touched by children doing this, perhaps more than they were by the music itself. That's. Yeah, that's a.

[Angelina Stanford]

You're gonna play the big card on.

[Thomas Banks]

Probably. Yeah. Probably.

[Angelina Stanford]

Yeah.

[Thomas Banks]

And I, I. Yeah, I was innocent at the time.

[Angelina Stanford]

No one should ever expect a Christmas card from us because they will not get it from me. I. I just. I find. I find that all just. Just very overwhelming. Way too much.

[Thomas Banks]

I'm not really big on Christmas cards. Like, that's the thing. Like, I don't really expect to receive them, so I just don't think to give them.

[Angelina Stanford]

I really like shopping.

[Thomas Banks]

In my entire life, as long as I've had income of my own, I have enjoyed Christmas.

[Angelina Stanford]

You are. You are an excellent shopper, too, actually.

[Thomas Banks]

I think you are too. You just don't enjoy it like I do.

[Angelina Stanford]

I do not enjoy it. No.

[Thomas Banks]

There you go.

[Angelina Stanford]

I really enjoy. And you can attest to this. Less people think I'm a terrible scrooge. I really enjoy giving spontaneous gifts to people. I like being somewhere and saying, oh, this is like, so and so, and just picking them up something special when they were completely like. Like, I wanted to names. But just recently. And he knows who he is. I just recently just picked up something spontaneous and then gave him for no reason. Like, I'm. I feel like I'm really good at that. I'm really, really bad where I feel all this pressure. Like it's a birthday or Christmas and there's all this pressure and I'm. I just draw a complete blank. Who is them? What do they like? I don't know. What are presents like? I have no ideas. I. So I'm really good with the spontaneous gift giving. Terrible when you, when you put that pressure on me. So that's why we're a good team.

[Thomas Banks]

Because you're between the two again.

[Angelina Stanford]

Like, you go into the zone, like the first week of August and you come out, you're like, you're all in a good mood about it. I always laugh and tell the students, like, I'm married to a monster. You come out of your office and you're like, cheerful. I started my Christmas shopping.

[Thomas Banks]

She's exaggerating. Not in August, but like, November. Yes, I'll start in November.

[Angelina Stanford]

Oh, no. Even. No, no, no. You. No, no. November transitioned from last Christmas. And I feel like you're already cheering on. Yes. It's almost Christmas again.

[Thomas Banks]

Yeah.

[Angelina Stanford]

I think it's really adorable that you're okay.

[Thomas Banks]

There you go.

[Angelina Stanford]

I like it. No, I like it. I think that makes us a good team.

[Thomas Banks]

No, it's. Yeah, this. I guess it's inappropriate as ever. A time to announce that I will. I mean, I'm. I'm getting to that point in my life where a midlife crisis is on the horizon and like a mall Santa, I think that might be my, my real calling. I'll probably start doing that. You know, I need to put on a bit of weight, probably.

[Angelina Stanford]

All right. Oscar Wilde, the ideal husband, Acts 2 and 3. You know, I thought, I thought it could be helpful actually for us to define a few terms before we jump in, because we, we throw around a lot of terms like comedy of manners and things like that. And I think it might be really helpful to our audience to try to define some of these things for them because certainly this, this is a light comedy. It's a light satire and it's a comedy of manners. So let' There. Why, why don't you talk a little bit about that?

[Thomas Banks]

Comedy of manners is a sub genre. Well, just sticking to English literature lest this. We wander all over the. The cultural map. I would say that a comedy of manners in English literature goes back at least to the Restoration. Comic writers like, you know, William Congrave, John Dryden and Witcherly and a few others. Do. Do you think it's older than that?

[Angelina Stanford]

I can't think of something older than that that I would call a comedy of manners.

[Thomas Banks]

But. Yeah, but we have distinctly recognizable social types, usually of the upper class, upper middle class or aristocracy, who are presented as, you know, kind of laughable caricatures. And often their names kind of carry this advertisement out front. So for instance, in one well known comedy of manners by Richard Sheridan, who's an 18th century writer. There's a character named Ms. Malaprop and she's always using words in a slightly skewed, incorrect way. So Malapropism comes from there. And Oscar Wilde, of course, in some of his comedies, the characters names are not names that you would ever meet in real life. So it's, you know, Reverend Chasuble. A chasuble is a liturgical vestment worn by Anglican clergy. Ms. Prism, the. The sort of pedantic tutor of Cecily in the same play, the. The Importance of Being Earnest. So yeah, plays which are sort of, sort of tongue in cheek reflections on the social types that people in the audience would have seen around them.

[Angelina Stanford]

And they seem to be. They focus a lot on very sort of precise domestic things.

[Thomas Banks]

Yeah, yeah, exactly. So, yeah, they'll. I mean they'll often turn on very, very small and seemingly trivial questions of conduct and social morality and things of that sort.

[Angelina Stanford]

All right, so let's, let's see if we can't distinguish this from a Shakespeare comedy because I can already anticipate people saying, well how. How is this different from what Shakespeare is doing? So just off the top of my head, I think Shakespeare's comedies are mostly set in some historical period. Not his own period.

[Thomas Banks]

None of his. Well, are any of his comedies set in England?

[Angelina Stanford]

Probably not.

[Thomas Banks]

Not very many of them.

[Angelina Stanford]

So there's that. There's a lot of fairyland features to his comedies. A lot. They're much more Roman comedies. So like very, very like absurd plot lines and death penalties.

[Thomas Banks]

I did think of one contemporary of Shakespeare who kind of does it. Ben Jonson, I would say in. In Bartleme Fair he has a caricature of a Puritan who's. His name is Zeal of the Land Busy, who is trying to shut down the theater. Well, no, he's not trying to shut down the theater, he's trying to shut down puppet shows. So. But again, but like the Puritan is a recognizable social type. So like that kind of contemporary comedy.

[Angelina Stanford]

Shakespeare's got a character like that too though, in Twelfth Night.

[Thomas Banks]

Malvolio. Yeah. So Malvolio, Shakespeare's Puritan caricature. So yeah, the Puritans are usually not very, very kindly represented in Elizabethan plays.

[Angelina Stanford]

But see the difference? There is, especially in Twelfth Night, like they're still being used in these really over the top plots.

[Thomas Banks]

Yes, very.

[Angelina Stanford]

It's much more fanciful.

[Thomas Banks]

I agree.

[Angelina Stanford]

Comedy of manners are much more. They're very witty and they're charming and they're still like mistaken identity. I mean we had that Even in this act, right, where you've got the different guys in the different rooms and that kind of madcap wood housing, you.

[Thomas Banks]

Know, questions often, like the question of class status, whether you're an actual aristocrat or a social climber aping the manners of the aristocracy, that. That type of tension and the comedy that ensues from it will very often be part and parcel of the comedy of manners. And I don't think you have that kind of class consciousness in Shakespeare, at least not. Not very often. I mean, yes, people belong to distinct social classes, of course, in this place.

[Angelina Stanford]

But it's much, much more like A Fair tale, though, where you have, like, princess and the aristocracy and then, you.

[Thomas Banks]

Know, the peasants washing up on the coast of Bohemia.

[Angelina Stanford]

Yeah, yeah. It's not. Again, the word that keeps coming to mind is it's fairyland. You're entering even in something like Much Ado About Nothing. You're in fairyland because they've had this war off stage, and then they come out of the war and they're in this idyllic Italian countryside and it's all, you know, let's just fall in love and.

[Thomas Banks]

Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, Shakespeare. I mean, yeah, maybe. Maybe all comedy has a certain kinship, I guess. But, yeah, if you're looking for, like, the comedy of manners, it really begins to flourish in England, not quite a lifetime after Shakespeare, but with the Restoration.

[Angelina Stanford]

More realistic settings, too, we'd say. Very.

[Thomas Banks]

Yeah, usually you're dealing more with, you know, contemporary people, writing about contemporary people, and even there's also, like, kind of a social comedy tends to be looking in the mirror a bit more, I think. So here an example of that is a play called the Rehearsal, which is a Restoration comedy that makes fun of Restoration comedy. It's written by the 2nd Duke of Buckingham, who was a very disreputable comrade and drinking companion of Charles ii. And it makes fun of this play, mocks some of his. Some of his literary peers. John Dryden is represented as this buffoon, incompetent playwright named Mr. Bayes, who, amongst other things, has a paper nose. I'm not making that up. And that would be a representative example of this particular subgenre.

