The Importance of Being Earnest

The Importance of Being Earnest is a comedy of manners set in Victorian England. Algernon lives in London and says he has a sick friend in the country. He uses visits to his imaginary friend to get out of things. His best friend, Ernest, is also Jack and is doing the exact same thing. Misunderstandings abound in this comedy. ‘The truth is rarely pure, and never simple.’, ‘…in married life three is company and two is none.’ Is this play a ‘unique work of art’ as Oscar Wilde believed? Or, as a first-night reviewer claimed in 1895, it ‘represents nothing, means nothing, is nothing’? This is for you to decide.Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde was an Irish writer, poet and prominent aesthete. His parents were successful Dublin intellectuals, and from an early age he showed his intelligence, becoming fluent in French and German, then an outstanding classicist, first at Dublin, then at Oxford. After university, Wilde moved around trying his hand at various literary activities: he published a book of poems, then toured America lecturing extensively on aestheticism. Returning to London he worked prolifically as a journalist for four years. Known for his biting wit, flamboyant dress, and glittering conversation, Wilde had become one of the most well-known personalities of his day. He produced a series of dialogues and essays that developed his ideas about the supremacy of art. However, it was his only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray – still widely read – that brought him more lasting recognition. He became one of the most successful playwrights of the late Victorian era in London with a series of social satires which continue to be performed, especially his masterpiece The Importance of Being Earnest.