In Travesties, Tom Stoppard creates an intricate statement about art through a travesty of Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest. The nature and role of art and the artist is debated throughout the play by the principal characters: modernist James Joyce, Dadaist Tristan Tzara, and political revolutionary Vladimir Lenin. Through these three characters and their speech, especially the opposing views of Joyce and Tzara, Stoppard provides a comprehensive statement about what art is. Firstly, through Tzara, Stoppard decries all traditional forms and purposes of art. Tzara’s art is based on chance and his Dada attacks rationality and celebrates randomness and confusion. Tzara states that:
Doing the things by which is meant Art is no longer considered
…show more content…
He ignores the beauty of art and instead promotes the didactic, explaining that literature must "become a part of the common cause of the proletariat, a cog in the Social democratic mechanism" (Stoppard 58). He describes literature as a cog, a gear that helps turn the wheel of change. Cecily also supports Lenin’s view, when she states that "the sole duty and justification for art is social criticism" (Stoppard 49). By using the word sole, Cecily creates a strong statement that art is only used for social criticism and nothing else. Stoppard creates another view of art in society through Lenin. Lenin believes that art has a subservient role in society and it should be used as a tool of political systems.
Furthermore, Joyce’s role is as a champion of art and insists that great art does serve a purpose. Joyce advocates a traditional form of art, as seen through his retort to Tzara:
An artist is the magician put among men to gratify-capriciously- their urge for immortality. If there is any meaning in any of it, it is in what survives as art, yes even in the celebration of tyrants, yes even in the celebration of nonentities. What now of the Trojan War if had been passed over by the artist’s touch? Dust (Stoppard
... to those viewing the performance. The audience must focus their attention of the happenings and the words being portrayed on stage or screen or they will easily miss the double meaning Stoppard intended in each scene of the play. The human motivation is inseparably connected with the theme of life and death that runs through the play, for it is as the two are about to die that they observe that maybe they could have made a different decision, one that would let them remain alive and free they only missed their opportunity to make that choice. Stoppard wanted his play to express more meaning and different messages to his audience but he desired for them to search the play and pay close attention to the different meanings present so they could gain the most possible from the play and those who did not understand would walk away not understanding how much they missed.
John Gardner: Making Life Art as a Moral Process. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1988. 86-110. Rpt. in Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism. Ed.
All of Camus' writings may be viewed as a quest for meaningful values in a world of spiritual aridity and emptiness. He begins with man's despair, estrangement, fear, suffering and hopelessness in a world where is neither God nor the promise that He will come- the fundamental absurdity of existence- but ultimately affirms the power of man to achieve spiritual regeneration and the measure of salvation possible in an absurd universe. This radical repudiation of despair and nihilism is closely bound up with his concept of an artist. Camus conceives of art as a way of embracing a consciousness of the absurdity of man's existential plight. But art becomes a means of negating that absurdity because the artist reconstructs the reality, endowing it with unity, endurance and perfection. By taking elements from reality that confirms the absurd existence, an artist attempts to correct the world by words and redistribution. Thus the artist never provides a radical transformation of reality but a fundamental reinterpretation of what already exists. He provides a new angle of vision of perceiving reality. That is why, for Camus, an artist is a recreator of myth. He teaches humanity that contemporary man must abandon the old myths that have become otiose, though once defined his existence. The artist liberates man to live in his world by redefining both man and the condition in which he exists. In this regard, it is important to point out that, for Camus, the traditional opposition between art and philosophy is arbitrary. It is because they together become most effective to create the redefinition: the philosophy awakens the consciousness and the art, propelled by such a radical discovery, ...
When deciding what element a play should contain, one must look at a large variety of options. These options can alter how the audience depicts the play and change their overall opinions. Oscar Wilde’s “The Importance of Being Earnest” is a play set around 1895 where the protagonist, Jack Worthing, takes on two identities in order to avoid social obligations. This play’s era affects how the characters are dressed and how their households appear.
Oscar Wilde’s “The Importance of Being Earnest” epitomizes the idiosyncrasy of the Victorian society through satire and wit. Throughout the play Wilde criticizes the common perception of the mid seventeenth through early eighteenth century culture, “Prudish, hypocritical, stuffy and narrow minded”. With his quintessential characters and intricate situations Wilde configures the perfect depiction of the carless irrationality of social life, the frivolity of the wealthy, the importance of money, and the lack of reverence for marriage often manifested by those in this era. Wilde also jabs at the Victorian convention to uphold the appearance of decency in order to hide the cruel, indignant and manipulative attitudes of the time. Through setting, characters, comedy, and a great deal of drama Oscar Wilde portrays his views on the elitist of his time.
Stoppard was a long established playwright by this time; hence classical references will be more understood and even expected in a play about a classicist. With its star writer and subject matter, the audience of the play is therefore going to be made up of a number of certain types, from scholars, poets, and members of society that frequently use the theatres. However, Stoppard does take time to eloquently explain certain principles and scholarly cruxes to a layman audience. The fact that he is a popular playwright would have also attracted the audience to attend the play. To open this play to an audience that is more interested in the writer than the subject, as well as non-classicists, Stoppard uses characters of Houseman’s life to be ignorant to the audience, so they can ask questions for them; such as, in Jacksons dual role as Loved One of Houseman and mouthpiece of the audience.