[Angelina Stanford]

So it sounds like there's a very close relationship between the comedy of manners and satire.

[Thomas Banks]

I would say almost always a comedy of manners is a form of satire.

[Angelina Stanford]

That would be a huge difference from Shakespeare.

[Thomas Banks]

That's true. Shakespeare is. I mean, there are satirical elements in some of his plays, but he's not predominantly a satirical dramatist.

[Angelina Stanford]

I want to Talk about satire. But at first I want to kind of give this admonition when we're talking about literary terms, I think that there's this tendency to want to, like, hammer down these hard definitions so I can know what it is that I'm looking at. That's not really how these definitions work. It's. They're descriptive. They're not prescriptive. It's not, you know, someone didn't put out a pamphlet of this is how to Write a Comedy of Man.

[Thomas Banks]

It would be nice. It was sometimes, like, I sometimes, sometimes envy people in the hard sciences where, like, a chemical, a chemical formula, you know, will be constant in any particular experiment for, you know, whatever element you're talking about. But that, that the rigorousness of definition you can find in chemistry or biology or physics, you're not going to find in literature.

[Angelina Stanford]

Exactly, exactly. And not the nature. People keep. They keep asking for that. Where's. Where's a book that will explain all this? Well, there isn't one, because that's not how any of this works. This much works that people have written to observe. You know, you read a whole bunch of comedy of manners, and then you.

[Thomas Banks]

Think, okay, start observing common elements.

[Angelina Stanford]

Yeah, yeah, organically. It's kind of like the move from the epic to the medieval romance. Nobody just one day said, we're not writing epics anymore. Let's write medieval romances. And here's how they're going to go. It was much more over time. Taste changed, storytelling change, things change. And then you. You start to observe, okay, we're no longer having stories about gods and goddesses and interfering in the lives of. Of regular people. Now we're having stories of knights on a quest and dragons. So this is a different kind of story.

[Thomas Banks]

The comparison. I noticed the comparison I bring in with my later modern lit students or I have brought it in, I think more than once, is trying to describe when a sunset has happened or a sunrise. I mean, exactly what moment the sun has risen in the course of the day. You can't really, like two different people watching the same sun come up are going to have different opinions as to when that occurs. But you can all, as a matter of common sense, tell, you know, in the early morning hours. You know, it was dark a little while ago, and now it's not. So there you are. Maybe that's. Maybe that's helpful. I hope it is. Anyway.

[Angelina Stanford]

I think that's a. That's a really fine point. Yeah. So they're. They're descriptive. So just. Just always kind of hold these loosely in your hands. You know, Northrop Fry describes a lot of this stuff as a magnetic field. You know, so there's like, a comedy of manner's magnetic field, and it kind of draws all of those, like, things together. So. Yeah. So let's talk about, then, the relationship between comedy of manners and satire. And first start off with, what is a satire?

[Thomas Banks]

Well, satire is literary ridicule. And when I say ridicule, maybe I should use a different word.

[Angelina Stanford]

Spoils and follies.

[Thomas Banks]

Yeah, I could say, yeah. Literary reflection, exposure of and reflection on the foolishness, the vices, the absurdities of men, mankind. It might be done gently and with a light touch. I think Wilde himself has a very light.

[Angelina Stanford]

Very, very light.

[Thomas Banks]

It might be. It might be savage. It might be juvenileian. Like the. After the Roman poet Juvenile, who I tell my students when I. We don't actually read juvenile. Some of his satires are, like, wildly offensive. But amongst other things, he was prejudiced against foreigners, the wealthy, the military, women, especially wealthy women. Let me see. Other writers. Other writers never receive any sort of favorable praise in juvenile and too many other social classes that I can't even mention here.

[Angelina Stanford]

So let's back up just a little bit then, and give some basic terms for everybody. So there's. Yes, satire is like. It's literary ridicule. We'll go with that. And there's two different kinds. There's light and then there's much more stinging, harsh, biting satire.

[Thomas Banks]

Jonathan Swift would be stinging, biting.

[Angelina Stanford]

Right. So the. The. The two types go back to. To the Roman writers, Horus and Juvenile. So you have Horatian satire, which is very, very light, and juvenilian satire, which is the more stinging, biting stuff. And the way that I describe it when I'm teaching Jonathan Swift is Horatian satire. Like, we're all sharing this inside joke. It's, like, about us for us.

[Thomas Banks]

You can write Horatian satire using your friend as a target.

[Angelina Stanford]

Exactly.

[Thomas Banks]

And it's not without ruining your friendship.

[Angelina Stanford]

Kind of like, I'm gonna date myself here. But there used to be this really hilarious YouTube video that was a satire, and it was called something like how to make the Perfect Bible Devotional Instagram Photo. And it was really, really funny. Okay, it was very funny. Is, you know, I've got my one single flower in a vase, and I gotta have the perfect sunlight and the perfect pin, you know, across my. The pages of my Bible and the perfect steaming mug of, you know, tea. And. And then, you know, you get to the end it's like, oh, well, I don't have time to read the Bible, but at least I got this great. It's a great picture. And it was very, very funny. But that was not satire. That was making fun of Christians, like in a mean way. This was something for Christians to laugh.

[Thomas Banks]

At themselves thing that the Babylon bee does.

[Angelina Stanford]

Exactly so. Exactly so. The Babylon bees are a great example of that. So it's kind of like we're making fun of ourselves. Kind of like, you know, homeschoolers. You know, my homes. Our. Our homeschool students are always like, we're homeschoolers from San Julian. Of course we don't. Blah, blah, blah, you know, like, they're not actually mocking homeschoolers. They're just lightly making fun of themselves. And our tendencies to be. Sure, be a certain. I do this all the time in class. I always, you know, make fun of my own, you know, alternative health and, you know, my vitamins, my supplements, my essential oils. And, you know, we all, we all laugh at ourselves about that. So that's very light. That's not mean. So, yes, we would put Oscar Wilde in that. I would put Jane Austin in there. Just. Just very light, kind of just gently poking at things.

[Thomas Banks]

I was reading a book recently that said that Austin was largely.

[Angelina Stanford]

No, I remember telling me.

[Thomas Banks]

Absolutely, you said that Austin. And this is a new book by a smart person. We'll just put that out there. I won't. Since I'm savaging the book, I won't. Yeah. Anyway, it said that Austin was motivated by deep seated hatred.

[Angelina Stanford]

Yeah. Yeah, that was terrible.

[Thomas Banks]

There was. I was like, just. I wanted to, like, that book was terrible myself. With rage. It was. Yeah. Anyway.

[Angelina Stanford]

No. All right. So the other kind of satire, the biting satire, is juvenilian satire. And that's. That's the not. It's not we're laughing at ourselves. That is, we are laughing at you.

[Thomas Banks]

And if you've read Lord Byron, who's not mainly a satirist, but he does have a number of very good, good satirical poems. One called the Vision of Judgment. And in the Vision of Judgment, the English poet laureate Robert Safi, who has died, appears in heaven with his collected works. And the angels start quivering with fear that, you know, Safi might be giving public readings in heaven and that kind of things from his four volume Life of John Wesley. And oh my gosh, can he, like, can we please be sent to hell if this man is going to be living in heaven and that kind of thing? Anyway, it's quite Funny. Byron can be very mean and witty.

[Angelina Stanford]

So the two greatest Juvenilian satirists in the English language are Jonathan Swift and the person he influenced the most, George Orwell. So, yeah, if it's not Swift or Orwell, you're probably reading Horatian center.

[Thomas Banks]

Or actually, I would say Pope. Swift and Pope. Actually, I think one of the reasons they were such good friends is because they could. They could bear each other's mockery, and all the worlds beside them was basically fools and knaves.

[Angelina Stanford]

Yeah, yeah. They do not suffer fools.

