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  • 王尔德: 温夫人的扇子
    WILDE: Lady Windermere' s Fan
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• • 王尔德: 温夫人的扇子 / WILDE: Lady Windermere' s Fan
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  • Oscar WildeLADYWINDERMERE’S FAN OscarFingall O’Flahertie Wills Wilde was born in Dublin on October 16, 1854. His father was a distinguished surgeon and hismother a poet. After attending Trinity College in Dublin, Wilde won a scholarship to Magdalen College, Oxford in 1874, where he took first class honours and was awardedthe Newdigate Prize for poetry. At OxfordWilde, under the influence of the critics Walter Pater and John Ruskin and thepainter James McNeill Whistler, espoused the ideals of the “aesthetic’movement, which asserted the importance of art in society and its power toinfluence the progress of civilization. Wilde’s wit, his extravagant modes ofdress, his attitude of contempt for traditional sports and energetic pursuits,caused hum to be seen as an effeminate poseur by his more reactionary fellowstudents, and resulted in his receiving a ducking in the Cherwell and his roomsbeing wrecked. Havingmoved to London, Wilde’s handsome looks andbrilliant conversation soon established his position in society. His long hair,velvet coat and flowing tie became the recognized image of the poetic aesthete,and were parodied in Gilbert and Sullivan’s opera Patience (1881). Thefollowing year Wilde took advantage of the opera’s success by embarking on alecture tour of the United States, during whichtime he wrote a play, Vera, later produced in New York. The sameyear Wilde published a selection of poems, and these were followed by TheHappy Prince and Other Stories (1888), Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime andOther Stories (1891), The House of Pomegranates (1892), ThePicture of Dorian Gray (1891), and a play, The Duchess of Paduawhich was produced in New York in 1891. His Salome(1893) was refused a license for the London stage, and was produced in Paris by Sarah Bernhardt. In 1884Wilde married Constance Lloyd, by whim he had two sons, Cyril in 1885 andVyvian in 1886. In addition to his literary output, Wilde supplemented hisliving by journalism, contributing to various popular periodicals. In 1891Wilde embarked on a succession of plays which were to earn him popular acclaimand an assured place in this history of English dramatic writing; LadyWindermere’s Fan (1892), A Woman of No Importance (1893), AnIdeal Husband (1895) and The Importance of Being Ernest (1895). During thisperiod a homosexual relationship which was to have disastrous consequencesdeveloped between Wilde and the young Lord Alfred Douglas. Douglas’s father, the Marquis ofQueensberry, learning the nature of his son’s friendship with Wilde, publiclyinsulted him, and Wilde, mistakenly as it turned out, decided to sueQueensberry for libel. During the course of one trial at which the jury failedto agree and a consequent re-trial, Wilde’s homosexual activities were revealedand he was condemned to two years’ imprisonment with hard labour. While inprison Wilde wrote a long accusatory letter to Douglas, later published as De Profundis, and a powerfulnarrative poem, The Ballad of Reading Gaol. After his release Wildemoved to Paris where he lived under a pseudonymand died in poverty on 30 November, 1990. In order toappreciate the attitudes which underlie the narrative of Lady Windermere’sFan, it may be helpful to consider the prevailing public morality of theera in which it was written, and the author’s own ambivalent position. The rigidsocial and religious rules of the time obliged all sexual activity outsidemarriage to be carried on in secret, an attitude which resulted in thewell-known hypocrisy of the Victorian age. Sexual activity between members ofthe same sex was never openly admitted; homosexuality was a criminal offenceand Wilde, in company with other practicing homosexuals, was obliged to hidethat aspect of his life. In the caseof men, extra-marital affairs might be overlooked providing there wereconducted discreetly and did not interfere with the semblance of an orderlysocial existence. But equality between the sexes, though widely discussed, wasfar from being established. The rules of sexual conduct for women wereconsiderably stricter than those for men, and women who broke them sufferedsevere consequences in terms of society’s retribution. In an age when women ofthe upper classes were not expected to earn their living, and where society didnot provide any means for them to do so, there were few avenues open for awoman without a husband or a fortune. In cases where a beautiful woman’sdetermination to live well outweighed her fear of society’s opprobrium, she wasfree to choose a more comfortable way of life in which her