Sosnin A. V. Theatrical life in London in the age of Oscar Wilde

The article offers a general survey of London’s theatrical life in the age of Oscar Wilde, and looks into his creative heritage as a playwright and into the works of a number of dramatists, his contemporaries. The article also examines the ways the English drama was evolving in 1880-1890s, which is considered a period of its dramatic change, and provides eminent theatre critics’ opinions on the process and on the plays considered. The literary material is supplemented with extensive social and cultural context, which is done in accordance with the modern literary studies, when the corresponding extra-textual reality is taken into account alongside the text itself. The article has been written within the scope of the author’s broader studies of the London text of the English literature.