[Thomas Banks]

But yes, you're definitely right about Orwell. Orwell, as you know, but maybe not everybody does. Orwell counted Jonathan Swift as his favorite English writer and reread Gulliver's Travels once a year.

[Angelina Stanford]

Yeah, it's a lot of fun to teach Gulliver's Travels and then have the students go to you to read 1984. Because, yeah, there are parts of Gulliver's Travels where you're like, okay, or we'll just pull that right out of Swift and put it in and put it.

[Thomas Banks]

Give it a modern totalitarian veneer.

[Angelina Stanford]

Exactly, exactly. So when we're talking about Oscar Wilde, this is light satire. Now, I bring this up because I always say form in forms, right? You have to know what it is you're reading to know how to. How to read it. And I know on this podcast we talk a lot about, hey, this isn't. This. The stuff we're reading is not, you know, it's not a comment on society. It's a story. It's a fairy tale. Right? Like, Shakespeare's not writing about Elizabethan in politics, he's writing fairy stories. And he. He's very deliberate about that and that we should not be reading, looking to say, oh, what is this saying about society? And that is all true, and I stand by that. The one exception to that, though, is satire, because satire is intentional about poking fun of very specific things in society. That's not all that's going on, but it's certainly something that's going on. So that was part of the reason we brought up all of those things. Like, you're not going to understand what it is that wild poking at if you don't understand the. The world that he's. That he's written in. And sometimes that can be a fine line, but with satire, that is. That is the way you read satire.

[Thomas Banks]

Here's something to. I'll pitch at you, which I think both in his. His day and to some extent in ours, this is a this is a stone people have blundered over is that Oscar Wilde, in his writings is an amoralist who writes with a sort of acidic intention of burning away all of the moral foundations of society with, you know, so many clever, flippant paradoxes.

[Angelina Stanford]

Yeah, that's crazy.

[Thomas Banks]

But you, I mean, you saw that in his day. I mean, that was something. That was a criticism launched at him and many of the other fondecile decadent writers. And I, I know, I've seen it. I mean, this offered both by his admirers and his detractors, even now. I mean, his admirer saying, look how transgressive he is, you know, you know, puncturing, you know, the, the code of middle class morality with so many pinholes, you know, pinholes of wit. And you might have, I don't know, a fundamentalist, say, critic of Wilde today or a more staunchly moralistic critic saying that, yes, Wilde is indeed transgressive and that's why he's dangerous and should not be touch ten foot pole.

[Angelina Stanford]

Yeah. And when I hear people say like that, I just think, have you read the Picture of Dorian Gray?

[Thomas Banks]

I know, but, you know, I mean, there are people who think that. Yes, see, Wilde is Lord Henry.

[Angelina Stanford]

Yeah.

[Thomas Banks]

He's the Mythistophilist because he gives him all the clever lines, therefore he must agree with him.

[Angelina Stanford]

Right, right. And I, and I. And I think, Yep. I think that they're making the biographical fallacy here that they, they presume things about Wild's life and then they read it into his work, which I, I think is untrue. I think, I think his work consistently. Even the Importance of Being Earnest, which we already did in this podcast past. Yes, he's, he's, he's, you know, he's witty and he's, you know, mocking certain things, but it's so light. And in the end he upholds all those virtues. Anyway, they all get married at the end of the Importance of Being Earnest. Like, it's not like anti Marriage and Family. It's just. It's not any more anti marriage and family than that YouTube video was anti reading your Bible, which, by the way.

[Thomas Banks]

Is a classic trope of, or whatever you want to call it, a narrative device of restoration comedies and menace where you have, like, the guy, the guy who mocks at the idea of marriage and settling down and, you know, jokes about womanizing and, you know, that kind of thing, who then gets married to, like, the most virtuous girl in town at the end. It happens all the time.

[Angelina Stanford]

Okay, so let's just. I'm gonna get on my soapbox and rant a little bit here. People. People like that.

[Thomas Banks]

So I'm just sit back and enjoy the show.

[Angelina Stanford]

I'm gonna.

[Thomas Banks]

I'm gonna rant, but my work here is done. I was actually trying to get you kind of going, okay, but.

[Angelina Stanford]

But the Picture of Dorian Gray is a brilliant cautionary tale about temptation and falling into temptation and the consequences that happen. And it's all super self destructive. And to say, to take the words out of the mouth of the character, who's clearly a Mephistopheles character, and say that's wild. That's ridiculous. Like, how do you figure the bad guy is the author when at the end of the book the bad guy suffers? Like, that doesn't make. That doesn't make any sense. But that is cherry picking your argument. And it. So we just had a conversation about. I won't name any names, but we just had a conversation the other night about Victor Hugo and Les Mis. And you were saying how a lot of people misread that book and think that it's a revolutionary book and that Victor Hugo is a revolutionary. And you pulled up an article to show me. It was a blog to show me what you were talking about. And I was like, you know, I had that vein popping out on the side of my neck. I was so upset about it, but.

[Thomas Banks]

I might have to like, you know, know, administer a sedative or something like that. But it was smelling salt.

[Angelina Stanford]

Cherry picking. Okay, so what this person was doing to try to prove that Les Mis was quote a. An unbiblical revolutionary book is he went and pulled the dialogue out of the mouth of the revolutionary characters and said, look, look how revolutionary they are. See how ungodly this was?

[Thomas Banks]

And I thought to portray is to approve, obviously.

[Angelina Stanford]

No, didn't say that. The character, the revolutionary, said that the revolutionaries, all of whom die in the. The book does not at the end say, oh, long live Viv la Revolution. It just portrays a revolution and the horrible things that happen as a consequence. And so to cherry pick the dialogue of the revolutionaries and say, see, Victor Hugo is a revolutionary, that is just terrible, terrible reasoning. I mean, you could just as easily, you know, have. You could have just as easily pulled the. The dialogue out of the mouths of the prostitutes in the early part of the book and say, Victor Hugo hates the family and he's very pro. Prostit that that's not how the. Or. Or to say that to pull out, you know, a speech from one of the killers in an Agatha Christie novel and say, agatha Christie just hates life.

[Thomas Banks]

And here's something. This is. This is. I don't know if this is funny, moving, scandalous, or all three, but when Victor Hugo died, he received the largest public funeral that had ever been given in France in 1880. Greater, more, more widely attended than any king, any. Any. Any celebrity, any whatever. And in recognition of the death of the great man, even the prostitutes of Paris wore black armbands. It's a show of, you know, solidarity. Yeah.

[Angelina Stanford]

Oh, yeah. That's pretty cool. I doubt if something like that will happen when I die. I don't know how I'd feel about the prostitutes all coming out.

[Thomas Banks]

That's true. Yeah. I wouldn't know what to feel about that. Yeah, there you go. I guess I would feel honor.

[Angelina Stanford]

It was absolutely a national treasure to France. My point is this. You have to be a better reader than to cherry pick a few lines out of the characters who are clearly the bad guys and say, see, that's the author. You have to look at the overall shape of the story. So one last thing before we jump in, because I did. If you listened to the last episode, I did go and check what was the actual name of the society that Oscar Wilde wrote for? And it was the Rational Dress Society. I had the name wrong. I called it the Society for Sensible Dress. It was the Rational Dress Address Society.

[Thomas Banks]

Yes. That sounds like the sort of society he would belong.

[Angelina Stanford]

Actually, let me. Let me pull it up here because they're actual.

[Thomas Banks]

To think that they had a very serious manifesto that was issued at some point.

[Angelina Stanford]

Okay. They do. That's what I'm looking up for you. Yeah, that's what I'm looking up.

[Thomas Banks]

It's actually one of the. Sort of. One of the. Whenever I meet someone who has co authored a manifesto, whether or not it's a cause I believe in myself, I tend to envy them because I've never been asked to contribute to a manifesto. So. So just anyone out there, this is me applying for a job. If you're writing a manifesto, can I join you? Anyway, I'm very envious.

[Angelina Stanford]

What if I write a manifesto against Christmas caroling? Would you join me in that?

