Speaking of Jesters...

I have never taught Oscar Wilde before; I haven't really read much other than Earnest, Salome and the odd poem.  I have yet to read The Picture of Dorian Gray, but that is not because I don't enjoy his writing or his persona.  I have read more about him than by him;  I imagine him to have been exactly like his characters, and I want to go back in time and have conversations with him where I am lost in the dust of his legendary quick wit.  I have many smart friends, and though I think that they are formidably fast with a quip or comeback, there is something about the dry Victorian delivery, at least in his writing, that adds to Wilde's snarky-genius mystique; my friends, sadly, don't have the wealth or the snide British sneers to pull off banter of this type.  I hope that my students like the play; I think they will.  Even though it is very smart, it is also very accessible.  The humor and shenanigans keep me engaged in a way that more melodramatic Victorian fare cannot; as a matter of fact, whenever I try to watch Downton Abbey, I hope that it is going to be like The Importance of Being Earnest.  I guess it is in a way, but it is decidedly less funny, and it degrades into a soap opera.   Give me questionable rogues, dishonest scalawags, and irony over Downton Abbey any day.