SOURCE: Bristow, Joseph. “Dowdies and Dandies: Oscar Wilde's Refashioning of Society Comedy.” Modern Drama 37, no. 1 (spring 1994): 53-70.

In the following essay, Bristow discusses the defining characteristics of Wilde's plays.

I

“London Society,” according to Mrs Cheveley in An Ideal Husband (1895), is “entirely made up of dowdies and dandies.”¹ Reported by Mrs Marchmont to Lord Goring, Mrs Cheveley's words have a far greater function than simply making her the centre of attention among this group of gossipy aristocrats and their various hangers-on. Her acute observations of London Society disclose that this particular milieu is dull and yet dazzling. Rather like the interest she manages to generate around her own persona, Mrs Cheveley's insights about this contrastive culture of “dowdies and dandies” have an element of sparkling wit about them while appearing not a little predictable to at least one of their company. For although Lord Goring tells Mrs Marchmont...