[Thomas Banks]

I. I would be tempted. I would be tempted. Like. Yeah, just.

[Angelina Stanford]

All right. The Rational Dress Society, found, was founded in 1881. And here is how it described its purpose. Okay, this is fantastic. The Rational Dress Society protests against the introduction of any fashion. And dress either deforms the figure, impedes the movements of the body, or in any way tends to, injure the health. It protests against the wearing of tightly fitted corsets, of high heeled shoes, of heavily weighted skirts. Preach, brother, as rendering healthy exercise almost impossible. And of all, tie down cloaks are other garments, impeding on the movements of the arms. It protests against crinolines or crinolettes of any kind. It's ugly and deforming. It requires all to be dressed healthily, comfortably and beautifully. To seek what conduces to birth, comfort and beauty in our dress as a duty to ourselves and each other.

[Thomas Banks]

Oh. Leading members of the society were Lady Harburton, who created the divided skirt, Mary Eliza Haweis and Constance Wilde, who is Oscar Wilde's wife. Oscar Wilde helped spread the word by publishing the essay the Philosophy of Dress, which is, as a title, I think, peak Oscar Wilde, in which he stressed the important relationship between clothing and one's soul. Women cyclists, such as members of the Ladies Cyclists Association, I kid you not, were keen advocates of women's right to dress appropriately for the activity as part of a belief that cycling offered women an opportunity to escape overly restrictive societal norms. And yes, the bicycle in the 1890s. Very new and kind of revolutionary.

[Angelina Stanford]

Daring thing, I dare say, very daring thing. Okay, so here's. Here's five of the things that they list as attributes of the perfect dress. By dress, they mean clothing. One, freedom of movement. Two, absence of pressure over any part of the body. Three, not more weight than is necessary for warmth. And both weight and warmth evenly distributed. Four, grace and beauty combined with comfort and convenience. Five, not departing too conspicuously from the ordinary dress. Dress of the time, actually. I mean, people forget, I think, that Charlotte Mason is at this time period as well. And when she talks a lot about, like how to sensibly dress your child, she's being influenced by all of this as well, you know, not. Not all this lacy can, you know, restrictive clothing for kids, but kids should be able to be in some breathable fabrics and be able to move around.

[Thomas Banks]

If your clothing is inspiring, you know, repeated mental breakdowns, probably it's time to.

[Angelina Stanford]

Alter fashions a little bit, you know, So I actually thought about this stuff when I was reading Acts 2 and Acts 3, because we see that Lady Chiltern is involved in all these societies.

[Thomas Banks]

Lady Chiltern is. Oh, yes, of course. Yeah. She's full of. A woman full of good works and good deeds.

[Angelina Stanford]

Yeah. So you get the sense, actually, again.

[Thomas Banks]

Not to make everything about me. I'm. I'm really glad. No, I'm really glad I'm not married to Her, I admire her. She's the kind of woman I would respect and admire. But, like, I think if you. You were always rushing off to, like, the. The Ladies Liberal League or, you know, the, you know, the Society for Temperance Reform or something like that, I would. That would probably give me more gray hair than I really need.

[Angelina Stanford]

Well, this is. I mean, this is. This is, you know, a decade before you're going to get Mary Poppins with, you know, women's right to vote. And she's out There, you know, Mrs. Banks is out there fighting for, you know, suffrage, women's suffrage and.

[Thomas Banks]

Oh, that's right, the statistic suffragette thing. Yeah.

[Angelina Stanford]

So, yes, this is the. Honestly. Well, it's the modern woman, as they talk about in this play, and she's got a lot of causes, she knows what's going on and she's very interested.

[Thomas Banks]

There's not too much social distance between this play and Howards End, which we talked about last year. There's 15 years, 20 years. Yeah. I mean, and we're talking about different classes of society because we're amongst aristocrats here and we're not in Howards End. But, yeah, some of the. You do see a certain new type of woman, I think, emerging in the person of Mrs. Cheveley, like the bad version, the femme fatale version of it. But, like, you do see that there are, I guess you could say, sort of cracks in the. Cracks in the image of Victorian femininity already appearing.

[Angelina Stanford]

Well, this is connected to the woman question that we talked about in the Dracula episodes. Oh, very much by the time you get to the late 1800s, it's literally called the woman question. Capital T, capital W, capital Q. And they're all writing about it, which is, you know, what. What do you do with the. The new woman? And there's a lot of different things going on. I mean, that's not a huge part of this play. It's kind of in the background with this. But, I mean, if somebody's really interested in it, there's a lot of things going on. I. I think. I think first wave feminism gets a really bad rap with some conservatives because they don't really understand what was going on there. One of the things that happened was a whole lot of men died in the crime, Crimean War, and there simply were not enough men for women to marry. And that created a lot of social questions with, what do you do with these women who cannot marry? Something very similar happened. This is why you end up with the second wave of feminism at the end of World War II. The same thing happens after World War II. You just. Men are. Men are dead. And so it's all well and good to say. Women are supposed to be, you know, at home being wives and mothers, but if there's no one for them to marry, marry, what are, what are they supposed to do with themselves? So you see society changing, you know, they can't all become spinsters living off their brother. Like, you got, you got huge numbers. They also start to be called the odd women. Not odd strange, but odd numbered. Isn't that great?

[Thomas Banks]

Oh, yeah. The title of the.

[Angelina Stanford]

The George Guessing novel.

[Thomas Banks]

Yeah, I think I was going to say George Moore.

[Angelina Stanford]

I really like that novel. I read that a couple years ago. I really liked that novel. But, yeah, they're odd numbered women. There's not enough men. And so there were real social concerns. Like, what do you. Do you see reform in women's dress. Starting to have. Reform in women's education.

[Thomas Banks]

Leisure activities.

[Angelina Stanford]

Leisure activities. Actually, it's around this time the rising middle class, I'm thinking, like, where it.

[Thomas Banks]

Would be thinkable for a man. A man and a woman to play tennis together.

[Angelina Stanford]

Yeah.

[Thomas Banks]

Which actually, depending on. Depending on who your parents were, you know, a generation before might not have been considered a. A proper or suitable activity.

[Angelina Stanford]

Well, women weren't supposed to be engaged in too much rigorous physical activity, period. They thought that was bad for their health. I mean, that, that, that idea with some very pseudoscience behind it that continues even in, like, the 1960s when you have women banned from running the Boston Marathon, for example, because they thought it would harm women's bodies to run that far.

[Thomas Banks]

Women were banned from the Boston Marathon. I didn't know that.

[Angelina Stanford]

Oh, yeah, man. The first woman that did it, she did it illegally. And there were people trying to pull her off the race.

[Thomas Banks]

Oh, okay.

[Angelina Stanford]

Like literally attacking her while she ran because she was trying to prove that a woman could run a.

[Thomas Banks]

Did they celebrate her in that Virginia Slim ad from the. You've come a long way, kid, or whatever.

[Angelina Stanford]

It is a long way.

[Thomas Banks]

I was thinking, like, probably she wasn't much of a smoker. Hopefully not. But, yeah, probably.

[Angelina Stanford]

Probably not many smokers are also marathon runners.

[Thomas Banks]

Yeah. Yeah, that was an interesting ad. It's kind of funny because it's sort of nihilistic and celebratory at the same time. Women have gone from, you know, the cave to Congress, you know, over the, you know, the march of freedom in history. Let's light up and have a smoke. I don't know.

[Angelina Stanford]

Yeah, I don't know, I thought that was bizarre. That was bizarre to me too. But the women in that ad were Gibson girls.

[Thomas Banks]

The women in that ad were Gibsons.

[Angelina Stanford]

They were Gibson girls.

[Thomas Banks]

Were Gibson girls in that ad. That's amazing.

[Angelina Stanford]

That was their outfits.

[Thomas Banks]

Wow.

