The Importance of Being Earnest
Book Description
This ebook includes a biographical introduction, a short critical analysis of Oscar Wilde and a brief introduction to this work. Moorside Press has placed an emphasis on creating a usable formatting system for all of Wilde's plays, denoting characters, stage directions and settings, separate from spoken lines.
Written in 1894 and first performed at St James's Theatre in London the followin...
MoreThis ebook includes a biographical introduction, a short critical analysis of Oscar Wilde and a brief introduction to this work. Moorside Press has placed an emphasis on creating a usable formatting system for all of Wilde's plays, denoting characters, stage directions and settings, separate from spoken lines.
Written in 1894 and first performed at St James's Theatre in London the following year, The Importance of Being Earnest was Wilde's fifth and last satirical play, completing the run of successes that had started with Lady Windermere's Fan just three years earlier. The plot revolves around Jack and Algernon, two friends who maintain a dual existence in the City and in the Country primarily to avoid or sustain social obligations. This happy hypocrisy is jeopardised when both men find it in them to propose marriage to their respective loves, but the day is saved by the fortunate happenstance of a secret identity revealed.
Though by all accounts the first draft of the play was written in a matter of days, Wilde reportedly spent months refining it and adding detailed stage directions. The result was surely Wilde's tightest and most balanced plays and it rightly received hugely positive reactions from both critics and audiences when it opened in London. Though many of the themes are familiar from his other works, the way they are presented and the strength of the lines make it a fitting climax to Wilde's career; though in truth it should have been a mere curtain raiser to what should have followed. In his triumph, Wilde's demise was but a bouquet of rotting vegetables from the door of his club.
| Publisher | Moorside Press |
| Binding | Kindle Edition (227 editions) |
| Reading Level | Uncategorized
|
| # of Pages | 79 |
| ISBN-10 | B00COS32U6 |
| Publication Date | 05/06/2013 |
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