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    A Study Guide for Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest
    A Study Guide for Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest
    A Study Guide for Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest
    Ebook33 pages16 minutes

    A Study Guide for Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest

    By Gale and Cengage

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    About this ebook

    A Study Guide for Oscar Wilde's "The Importance of Being Earnest," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Drama for Students.This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Drama for Students for all of your research needs.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherCengage Learning - Gale
    Release dateSep 8, 2015
    ISBN9781535837552
    A Study Guide for Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest

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      Book preview

      A Study Guide for Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest - Gale

      4

      The Importance of Being Earnest

      Oscar Wilde

      1895

      Introduction

      Oscar Wilde’s most successful play, The Importance of Being Earnest became an instant hit when it opened in London, England, in February, 1895, running for eighty-six performances. The play has remained popular with audiences ever since, vying with Wilde’s 1890 novel The Portrait of Dorian Gray as his most recognized work. The play proves vexing to critics, though, for it resists categorization, seeming to some merely a flimsy plot which serves as an excuse for Wilde’s witty epigrams (terse, often paradoxical, sayings or catch-phrases). To others it is a penetratingly humorous and insightful social comedy.

      When Earnest opened, Wilde was already familiar to readers for Dorian Gray, as well as for collections of fairy tales, stories, and literary criticism. Theatre-goers knew him for his earlier dramatic works, including three previous successes, Lady Windermere’s Fan (1892), A Women of No Importance (1893), and An Ideal Husband (1895), as well as for his more controversial play, Salome (1896), which was banned in Britain for its racy (by nineteenth century standards) sexual

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