[Angelina Stanford]

I remember it well. So that, that late 1900s. I'm sorry, late 19th century, early 20th century. The, the Gibson girl looked the high, the high waisted with the kind of fluffy blouse and her, and her hair up. Yeah. So women started smoking as well. That was, that was something that was happening too. Yeah. So there's a lot of changes in the world are happening and we see some of that in the background here. But just, it's just in the background. I don't, I don't, I don't think this play is really about that sort of thing. But we see that Mrs. Chilterton is really kind of the ideal. Chiltern. Sorry. She's. She's kind of the ideal woman in that sense. You know, she's, she's got this husband, she's very devoted to him. But she's also involved in a lot of the causes. She's educated. High. She's very educated. That, that comes when Lady Marcum comes to visit and she's like, oh, you young ladies, you modern ladies with all your ideas. And it was better in my days when we just didn't know a thing that was going on. We didn't even know what our husband was doing and we were better off for it. So yeah, you see those kind of old ways versus new ways in the background here.

[Thomas Banks]

Should we actually turn to a little bit of the play itself?

[Angelina Stanford]

Yes, we should.

[Thomas Banks]

Maybe that's a good idea.

[Angelina Stanford]

Because some pretty exciting things happen in Act 2 and Act 3. Secrets are exposed.

[Thomas Banks]

Yeah. We learned that basically everyone amongst our major characters has a, A, a secret of some kind, a past that maybe would not be very good for them if it came to light. It's not just Lord Robert or Sir Robert, but kind of everyone in some way or another projects an image to the world, which is a misleading image.

[Angelina Stanford]

Yes, yes. And I think really the heart of the satire that I'm seeing here is the idea of wealth and power and ambition and hypocrisy amongst the wealthy, powerful class.

[Thomas Banks]

Yeah. Almost kind of the universal quality of hypocrisy. And it's, I was actually thinking about that because that's, I mean we, and, and in Wilde's world as well, that's something that, you know, the kind of hypocritical. What am I Trying to say the things which one might hide in one's life, life that one would not be forgiven for by society if they were exposed. Those have changed a lot from his data hours. But yeah, hypocrisy is still one of those. One of those vices which we can be quite as merciless towards as the Victorians in our way.

[Angelina Stanford]

Oh, actually it felt extremely contemporary to me, especially all of this stuff about how the public handles a scandal, that the public will not handle it. If you say you did nothing wrong, but if you come out and cry and say please forgive me, you know, the Bill Clinton was butterworks, then you will be, you will be forgiven. The, the lines about the media and.

[Thomas Banks]

Their relationships for people like that, for politicians caught in flagrante delicto, it's really too bad that Billy Graham is not alive anymore because there was always kind of the be photographed praying with Billy Graham. I'm thinking Clinton, but not just Clinton. It seemed like there were a lot of guys, I think Nixon also after wattle.

[Angelina Stanford]

It's the art of the public apology.

[Thomas Banks]

Yeah, yeah, it's. Yeah, like after you've. After you. Yeah, we need someone to replace Billy Graham in that.

[Angelina Stanford]

It's that great line too where he says the spy trade is out because we have the press now.

[Thomas Banks]

Oh, I know, I love that line.

[Angelina Stanford]

That was a great line. But that, that's still very true. And so the press in England has always actually been worse than the press in the United States as far as like stirring up scandal and.

[Thomas Banks]

Oh, we talking about like invasiveness, like paparazzi type, lower tabloid sort of press.

[Angelina Stanford]

Yeah, but it's, but it's always been like that. It's always been like that in England. It's, it's, it's different. I mean not that America's press is great, but it's just always been much worse in England. That was something that I looked into to just to understand. I mean even just like bands I was into in the, in the 80s and 70s, like their relationship to the, to the media and the way the media was always looking to have a scandal because that was what would sell.

[Thomas Banks]

Sure.

[Angelina Stanford]

Bands getting broken up by madeup scandals in the press because they needed to sell papers, that kind of thing. So there's a, like the whole Princess Diana thing and the media exploding up with what happened over that.

[Thomas Banks]

I mean media kind of. Well, I was going to say causing that. I don't want to say too much but you know, like there was the famous, the fact that the, the, the members of the press were literally.

[Angelina Stanford]

What I'm saying is that. That. That was something that had been going on for a very long time.

[Thomas Banks]

Sure.

[Angelina Stanford]

Especially with members of the aristocracy. In fact, you know, I've often thought, like, in some ways, it would have been much easier to be an aristocracy in the time of, like, Henry vii, because you really could do so much in secret. But, you know, you. You can't do. You can't do anything. Now. They're tapping, actually, even in.

[Thomas Banks]

I mean, in not. Not too many years before this play first debuted, the Prince of Wales, who went on to become King Edward VII after Victoria dies, it was exposed in the press that he had been caught cheating at cards in a gentleman's club.

[Angelina Stanford]

That would be really bad.

[Thomas Banks]

Well, back then. Yeah. I mean, we're like, really, like, oh, but there's so. In that day. That's such. That's something that. Yeah.

[Angelina Stanford]

You could be.

[Thomas Banks]

If you were Prince of Wells, he would probably be blackballed after that.

[Angelina Stanford]

Be a gentleman if you cheated at cards.

[Thomas Banks]

Yeah. So that was. That was something that. That was one of. Not the only, but one of many headaches that Edward gave to his parents.

[Angelina Stanford]

Yeah, he was a mess. Edward was a mess. Yeah. So he t. So Goring asks him, look, how did this happen to you? And he kind of defends it, saying, look at. This is what everybody does.

[Thomas Banks]

I'm no worse than other men. He gets kind of on his high horse.

[Angelina Stanford]

He does. And he's like, I thought that I was beating them at their own game, and I was ambitious, but, you know, is it everybody. And I wanted power, and this is how you do it. I just. He kind of gives a long don't hate the player, hate the game speech.

[Thomas Banks]

Kind of. Yeah. So he and Goran going back and forth, and one important distinction between them, they're both wealthy, but Goring has always been wealthy. He comes from titles. He's Lord Goring. And Sir Robert has had to climb the greasy pole of success and has gotten dirty in the process.

[Angelina Stanford]

He's saying, you don't understand what you don't understand.

[Thomas Banks]

Yeah. To have to prove yourself every day to prove that you belong in the club.

[Angelina Stanford]

Okay. So he says that this is what happens. Would you read this little speech here? Because speaking of Dorian Gray, I felt like this guy was really the Mephistopheles character here.

[Thomas Banks]

Okay.

[Angelina Stanford]

He's describing his moment of temptation.

[Thomas Banks]

So here's Sir Robert speaking one night after dinner at Lord Radley's, the baron began talking about success in modern life as something that one could reduce to an absolutely definite science. With that wonderfully fascinating, quiet voice of his, he expounded to us the most terrible of all philosophies, the philosophy of power preached to us the most marvelous of all gospels, the Gospel of gold. I think he saw the effect he had produced on me for some days Afterward he wrote and asked me to come and see him. He was living then in Park Lane, in the house of Lord Woolcombe, the house Lord Woolcombe has now I remember so well. With a strange smile on his pale, curved lips, he led me through his wonderful picture gallery, showed me his tapestries, his enamels, his jewels, his carved ivories. Made me wonder at the strange loveliness of the luxury in which he lived. And then told me that luxury was nothing but a background, a painted scene in a play. And that power, power over other men, power over the world, was the one thing worth having, the one supreme pleasure worth knowing, the one joy one never tired of. And that in our century, only the rich possessed it. That's very method, Lord Henry. Yeah, almost the very same thing. With a few words. Changing beauty for power really reminded me of Dorian Gray. Yeah.

[Angelina Stanford]

So he gets tempted and he falls to the temptation. Now, by the time we get to the end of Act 3, he's backtracking on some of that stuff. Ambition is nothing. Love is everything. I was an idiot, but. But here he's. He's doubling down.

[Thomas Banks]

Yeah, he almost sees ambition as a virtue here.

[Angelina Stanford]

I fought the century with its own weapons and won.

[Thomas Banks]

Yeah. Yeah. His rhetoric is so heightened that it sounds like he's almost trying to convince himself more than. More than any of his interlocutors.

[Angelina Stanford]

And then Gore, this is boring speech that I was mentioning earlier. Well, the English can't stand a man who's always saying he's in the right, but they are very fond of a man who admits that he has been in the wrong. It's one of the best things in them. However, in your case, Robert, a confession would not do. The money, if you will allow me to say so, is. Is awkward. Besides, if you did make a clean breast of the whole affair, you would never be able to talk morality again. And in England, a man who can't talk morality twice a week to a large, popular, immoral audience is quite over. As a serious politician, there would be nothing left for him as a. As a profession except botany or the church.

