The Importance of Being Earnest and Other Plays

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The Importance of Being Earnest and Other Plays

by Oscar Wilde, Richard Allen Cave (Commentary)

4.25 of 5 stars 4.25 · rating details · 23,314 ratings · 316 reviews

The Importance of Being Earnest, Lady Windermere's Fan, A Woman of No Importance, Salome, An Ideal Husband)

Oscar Wilde was already one of the best-known literary figures in Britain when he was persuaded to turn his extraordinary talents to the theatre. Between 1891 and 1895 he produced a sequence of distinctive plays which spearheaded the dramatic renaissance of the 1890s...more

Paperback, 464 pages

Published March 1st 2001 by Penguin Classics (first published 1895)

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Jan 07, 2013 Sketchbook rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: currently

"Prism, where is that baby?" demands the damndest dowager in theatre history in OWs farcical masterpiece. Feeling blue ? Reread this comedic milestone for the most preposterous merriment outside of Noel Coward's "Blithe Spirit," with a bow to WS Gilbert and Sheridan. Wilde found his playwrighting voice just before The Fall. He turned unreal drawing-room nonsense into Art. Muffins, cucumber sandwiches, a handbag left at Victoria Station and a grande dame who burbles about train schedules : "We ha...more "Prism, where is that baby?" demands the damndest dowager in theatre history in OWs farcical masterpiece. Feeling blue ? Reread this comedic milestone for the most preposterous merriment outside of Noel Coward's "Blithe Spirit," with a bow to WS Gilbert and Sheridan. Wilde found his playwrighting voice just before The Fall. He turned unreal drawing-room nonsense into Art. Muffins, cucumber sandwiches, a handbag left at Victoria Station and a grande dame who burbles about train schedules : "We have already missed five if not six trains. To miss any more might expose us to comment on the platform." Well--it's uproarious.

Basically, OW was a prude, hence he went to court to clear his name. "Earnest," w the central male using a double name (one for London society, another for private weekends), has even been called his true "De Profundis" -- without the sentiment. By contrast, his 3 earlier "comedies" with creaking plots involving blackmail, scandal and duplicity loom as shoddy Victorian mellerdramas redeemed by the brilliance of his epigrams. Wilde uses mellerdrama as an escape, to take him out of himself into a misplaced reality.

In "Lady Windermere's Fan," the cynical repartee covers the sticky sentimentalism in which the "bad" woman turns out to be the heroine's Mum. He capably linked his escritoire to the box office. In "An Ideal Husband," it's the hero who has a shady past. High-flying chatter relieves the moralizing. "A Woman of No Importance" shows off his worst writing and finest wit : "The Book of Life begins with a man and a woman in a garden; it ends with Revelations." His plot turns on smother love when the Mum who erred cries out to her son, "How could I repent of my sin when you, my love, were its fruit." O, Oscar.

All in all, OW was surely a good-natured gent without malice or spite. At the time of His Fall he was the reigning Playwright and Personality in London. A worldly superstar, he toyed with a deep fear of scandal in 3 plays while the characters seek to protect their social position and careers. After "Earnest," which tossed a concern for provincial virtue into the dustbin, we can only guess at the OW comedies that never got written.

(less)

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Dec 12, 2009 Richard rated it 5 of 5 stars

Recommended to Richard by: Trevor McCandless

Shelves: classic, fiction, theatrical

I used to be an inveterate playgoer (one year, 1989 I think, I saw 52 plays).

The action and dialog on stage can be pretty quick. And if you're seeing a play that was written in another time for a different culture, that might be too quick to catch.

For example, the first line of Lady Windermere's Fan is from a butler stepping up to the lady of the house and asking "Is your ladyship at home this afternoon?" Our modern minds would probably surmise from such a question that the butler is asking whet...more

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Sep 01, 2012 Lucrezia rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Quattro chiacchiere in libertà sui mostri sacri ...
Volete forse negare che Oscar lo sia? Ecco lui è una strana personcina, e adesso mi discosterò dalla maggioranza dicendo che non mi ha convinta, no in effetti non mi ha convinta , mi ha totalmente conquistata ...
Come farò ad andare adesso dal fruttivendolo e a ponderare l acquisto di cetrioli con la stessa spensieratezza di prima, senza pensare al mio amato Age! Penso di essermi presa una bella cotta ...
Niente da fare ormai i cetrioli occupano u...more Quattro chiacchiere in libertà sui mostri sacri ...
Volete forse negare che Oscar lo sia? Ecco lui è una strana personcina, e adesso mi discosterò dalla maggioranza dicendo che non mi ha convinta, no in effetti non mi ha convinta , mi ha totalmente conquistata ...
Come farò ad andare adesso dal fruttivendolo e a ponderare l acquisto di cetrioli con la stessa spensieratezza di prima, senza pensare al mio amato Age! Penso di essermi presa una bella cotta ...
Niente da fare ormai i cetrioli occupano un posto privilegiato nella mia testa ...
Wilde è un virtuoso della penna ,veramente, non saprei che altro dire, se non che quest' uomo è un genio, come fanno a venirgli fuori certe espressioni? Che poi tra l' altro io uno così me lo immagino che si burla di tutto e di tutti con una classe smisurata, a prendere in giro poi le persone, la maggior parte delle quali non se ne rendono neanche conto , che ironia , che stile, che verve!

