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Meaning
This reads as a pointed, sexist provocation, using wit to turn social expectations back on themselves. It can be taken to mean that grace, charm, and self possession are being treated as the standard by which women are judged, even when they err. It lands most sharply in a discussion of how people excuse flaws in men but police them in women.
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Original Language & Translation
Originally said in English.
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About Oscar Wilde
Irish author, poet and playwright
Oscar Wilde was an Irish author, poet and playwright of the late 19th century. He became one of London’s most popular and influential dramatists in the early 1890s, and is closely associated with the Aestheticism movement. He is best known for The Picture of Dorian Gray, his epigrams, plays and children’s stories. His writing often combines wit, style and pointed observation, and his reputation is also shaped by his 1895 criminal conviction for gross indecency and for practising homosexual acts.
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Books by Oscar Wilde
The Picture of Dorian Gray
His only novel, full of quotable lines.