[Thomas Banks]

Yeah, that was. That climax of that joke was great. Botany or the church.

[Angelina Stanford]

That was great. That's great. So again, it. This is. This is very lightly poking at the hypocrisy of English society. Right. That you have to. Politicians are expected to talk morality to an immoral audience. I'm wondering if I should say something potentially offensive. Oh, why not?

[Thomas Banks]

Par for course. I mean, come on.

[Angelina Stanford]

Without naming any names, there is a.

[Thomas Banks]

Are you Angelina Stanford or are you not, you know, there?

[Angelina Stanford]

I'm old now, okay? So I, I feel like I have lived through a lot of elections. I've seen a lot of things. It's one of the reasons I don't get super upset about politics because, like, I have lived through so many elections that people said if this democracy will be literally, I've been told this for, gosh, at least the last 20 years. Yeah, yeah, at least the last 25.

[Thomas Banks]

Years by people of all political stripes.

[Angelina Stanford]

If candidate X gets in, democracy's over, he's going to declare himself king. Like, you know, been there, done that. You know, saw the guy leave office. You know, I don't get worried about that sort of thing, but one of the things I've observed is even though the United States continues to go in a more and more of a secular direction, it still seems to be very important for politicians to present themselves as family men and men of faith.

[Thomas Banks]

Yeah, I was talking about this with my students as well. I, I, I actually, I was, I think it was on Bill Mar some, some years ago, he was saying that, I mean, we've, for a long time we had only Protestants who were either practicing or nominal Protestant Christians. Then we had John Kennedy, who's a Catholic. Eventually we'll probably have a Jewish president, maybe eventually a Muslim president. And he said he would expect all of those things, but an atheist president will be the last one.

[Angelina Stanford]

I think the same thing. Like, it's just political ads are quite fascinating to me and like, they will. People will really go out of their way to style themselves as. I'm a family person, I go to church, I got my dog, you know, just trying to see as, as every man as possible.

[Thomas Banks]

And my opponent is a godless whatever.

[Angelina Stanford]

Exactly.

[Thomas Banks]

Actually, that's a very old tradition. When John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson were running against each other as the Federalist and Democratic Republican candidates in. Let me see, that would have been 1804, I think. 1804, some of Adam's campaign managers, as we would now call them, started spreading a rumor in pamphlets in the press that Thomas Jefferson would make it illegal to own a Bible. This, this godless, this deist philosopher will take your Bibles away. Whether Adams himself engaged in this kind of cheap rhetoric I don't know. But some of his, some of his underlings did. And there are literally instances of people, like, hiding their Bibles out in the woodshed because they believe that Thomas Jefferson.

[Angelina Stanford]

Was gonna come get it.

[Thomas Banks]

Yeah. No kidding. Yeah.

[Angelina Stanford]

Wow. Yeah. Yeah. I love this line by Lord Goring where he says there's something about ambitious that is unscrupulous, always ways.

[Thomas Banks]

I think that's entirely true.

[Angelina Stanford]

Me too. You know, I do. You know, I think that.

[Thomas Banks]

Yeah.

[Angelina Stanford]

I, I run the other direction from that.

[Thomas Banks]

No, I, I, I was, I was talking about this with someone a while ago, and I think it's. It might actually be emblematic of a fault in me that I probably detest ambition, which I do think. I really do think it is a vice and represents a failure of character.

[Angelina Stanford]

Absolutely.

[Thomas Banks]

But I think it's because it's one of the few from which I myself am relatively free that I detest it so much. Much. I think that's probably the case because I'm. I tend to be kind of lazy and lacking drive. It's my one. Yeah. This is my, my one. The one area where I actually can sort of stand taller than the other guy.

[Angelina Stanford]

I would direct people to some other episodes. We did Tolstoys. How much land does a man need? If you want to hear us talking about ambition. But ambition.

[Thomas Banks]

We're in good company. I mean, in Shakespeare. I mean, look at. Who are the ambitious people in Shakespeare? I mean, the. Yeah. The Anthony's, the Macbeth's, the.

[Angelina Stanford]

They come to the end, Lady Macbeth. I mean, the big. I'll just say this in case somebody's scratching their head. How can ambition be wrong? We have redefined ambition as moderns to be sort of a neutral hard work. Yeah. Or even, even a virtue that they. Yeah. Drive and hard work, that man.

[Thomas Banks]

It could accompany those virtues. I mean, you know, hard work and that kind of thing.

[Angelina Stanford]

And I don't want to kill and destroy all of your opponents on your climb to the top, but I. What work ethic.

[Thomas Banks]

Yeah, I mean, if read. If you were to look at ambition in a lexicon which tracked its literary, philosophical, theological use over the centuries, if you had such a volume on hand, you would find that almost never, I'm going to say, before the 19th, if not the 20th century, do you find it used in a positive sense?

[Angelina Stanford]

Yeah, it's always, it's always negative. Sometimes I think people confuse ambition and aspiration. So aspiration is more of the positive version.

[Thomas Banks]

Yeah. Like discerning one's calling in life.

[Angelina Stanford]

That's Right. But ambition is much more what's being described here. Like what Success. And, and I will do whatever it takes to get to the top.

[Thomas Banks]

Power success kind of amorphously. I don't really know what I meant to do in life, but I want these things.

[Angelina Stanford]

But people misdefine ambition all the time. Ambition has always been a vice. It is always negative. I'm 100 on the side of Lord Goring here. It's always unscrupulous. That's not the same thing as aspiration or determining your vocation. Like I once had someone tell me, no, no, ambition is neutral. Like. And he said this with a straight face. You'll die when I tell you this. He said like Jesus had an ambition to die for humanity. I was like, wow. No, no.

[Thomas Banks]

Oh gosh.

[Angelina Stanford]

Those words mean.

[Thomas Banks]

Let me expand the definition until it becomes. It can cover like whatever helps me win this argument. Kind of. Yeah.

[Angelina Stanford]

Have found too when I have gotten into public debates with people about ambition, it is always ways self professed, unscrupulous, ambitious people who argue that ambition is a virtue. And it's like of course you do because you're super ambitious and also unscrupulous. So they try to make it into a. A virtue. But I digress. No, that's another great line when they're talking about fashion. This, I laughed at this because this is something you say all the time. So Mrs. Cheveley. Oh, I think men are the only authorities on dress. Lady Mark B. Really, but wouldn't say so from the sort of hats they wear. Wear. Actually you always complain about 19th century hats, so I thought that was really funny.

[Thomas Banks]

GK Chesterton agrees with me. He. He remarks in one of his books that the, you know, the 19th century was the most prosperous age many parts of Europe had known and the worst dressed. He said he was thinking mainly of the way men dressed rather than women. But yeah, like stovepipe hats and everyone kind of looking like an undertaker, I think. I think that was a pretty bad time for menswear for the most part.

[Angelina Stanford]

And apparently a time for irrational dress for women.

[Thomas Banks]

Irrational dress for women, yeah.

[Angelina Stanford]

So we find out that at one point Mrs. Cheveley and Lord Gor for three days. For three days. And, and, and of course in act three, she's going to try to blackmail him into getting a marriage proposal. But I thought there were some interesting parallels between the two of them. So Lord Goring says fashion is what.

[Thomas Banks]

We wear and unfashionable is what one wears oneself. What is unfashionable is what other people wear.

[Angelina Stanford]

Correct. But she says, this morality is simply the attitude we adopt towards people whom we personally dislike. So they have. They have this similar sensibility.

[Thomas Banks]

Yeah, they're both kind of worldly cynics. Yeah, you could. You could kind of imagine that their marriage. It wouldn't be a happy one, but it would sort of be. These people are sort of well chosen for each other in a way. Way.

[Angelina Stanford]

So at the end of Act 2, things come to a head. Because I got to say, Lord, Lady Chiltern pushes Mrs. Ch's buttons, gets on our high horse while this woman's in her home and says, if I had known who you were, I wouldn't have let you in. Once a thief, always a thief. Once a dishonest person, always. And she's like, really? How about your husband? Boom.

