Oscar Wilde was an important dramatic and literary figure of his age, and many of his works, like The Picture of Dorian Gray and Salome, dealt with weighty themes. The Importance of Being Earnest is not one of them.
Earnest is a light piece of fluff about two men, Algernon and John, who affect the name "Ernest" and two women, Gwendolen and Cecily, each involved with a man they think is named "Ernest." They...
Oscar Wilde was an important dramatic and literary figure of his age, and many of his works, like The Picture of Dorian Gray and Salome, dealt with weighty themes. The Importance of Being Earnest is not one of them.
Earnest is a light piece of fluff about two men, Algernon and John, who affect the name "Ernest" and two women, Gwendolen and Cecily, each involved with a man they think is named "Ernest." They believe they are both in love with the same man. An over-the-top fight could ensue here, but all four parties are genteel blue bloods and the fight between the ladies is amusingly polite and restrained.
Oscar Wilde is an important social figure in addition to his writing. While he didn't exactly found the Gay Rights movement, its history inevitably runs straight through him. Imagine someone with the gravitas of Vaclav Havel or James Baldwin writing an episode of Laverne and Shirley, and you can envision the disconnect between the writer and the finished work. The fact that Earnest remains his most popular and most frequently-performed work compounds this disconnect. For further irony, it was Wilde's last comic work, as he became embroiled in a prosecution for his affair with the son of the Marquess of Queensbury, a legal issue that led to his imprisonment and, shortly afterwards, his death.
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