looks and ability toplease were financially rewarded by wealth admirers. But such women wereobliged to live a demimondaine existence outside the magic circle of‘decent’ society; they might be popular in the company of men, but they wouldnever be received by their wives. It is into this category that Mrs. Erlynnefalls. The themeof Lady Windermere’s Fan is ‘goodness’; the difference between society’sperception of what it means to be ‘good’, and true ethical goodness; betweenthe public stance of morality, and the private kindness of a generous nature.Mrs. Erlynne, having left her husband and child for  a lover who deserted her,is seen by society as a ‘bad’ woman and has been punished for contravening itslaws. She is no longer accepted in respectable houses, and is obliged to travelabroad, kept by a succession of wealthy lovers. Her heart has hardened to theextent that she is prepared to blackmail Lord Windermere into paying her anallowance, and forcing him to become the means of her reinstatement infashionable society. LadyWindermere is a ‘good’ woman, in the sense of being a faithful wife, a lovingmother, and a respectable member of society, but as the result of her youth,her rigid upbringing and her limited experience of life, she lacks the truequalities of good ness – understanding, sympathy and compassion. Throughre-discovering her maternal feelings, Mrs. Erlynne shows herself capable of theselfless sacrifice of true love. Lady Windermere understands that she has misjudgedMrs. Erlynne, and discovers within herself the frailty she has condemned inothers. She learns that there are no ‘bad’ or ‘good’ people, but that thecomplexity of human nature embraces all such qualities. Thus Wilde sends amessage to his audiences that those who are forced to live outside theboundaries of ‘respectable’ society are not necessarily evil, and that thosewho consider themselves without stain would do well to look deeper, and acceptthe failings of others in a spirit of understanding and generosity. In thelight of what we know of the double life Wilde was leading at the time he waswriting Lady Windermere’s Fan, it is easy to see why such sentiments lieat the play’s heart. But sadly, once Wilde’s secret became public knowledge, itbecame clear that his message had fallen on deaf ears. The cruel impulses ofhuman nature, those which envy beauty and talent and gate the outsider, thesame that had motivated the behaviour of his Oxford contemporaries in the past,now caused a self-righteous establishment to heap on him a public degradationgreater than any which Mrs. Erlynne or her kind might have suffered. OvernightWilde, the epitome of elegant living, artistic sensitivity and wittyinsouciance, the darling of theatrical audiences and fashionable drawing rooms,became outcast, a criminal whose appearance on a Clapham Junction stationplatform in prison clothes elicited jeers and catcalls from a contemptuouscrowd. Wilde had climbed high, and he had a long way to fall. There is in hisfate a sense of the hubris of Greek tragedy; as if the seeds of his undoingwere there from the beginning, and his downfall as the result of his ambitionand pride. However,when on the 20th February 1892, Lady Windermere’s Fan openedat the St. James’s Theatre to rapturous applause, these tragic events werestill in the future. The play was an instant success and ran for over 150performances. Now, a century later, it continues to be revived frequently. Thereasons for its popularity are not difficult to identify. The play’s wittydialogue contains many of Wilde’s most quoted aphorisms, its stylish settingprovides opportunities for elegant presentation, and it achieves moments ofhigh emotion which are deeply moving. It alsoincludes a cast of memorable characters; Lord Darlington, whose witty andurbane exterior hides a recklessly passionate nature and may well be theauthor’s self-portrait; the redoubtable Duchess of Berwick, a rewarding figurein her own right, despite being due to reappear in the future as the even moreformidable Lady Bracknell; and Mrs. Erlynne, who brings a deeper resonance towhat might otherwise have been a superficially entertaining piece, and givesthe play another, more serious dimension. In thisNaxos AudioBook version we are fortunate to have been able to assemble a castworthy of Wilde’s creative genius. I hope the listener will forgive mypre-empting his appreciative response if I quote the author’s speech to theaudience on the first night of the play, “I think that you have enjoyed theperformance as much as I have, and I am pleased to believe that you like thepiece almost as much as I do myself.” Notes byNeville Jason
  • • 作品列表
    • • CD01
      • 作品编号：23260  Lady Windermere' s Fan

      • Act 1

      • Act 2

      • CD02
      • 作品编号：23260  Lady Windermere' s Fan

      • Act 3

      • Act 4