Dec 21, 2009

The Importance of Being Earnest | Wilde's Play and Victorian Concepts of "Earnestness"

In this essay, Arnold Schmidt examines Wilde's play in the context of Victorian concepts of "earnestness."

To modern theatre audiences, the title of Oscar Wilde's most popular play, The Importance of Being Earnest, seems a clever play on words. After all, the plot hinges on the telling of little—and not so little—white lies, while the title suggests that honesty (earnestness) will be the rule of the day. The title also implies a connection between the name and the concept, between a person named Earnest and that person being earnest. The narrative action does not bear out this assumption but rather its opposite. Audiences who saw the play when it opened in London in 1895...