An Ideal Husband is one of Wilde's social comedies. Wilde specialized in satirizing the manners of Victorian society in earlier plays Lady Windermere's Fan and A Woman of No Importance. Witty dialogue and musings on love and society are peppered throughout his plays, as indeed is his most recognizable character, the dandy. The dandy is a sardonic, fashionable young man who philosophizes on society around him, usually with an aesthetic take on life. Lord Goring is our example in An Ideal Husband, and this figure is realized as Algernon in The Importance of Being Earnest and Lord Darlington in Lady Windermere's Fan. Wilde's most popular play, at the time and since, is The Importance of...
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