[Thomas Banks]

Yeah. So she drops that bomb.

[Angelina Stanford]

She does.

[Thomas Banks]

And lady children, predictably.

[Angelina Stanford]

Action.

[Thomas Banks]

Basically starts looking for a divorce lawyer. Not. Not quite that, but yeah, it's. Well, I can't worship my husband anymore, therefore, he. It's either he's everything or he's nothing. He's either a God or pawn scum.

[Angelina Stanford]

That's right. So I'm. I'm gonna read her line, and then you can read his response.

[Thomas Banks]

Okay.

[Angelina Stanford]

This is. This is what ends Act 2. And now we're getting closer to the. The problem with having ideal spouses. No, don't speak. Say nothing. Your voice wakes terrible memories. Memories of things that made me love you. Memories of words that made me love, love you. Memories that now are horrible to me and how I worshiped you. You were to me something apart from common life. A thing pure, noble, honest, without stain. The world seemed to me finer because you were in it. And goodness more real because you lived. And now. Oh, when I think that I was made of a man like you. My ideal. The ideal of my life. Life.

[Thomas Banks]

I was just thinking, like, this is. This is, like, almost good soap dialogue right here.

[Angelina Stanford]

Tried to, like.

[Thomas Banks]

It's overdone. Like, he. Like the. The melodramatic dialogue and the comic, cynical dialogue. Really kind of the. The. The juxtaposition between them makes each of them stand out more, it seems.

[Angelina Stanford]

I like, to me, I read this with, like, a really melodramatic soundtrack behind it. Yeah, you can.

[Thomas Banks]

Oh, yeah, totally. Yeah.

[Angelina Stanford]

So proper is so good because, like, you can imagine that her, like, slowly looking to. In that soap opera, close up.

[Thomas Banks]

Yes.

[Angelina Stanford]

Was it you?

[Thomas Banks]

Chivalry. All right, so Sir Robert responds, there was your mistake. There was your error. The error all women commit. Why can't you women love us, faults and all? Why do you then place us on monstrous pedestals? We have all feet of clay, women as well as men. But when we men love women, we love them knowing their weaknesses, their follies, their imperfections, who have need of love. It is when we are wounded by our own hands or by the hands of others that love should come to cure us. Else, what use is love at all? All sins except a sin against itself. Love should forgive all lives, save loveless lives. True love should pardon. A man's. Love is like that. It is wider, larger, more human than a woman's. Women think that they are making ideals of men. What they are making of us are false idols merely. You made your false idol of me, and I had not the courage to come down, show you my wounds. Wounds tell you my weaknesses. I'm afraid that I might lose your love as I have lost it now.

[Angelina Stanford]

Yeah, so. So we have. As I said last time, Lord Goring is the idle man. Lord Chiltern is the ideal man. And now he's saying, I'm not an ideal. I was an idol. And I have just tumbled from my pedestal.

[Thomas Banks]

Yeah. Oscar Wilde is fond of working puns into his plays. Titles where you don't really realize the pawn at work until you see or read the play itself. Because the importance of Being Earnest. Earnest there is giving several. A lot of legwork in several different meanings. And. Yeah, you're right.

[Angelina Stanford]

All right, so act three. We're at Lord Goring's home.

[Thomas Banks]

And the bit was him and his dad. That was one of the best parts in the play.

[Angelina Stanford]

So funny. So funny and very madcap. So very. A very Roman comedy with, like, mistaken identities and. And, I mean, almost like a Threes Company episode, right? Like you've got some people shoved in one room, another person shoved in another room. You're trying not to let them see each other. All these moving parts, all this crazy. And then, oh, no, it's not her, it's her.

[Thomas Banks]

Yeah. And, you know, one piece of incriminating, incriminating evidence is destroyed, but another is discovered. So, right. We got letters being handed off and. But the dialogue between Lord Goring and his father. Father reminded me of something out of a Roman play, out of a Roman comedy by Plautus or Terence. Because you always have the disapproving elder figure there, the disapproving patriarch who wants the son to, I don't know, join the family business or in this game, get married. You're like a respectable woman. Like your friend can you be like. He literally says, can't you be more like your friend Lord Robert?

[Angelina Stanford]

Oh, I don't think so. He says, like, my lad, when I was your age, I was three months away, widow, and. And was. Was pursuing your mother, like, what's wrong with you, old boy? Get a move on. And the whole thing, like, is there.

[Thomas Banks]

You're 34 years old. Yes, but Father quiet about that. I only admit publicly to be 32, 31 and a half has a really good button hole.

[Angelina Stanford]

Like, you're 34. You're 34. I say, well, that was fantastic. That and the. Is there a draft in here?

[Thomas Banks]

Very.

[Angelina Stanford]

Like Mr. Woodhouse from IMMA. You know, like, I'm old and I. I can't have a draw. Why'd you. Why did you say this was a good room? This isn't a good room. And if this had a woman's touch, you know, so. Yeah. Yes. We see everything coming together. You've got to settle down.

[Thomas Banks]

Yes. And he has an opportunity. Kind of.

[Angelina Stanford]

Kind of. Now, I just need to say this as an aside, because one of the things that chafes me, rubs me raw, is the incorrect assumption that everybody, a long time ago got married really young. It depends which time period you're talking about.

[Thomas Banks]

And also social class.

[Angelina Stanford]

Social class, absolutely. Sometimes people will, like, look at pioneers in America and say, see, they got married at 14. And we're. We're the first people in history to wait till we're 30 to get married.

[Thomas Banks]

Like, you need to read more history, actually, in. You talked about this in the Importance of Being Earnest too, because Ernest Jack is thinking of settling down and he's like, 30. Okay. Like that.

[Angelina Stanford]

He's almost 30. It was actually John Adams was in his 30s too, when he. When he got married.

[Thomas Banks]

Okay.

[Angelina Stanford]

Yeah, yeah. So in the. I would say in the 1700s, 1800s, hundreds, because you have definitely rising wealth and the middle class is getting more established and becoming comfortable in. In that kind of urban setting becomes a bigger deal. You actually see people getting married a lot later. They're. No, they're not getting married at 14. They're not Laura Ingalls Wilder. Okay, this is. You need to read more history. If you think everybody a long time ago got married young. In the Victorian period, it was very, very common that the men did not get married until they were in their 30s, their 30s. They had to be established in their career. I already have a house.

[Thomas Banks]

Like, no, you're a man of, like, a certain social standing. Exactly.

[Angelina Stanford]

Like, I'm not going to let you Marry my daughter if you don't have a nice, comfortable life for her to go into that kind of. That kind of thing now. I mean, we could make all kind of arguments about wealth and, and, and status and money and, and having a high standard of living. Being connected to marrying later and later. I definitely think that that is connected to what's going on in, in our own time. But, you know, that aside, the reality is they did wait now, women were not going to be in their 30s. They would have been a spinster. You, you would have been typically, you see. And this also, I think, freaks out modern readers. But, you know, you're going to see a man who's 30 pursuing a girl who's 19, because that's biology and science and, you know, you know, you want to have children. But very, very common for the men to be older. So I sort of bristle when people act like, oh, people today, they get married so late, and it's because they're also. Boys are so immature and they don't want to settle down. I'm like, I don't know. We've been getting married. Men getting married in their 30s has been a thing for a few hundred years now. Maybe you don't have quite the. The right end of the stick on that one.

[Thomas Banks]

So. Shall we talk about. We should talk about the brooch and the little.

[Angelina Stanford]

Yes. I did not see that coming.

[Thomas Banks]

Yeah, I mean, I knew it was going to come back in. I had completely forgotten about that, though. I have. I have read this play before, and I did not remember the plot device. So Mrs. Cheveley left a brooch at the party in act one. And you remember Lord Goring pocketed it.

[Angelina Stanford]

Yes.

[Thomas Banks]

Sorry.

[Angelina Stanford]

No, you got it.

