Sherlock Holmes Analysis
The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde
Copyright Notice
©1998−2002; ©2002 by Gale. Gale is an imprint of The Gale Group, Inc., a division of Thomson Learning,
Inc. Gale and Design® and Thomson Learning are trademarks used herein under license.
©2006 eNotes.com LLC
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
No part of this work covered by the copyright hereon may be reproduced or used in any form or by any means graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, Web distribution or information storage retrieval systems without the written permission of the publisher.
For complete copyright information on these eNotes please visit: http://www.enotes.com/importance−being/copyright Table of Contents
1. The Importance of Being Earnest: Introduction
2. Oscar Wilde Biography
3. Summary
4. Characters
5. Themes
6. Style
7. Historical Context
8. Critical Overview
9. Essays and Criticism
10. Compare and Contrast
11. Topics for Further Study
12. Media Adaptations
13. What Do I Read Next?
14. Bibliography and Further Reading
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
Copyright Notice
©1998−2002; ©2002 by Gale. Gale is an imprint of The Gale Group, Inc., a division of Thomson Learning,
Inc. Gale and Design® and Thomson Learning are trademarks used herein under license.
©2006 eNotes.com LLC
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
No part of this work covered by the copyright hereon may be reproduced or used in any form or by any means graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, Web distribution or information storage retrieval systems without the written permission of the publisher.
For complete copyright information on these eNotes please visit: http://www.enotes.com/importance−being/copyright Table of Contents
1. The Importance of Being Earnest: Introduction
2. Oscar Wilde Biography
3. Summary
4. Characters
5. Themes
6. Style
7. Historical Context
8. Critical Overview
9. Essays and Criticism
10. Compare and Contrast
11. Topics for Further Study
12. Media Adaptations
13. What Do I Read Next?
14. Bibliography and Further Reading
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
Bibliography: Beckson, Karl. "Oscar Wilde." In Concise Dictionary of British Literary Biography, Volume 4: Victorian Writers, 1832−1890 Bentley, Eric. The Playwright As Thinker. Reynal & Hitchcock, 1946. Reinert, Otto. "Satiric Strategy in 'The Importance of Being Earnest. '" In College English, Vol. 18, no. 1, October, 1956, pp Roditi, Edourd. Oscar Wilde. New Directions, 1986. Briggs, Asa. The Age of Improvement. Longman, 1988. A readable, comprehensive history of the mid−Victorian years in England Ellmann, Richard. Oscar Wilde. 1988. This is the standard literary biography of Wilde, providing a wealth of detail about his personal life as well as insight into the composition of his works. Ellmann, Richard, ed. Oscar Wilde: A Collection of Critical Essays. Prentice−Hall, 1969. Most helpful for exploring the thinking about Wilde by his contemporaries such as W Hobsbawm, Eric. The Age of Capital, 1848−1875. McKay, 1975. Although this history concentrates on the middle of the nineteenth century, Hobsbawm usefully situates the roots of social trends that would influence Holland, Vyvyan B. Oscar Wilde: A Pictorial Biography. Viking, 1961. Holland is Wilde 's son. While this book contains a brief biography, the highlights are the fine photographs of Wilde and many of the people in