Victorian Drama

The Victorian era stretches from 1837 to 1901, the period during which Queen Victoria ruled. Most historians of Victorian life and art have not given sustained and serious attention to the drama and the theatrical environment in which it was produced.

During this age, the theatre takes the back seat due to other important issues like growth of the industry, labour legislation and political enfranchisement. The drama written during the bulk of the century is generally looked upon as the black sheep of Victorian literature. Indeed, even historians of theatrical art tend to treat the nineteenth-century English theatre with overtones of derision, while most surveys of British drama seem to suggest that the genre underwent a nearly total eclipse between the plays of Sheridan and Shaw. Yet the Victorian theatre was one of the most vitally active in the long history of dramatic art. Particularly after the well-reported attendance of the newly ascended Queen Victoria made it unquestionably respectable, the Theatre was a part of the lives of Londoners of all classes.

That the Victorian drama is, to the serious critic, little more than a minor adjunct to the literature of the century is perhaps implicit in the absence from the roster of successful dramatists of those authors whom we typically thing of in connection with the other fields of Victorian literature. Most of the important novelists of the century followed Thackeray's example and abjured the stage completely; those who, like Dickens, had an abiding love for the theatre more often than not confined their dramatic efforts to amateur theatricals.

Oscar Wilde as Victorian Era Playwright

Oscar Wilde is one of the most prominent playwrights of the Victorian era. Wilde's easy wit insured an immediate success for the brilliant series of dramas that he wrote in the early nineties. In early 1892 Lady Windermere's Fan appeared at the St James' Theatre and was at once popular. The same year Wilde also wrote Salome. It was followed the next year by A Woman of No Importance. An Ideal Husband and The Importance of Being Earnest, both filled with wit and brilliant paradoxes, appeared in 1895. They were the last things that Oscar Wilde was to write before he developed meningitis and suffered his untimely death. Other plays include Vera; or The Nihilists (1880), The Duchess of Padua (1883), A Florentine Tragedy (La Sainte Courtisane 1893).

Wilde's work has inspired many other fellow writers. His work has been translated into many languages and has been on the stage over and over again. Oscar Wilde was certainly the most outstanding representative of the poetry of the Aesthetic movement, but he is better known for his activity as a playwright. He gave fantasy, vivacity and a breath of new life to drama. His comedies, full of humour, intrigued and fascinated the audience.

Other Victorian Age Playwrights

Other important writers include John Millington Synge, whose plays include Riders to the Sea and The Playboy of the Western World (1907). Dion Boucicault was another famous playwright of the Victorian era. His famous plays include The Colleen Bawn, and The Shaughraun.