[Thomas Banks]

Pocketed it. Yes. Sorry. I was thinking about saying that, and it's hard to say. Anyway, and it. We realize that Mrs. Cheveley, we know that she's a woman with the past, but she has even more of a past than we had realized because it is revealed that he pocketed it. I did it again. Great. Yeah. Three for three. Because he recognized this as something that was actually his. He just didn't know it was his cousin's property.

[Angelina Stanford]

He bought it for her.

[Thomas Banks]

Yeah, he had bought it for her for a woman in his family. And it was stolen and a butler was blamed and had to, you know, leave the house in disgrace. But Mrs. Cheveley, she's not just a manipulative woman, she's literally a thief.

[Angelina Stanford]

That's right. And I loved that he makes it a little handcuff bracelet on her.

[Thomas Banks]

She's literally.

[Angelina Stanford]

That's right.

[Thomas Banks]

It's. Yeah.

[Angelina Stanford]

He's like, I'm about to call. I'm gonna call. Well, she's like, what are you gonna do?

[Thomas Banks]

Something out of a fairy tale. Yeah.

[Angelina Stanford]

Token of identity thing. And does it fit and kind of was an anti Cinderella thing that she fits.

[Thomas Banks]

He, he. Someone says, I think it's Goring. Maybe it's. Maybe it's Robert. Children. But one of them remarks during these acts that I sometimes think that when the gods punish us, they answer our prayers.

[Angelina Stanford]

Yes. Lord Chiltern says that.

[Thomas Banks]

Yes. I think we're seeing that with more than one character working that out.

[Angelina Stanford]

All right, so by the time we get to Act 3, where do we stand? The Chiltern marriage is on the rocks. And she, Lady Chiltern, writes Lord Goring on pink paper, which is hilarious. And it's not a romantic letter. She wants to go over there and say, what do I do in my marriage is over? And instead of her showing up, Mrs. Cheveley comes up with her own agenda, which is to blackmail Goring into marrying her.

[Thomas Banks]

Correct.

[Angelina Stanford]

And then Chiltern shows up and then she. Mrs. Cheveley listens in at the keyhole and hears more stuff. And she. So Chiltern leaves sinking.

[Thomas Banks]

Goring has betrayed him. That they're working together.

[Angelina Stanford]

That's right. Okay. And so they leave. He. Goring says, no, I'm. I'm not going to marry you. You. In fact, I'm going to imprison you.

[Thomas Banks]

And then you're going to hand over this letter to me. Otherwise.

[Angelina Stanford]

Otherwise I'll call the cops. And she says, okay. And so she hands over the letter. He lets go of the handcuffs, and then the letter.

[Thomas Banks]

So Robert is now free.

[Angelina Stanford]

Robert. But then she steals the other incriminating.

[Thomas Banks]

And the letter, which is the one.

[Angelina Stanford]

From I want you. I need you. No, I want you. I trust you.

[Thomas Banks]

Those are really badly phrased. Like, of all the ways that you could phrase something ambiguously so it sounds like it incriminates you. Yeah. Mrs. Mrs. Chiltern, you could have been smarter than that. So it now sounds like Mrs. Chiltern and Lord Goring are illicitly involved.

[Angelina Stanford]

That's set up a little bit because when Robert Chilton is freaking out about his marriage is over, and Lord Goring says, is there not some indiscretion of hers that you could forgive?

[Thomas Banks]

Oh, no, that was very well done.

[Angelina Stanford]

That could make it balance the scales. And he's like, no, never.

[Thomas Banks]

She's perfect. She's too perfect.

[Angelina Stanford]

So now we have a potential indiscretion here.

[Thomas Banks]

Yeah, yeah. If only these people would learn. But maybe they won't. Yeah.

[Angelina Stanford]

It's so good. I'm really enjoying it.

[Thomas Banks]

It's a really. Well, it's a really well structured play.

[Angelina Stanford]

And very witty, Very funny.

[Thomas Banks]

Yeah.

[Angelina Stanford]

I liked when Lord Goring and Lord Caversham were talking about a paradox. He goes, oh, that's a paradox, sir. I hate paradoxes. And he says, so do I, Father. Everyone meets in is a paradox nowadays. It's a great bore. The late Victorian were super interested in paradoxes. I mean, you got a whole Gilbert and Sullivan operetta on a paradox. Pirates of Penzance.

[Thomas Banks]

Seems the enduring popularity of Alice in Wonderland, too, is kind of that same.

[Angelina Stanford]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yep.

[Thomas Banks]

Yeah.

[Angelina Stanford]

In fact, I thought a lot about Gilbert and Sullivan while reading this. The same kind of sort of like madcap comic, you know, going back and forth. Very, very witty, very fast paced.

[Thomas Banks]

Yeah.

[Angelina Stanford]

And there's a lot of social satire in the very different sort sort of.

[Thomas Banks]

Comic playwright because he. He had more of a social purpose than. Than Wild did. But George Bernard Shaw, too. I mean, George Bernard Shaw is a product of the. He gets popular in the 1890s and early 1900s. And. Yeah, he was a master of paradox as well.

[Angelina Stanford]

All right, well, I hope you guys enjoyed that. I had a good time talking. Did you have a good time talking?

[Thomas Banks]

Rather.

[Angelina Stanford]

Rather.

[Thomas Banks]

I'd rather listen to you talk. But that's just me.

[Angelina Stanford]

You'll do that when I turn off the recording. You'll just listen to me talk for.

[Thomas Banks]

The rest of the day.

[Angelina Stanford]

Let's hear Job.

[Thomas Banks]

Is that a blessing or a curse or both?

[Angelina Stanford]

I'll never say. Okay, I'll never say.

[Thomas Banks]

I still haven't figured it out.

[Angelina Stanford]

What's the number for that marriage counselor? We're going to come back in two weeks and finish this play, as well as talk about some of the film versions of An Ideal Husband. And in one week, we're gonna. So I'll explain this second why I switched to the schedule around. And one week we're going to come back back with our 2025 Lit Life Preview. So we are going to talk about what's coming up next year on the podcast. And I decided to move that episode up because I know a lot of people wait to find out what books are we going to be covering so they can ask for those books for Christmas. So we will get out that list to you next week and give you a nice little preview and tease about some of the cool stuff we have for you in 2025 and then we'll come back and we'll finish finish Oscar Wise and Ideal Husband. And then after that we'll do our literary lives of 2024 and Cindy will come back on for that episode and we'll have a nice chat about what we've been reading this past year. So we'll see you guys next time. Don't forget cassiodoruspress.com to pre order Dr. Baxter's book why Literature Still Matters and houseofhumaneletters.com to take advantage of our Christmas sale and register for Mr. Banks's webinar and you can find all the show notes, notes, commonplace quotes, all the good stuff at theliterary Life as well as you can join our Patreon because we are 100 member supported, we do not accept any advertising. That way I can just be as offensive as I'd like and not have to worry about losing advertisers. And you can go to patreon.com backslash literary life to join our Patreon community and support this podcast. And we thank our supporters so much. So stick around to the end. Mr. Banks will have a special poem for you. And until then, until then, keep crafting your literary life because stories will save the world. Thank you for listening to the Literary Life podcast brought to you by our loyal patreon sponsors. Visit HouseOfHumaneLetters.com to find Angelina and Thomas and to sign up for our newsletter with podcast schedules and more. And keep up with [e-mail] Join the Conversation at our member only Patreon Forum or our Facebook discussion group. Visit patreon.com theliterarylife to find out how you can sponsor this podcast and get great bonus content. Don't forget to subscribe, rate and review and check out our sister podcasts, the New Mason Jar and the well Read Poem. And now for a poem read by poet Thomas banks.

[Thomas Banks]

Piano by D.H. lawrence Softly in the dusk a woman is singing to me, Taking me back down the vista of years Till I see a child sitting under the piano in the boom of the tinkling strings and pressing the small poised feet of a mother who smiles as she sings in spite of myself the insidious mastery of song betrays me back till the heart of me weeps to belong to the old Sunday evenings at home with winter outside and hymns in the cozy parlor, the tinkling piano our guide. So now it is vain for the singer to burst into clamor with the great black piano. Appassion. The glamour of childish days is upon me. My manhood is cast down in the flood of remembrance. I weep like a child for the past.