Talk:The School for Scandal

The School for Scandal received a peer review by Wikipedia editors, which is now archived. It may contain ideas you can use to improve this article.

A fact from The School for Scandal appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 11 November 2007. The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that Richard Brinsley Sheridan's comedy The School for Scandal (1781 performance pictured) has been widely admired, but also criticized for hints of anti-Semitism, particularly regarding its references to Jewish moneylenders?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2007/November.

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Do anyone know who is the main male character of the way of the world and also the school for scandal?

There isn't one for The School for Scandal. I suppose the closest one could come would be Joseph and Charles Surface, for without them the play could not progress - though all of the characters play a vital role to a certain degree. It's an 18th century soap opera. I could no sooner give one character the title before another popped up and reminded me of his part in SfS. :) Voici 21:13, 29 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Moved from article page

Suggestion by 88.111.120.46: A lot of AS level students in the UK are now taking an exam in this, so a collection of play quotes for the summary would also be useful?

Two summaries

I am working on a major revision of this article. One thing I want to change is the summary portion. I cannot see a real need for having two summaries ("short" and "by scene") so I think the short version should be deleted and the detailed one improved. Does anyone else have any opinions on this? By the way, I had thought the "by scene" version was sufficiently detailed until I started going through it and finding things that seemed to call for enhancement and/or revision. For example, the sentence "Joseph, his secret exposed, has to call Sir Peter from his hiding place" under IV.3 is inaccurate; I think something like this would be more precise:

"Needing to stop Charles, Joseph whispers to his brother that Sir Peter is in hiding, and Charles hauls him forth. Sir Peter tells Charles he now regrets his suspicions about the latter."

I am hopeful that improving the detailed summary will make it more helpful and sufficient than the two summaries of the article as of this writing have perhaps been. --MollyTheCat 03:46, 6 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I have now added my extensive revisions to the article, including the summary rewrite mentioned above. I also added the "comedy" tag to this page in the hopes that eventually it can be evaluated and perhaps others can enhance it even further. I hope the information added will be found helpful. --MollyTheCat 10:26, 6 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Detailed jejune plot summaries disfigure all Wikipedia articles on fictions, from Odyssey on down, so it's not an issue here. But "an elaborate parody of a famous speech in Shakespeare's Othello" without amplifying is an example of mystification, parading our superior knowledge without sharing it. That does need amending. --Wetman 19:41, 11 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This is a fair criticism, Wetman, and the only defense I can make for not amplifying is that I was trying not to give undue emphasis or weight to Colman's epilogue. The previous version of this article had the epilogue summarized as "Lady Teazle resolves to leave The School for Scandal." That of course is incorrect as she has already done this at the end of the play proper, and the epilogue is one long tongue-in-cheek statement of regret, supposedly by the character, at what the playwright (Sheridan) is making her do--"Leave London—-just as I began to taste it!" The speech being parodied is from Othello, Act III, sc. 3, which in the Bartleby.com text runs from lines 392-404 and ends with "Farewell! Othello’s occupation’s gone!" But to build this up much further makes Colman's epilogue seem more important than it really is, in my opinion. I'd be glad to know if you have any suggestions as to the best way to fix this without running into that difficulty. Thanks. --MollyTheCat 21:17, 11 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Inspiration

It is suggested in the 2008 film The Duchess that the play takes inspiration from the marriage of the eponymous duchess and her husband, the 5th Duke of Devonshire. Does this have any basis in fact? Swanny18 (talk) 23:24, 20 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]