Patience (opera)

Patience; or, Bunthorne's Bride is a satire by W. S. Gilbert on the aesthetic movement and the soldiers of the 35th Dragoon Guard. The play deals with two rival poets, the grouchy, effeminate and decadent Bunthorne, and the kind and gentle but vain and vapid Grosvenor. Patience, a dairy maid who knows nothing of love, is told it is the only truly unselfish emotion, and so sets out to find such truly selfless love. The other characters are a male chorus of manly and dashing but dim dragoons, and a female chorus of languid and pretentious but charming maidens.

This work provides examples of

 * Abhorrent Admirer: Lady Jane to Bunthorne. (While he wouldn't give any of his female admirers the time of day, he considers her the absolute worst.)
 * Adult Child: Patience and Grosvenor
 * All Girls Want Decadent Poets: All except Patience, that is.
 * Christmas Cake: Lady Jane
 * Have a Gay Old Time: Patience sings "For I Am Blithe and I Am Gay" in a song about her ignorance and innocence about love.
 * High Class Glass: Bunthorne, only in some productions
 * Moe: Patience and Grosvenor
 * Purple Prose: Parodied with the maidens who speak, for example, of the inner brotherhood of aesthetics being "consummately utter"; in other words, completely complete.
 * Small Name Big Ego: Bunthorne and Grosvenor
 * So Beautiful Its a Curse: Grosvenor
 * Stupid Good: Patience