SOURCE: Sinfield, Alan. “‘Effeminacy’ and ‘Femininity’: Sexual Politics in Wilde's Comedies.” Modern Drama 37, no. 1 (spring 1994): 34-52.

In the following essay, Sinfield explores Wilde's utilization of effeminacy and femininity in his plays.

Lytton Strachey saw A Woman of No Importance revived by Beerbohm Tree in 1907:

Mr Tree is a wicked Lord, staying in a country house, who has made up his mind to bugger one of the other guests—a handsome young man of twenty. The handsome young man is delighted; when his mother enters, sees his Lordship and recognises him as having copulated with her twenty years before, the result of which was—the handsome young man. She appeals to Lord Tree not to bugger his own son. He replies that that's an additional reason for doing it (oh! he's a very wicked Lord!). … The audience was of course charmed.¹

If the play had been read generally in...