... turning some who can be seen as a blank canvas into someone new. In both ways, Evelyn and Henry Higgins are the artists to their work. Though they might not treat the people they are working with as a human, in the grander idea they have made them better. Adam finally comes to terms with his true personality, while Evelyn exposes what society believes are the norms for a person’s appearance. While, with Eliza, she leaves the life of being a beggar and becoming a duchess, showing how through hard work a person can change, and it becomes hard to return to one’s prior self. Both instances show art playing a large role in shaping their lives. From learning about life through art, people then strive to be on the same level as the art the see, trying to live a grander lifestyle. Showing that to a certain extent art can influence life more than life can influence art.
Theo and the young Narrator similarly discover the revelatory capacity of art through a single pivotal painting and author respectively, both which become significant motifs in either text. Tartt utilizes an existent painting ‘The Goldfinch’ as a fixed point of reference, which, for both Theo and the reader provides a sense of reality and constancy ‘rais[ing him] above the surface’ of an otherwise tumultuous childhood. Whereas Proust uses a fictional author, ‘Bergotte’, to communicate the universality of art, and invite the reader, through the vivid immediacy with which the Narrator’s early reading experiences are described, to participate in his epiphanic discovery that art can translate ‘imperceptible truths which would never have [otherwise] been revealed to us’ (97). Artistic imagery becomes a motif in Proust’s descriptions of scenes of domesticity and nature. In a scene recounting Francoise ‘masterful’ preparation of a family meal the Narrator describes asparagus in the technical language of painting as ‘finely stippled’ provoking an association between his observations of asparagus and the creation of a painting. By forming this improbable link he elevates unremarkable asparagus to the ‘precious’ status of art in the eyes of the reader. Proust’s presentation of his Narrator’s ‘fascination’ and pleasure at their ‘rainbow-loveliness’, forces the reader to consider asparagus with unfamiliar and attentive appreciation, conveying the idea that art can uncover the overlooked beauty of the mundane. Though Theo reveals a far more cynical view of ordinary life as a ‘sinkhole of hospital beds, coffins and broken hearts’ Tartt conveys the similar belief in art’s capacity to create a ‘rainbow-edge’ of beauty between our perceptions and the harshness of reality. In the most
...es Art an inner power struggle. Subsequently, Art becomes resentful. Art’s resentment towards Vladek does not allow him to emotionally mature. Yet through writing Art forgives his father and becomes a man.
In the late nineteenth century many European, and especially British, authors, play writes and poets wrote about the inadequacies of the upper class. Often times the author will not blatantly express his feelings, but rather he will hide them behind the plot or characters in his story. In Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest, Wilde mocks the values of the upper class. By fully exaggerating the flaws of the upper class, Wilde succeeds in expressing his beliefs that men and women of the upper class are shallow, foolish, and have no respectable values.
Critical thinking is a very important aspect to understanding art. As David Perkins put it in “The Intelligent Eye”, we must avoid “experimental thinking”, a rash, quick way of thinking based on observations and use “reflective intelligence”, a way of thinking in which a viewer takes their time and dissects details and nuances to fully understand a work of art. A majority of viewers will look at a piece of art and come to a quick analysis of it, without much thought. But, according to Perkins, “The more attentive the observation is, the better the opportunity is for deeper learning” (Perkins 14). As Banksy said in Exit Through the Gift Shop, “the reaction to the work of art is the most important thing about it.” Without a reaction or an opinion, the work of art has no meaning. Therefore, in order to trul...
Wilde, Oscar. The Importance of Being Earnest. Peter Raby, ed. Oscar Wilde: The Importance of Being Earnest and Other Plays. London: Oxford University Press, 1995. 247-307.
The play, because of the absurdities contained in it, provide for the comic element and the protagonists engage in senseless pursuits without giving any rational thought to why they have been assigned to the task or what may be the outcome. To these absurd games, where they pose questions and provide answers to it themselves, sometimes as more questions, Stoppard brings a sense of inevitable. This inevitable is the death for which the men are destined.
Art has had its roots, one may argue, when civilization was born. With each respective civilization and time periods from the past, humans have formed a diverse and unique society, a group of people with their own individual characteristics, cultures, as well as philosophies within which all kinds of differing ideas, thoughts and opinions are always brought upon for challenge and evaluation. These distinct aspects of a culture and/or time period may be recorded by people in varying forms of expression we all know as art. Directly from where culture had originated, events and/or emotions from that time period have been reflected or directly recorded in the arrangement of pictures i.e. paintings from the past which inform us about the people’s experiences and events in the past historical periods. Ultimately, History is the record of the development and how we have evolved as humans together in a society. History can be expressed and reflected in different kinds of music, sculptures, as well as paintings. There are several different periods of Art, each has contributed and reflected to how a society was. Art has been usually used by historians as one of the vehicles of history to illustrate and illuminate it as they are able to recognize that some types of art may be able to help them identify and explain the nature of societies and periods in history. Art and society have counteracted with each different type bringing forth new arts and new societies for many generations to come. Ideas have caused responses by citizens and therefore bring forth several different types of influences on a period’s background, heredity, and environments. These influences are then translated into new a idea, which then triggers the circle to repeat it...
The novel, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is an autobiography of James Joyce who delivers the influential aspects in his life and his artistic development to the reader through the eyes of the fictional character of Stephen Dedalus. In the novel, Stephen's journey to maturation and to become an artist is influenced by his religion, sexuality and education. Yet, Stephen is able to overcome the obstacles result from these aspects and experience his life to its fullest.