Questo è stato il mio primo approccio a Wilde (della serie meglio tardi che mai), e devo dire che iniziare con l' importanza di chiamarsi Ernesto mi ha subito fatto entrare in una dimensione che credo sia inimitabile, che pur risultando un po irrealistica in questo contesto, rende perfettamente , ma più che altro vividamente l' atmosfera dei tempo. Perché Wilde è uno di quegli scrittori che conosce bene il mondo di cui parla, ma sopratutto è un acuto osservatore, e questo non ha fatto altro che rendermelo ancora più simpatico.L' importanza di chiamarsi Ernesto è geniale ( e anche il film è carino ) se ci guardiamo intorno vedremo gli aforismi di Wilde in ogni salsa e dappertutto, e già presi così rendono benissimo ciò che vogliono dire (considerando poi che solo un terzo di coloro che li usano letto in realtà l' opera Wildiana , e qui anche io dovevo fare mea culpa fino a pochi giorni fa)ma presi nel loro reale contesto risultano talmente veri, talmente acuti , da abbagliarti quasi.

Parlando del ventaglio di Lady Windermere non vi è niente di particolare da notare carina, ma non particolarmente brillante...

Ma la nota dolente arriva con una donna senza importanza, l ho finita ieri e già non mi ricordo più nulla , la me che sogghignava divertita fino a poche pagine prima si è trovata a sbadigliare , e a scorrere le pagine per vedere quante me ne mancassero ... Oscar ma la hai scritta proprio te ? Io non ci credo. Che noia mortale ...

Fortunatamente subito dopo c' è un marito ideale che secondo me è un capolavoro al pari di Ernesto, geniale , geniale , geniale! Molto più realistica di Ernesto ti immette ancora di più nel modo di vedere e di pensare del epoca. Sono veramente ammirata di come quest' uomo sappia condurti esattamente dove vuole, con i suoi mezzi così poco convenzionali e di come tutto quello che dica o faccia fare ai suoi personaggi risulti così meravigliosamente sorprendente e frizzante ancora adesso . Decisamente non credo che queste commedie passeranno mai di moda o saranno definite "superate" e "vecchie", chissà quante altre persone meraviglieranno ancora per la loro freschezza e franchezza ...Ah ! sì perché non pensate mica che oscar abbia peli sulla lingua , le frecciatine non vi mancheranno ...(less)

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Jan 27, 2012 Vishy rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I haven’t read a play in a while – I think the last play I read was ‘Homecoming’ by Harold Pinter a few years back. So, I decided to read a few plays this year. The first one I got hold of was ‘The Importance of Being Earnest’ by Oscar Wilde. I have always admired Oscar Wilde’s wit and humour and so I was really looking forward to reading his most famous play. I finished reading it a couple of days back. Here is what I think.

What I think

‘The Importance of Being Earnest’ is about two friends John...more

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Mar 12, 2013 Eyehavenofilter rated it 4 of 5 stars

I've been involved with "The Importance of Being Earnest" in several theaters, and it always brings me pause since the 2 people who are in love and end up together are first cousins, (?) WTF? Seriously? Evidently that's what happened a lot at the time this play was written. I gives me the creeps, and makes me wonder if this the reason for the term " blue blood" when it comes to the royals? HELL YES!
But Oscar Wilde is known for being one to push the norms of society beyond the limits people expec...more

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Apr 06, 2011 Zan rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I wrote my masters thesis on Wilde's society plays so this text was something like my Bible for a year. Wilde's genius lays not just in his wit but also in his undermining of the social structure he wants so desperately to belong to even as he knows he never will. I think his first two society plays are underrated as I think some of his best drawing room twaddle occurs in A Woman of No Importance. A full act of nearly no action is absolute genius. Many brilliant lunatics.

3.3.11
I just read Lady...more

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Jan 13, 2013 Jenny rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: plays, classics-and-modern-classics, relationships, in-my-library, read-2013, fiction-in-english, favourites-2013, irish-fiction, humor

Min recension på The Importance of Being Earnest finns att läsa i en separat recension.

Jag försökte läsa Lady Windermere's Fan förra året men hade inte riktigt intresset för den då. Jag lade ifrån mig texten och läste något annat. I går tänkte jag däremot att jag skulle göra ett nytt försök och plockade upp den igen. Jag gillar Lady Windermere’s Fan. Det är en typisk historia av Oscar Wilde med allvar och humor blandat i ett. Liksom i de flesta av Wildes verk så lider karaktärerna i Lady Winderm...more Min recension på The Importance of Being Earnest finns att läsa i en separat recension.

Jag försökte läsa Lady Windermere's Fan förra året men hade inte riktigt intresset för den då. Jag lade ifrån mig texten och läste något annat. I går tänkte jag däremot att jag skulle göra ett nytt försök och plockade upp den igen. Jag gillar Lady Windermere’s Fan. Det är en typisk historia av Oscar Wilde med allvar och humor blandat i ett. Liksom i de flesta av Wildes verk så lider karaktärerna i Lady Windermere’s Fan av sin egen skenhelighet. Alla försöker vara något de inte är i hopp om att fly från sin verklighet. Min favoritkaraktär i pjäsen är den olyckligt kära Lord Darlington. Han är fruktansvärt romantisk och poetiskt lagd att jag inte riktigt vet vad jag ska göra.

Salome är en en-akttragedi som handlar om den unga Salome som kräver Johannes Döparens huvud på ett silverfat som tack för att hon dansade de sju slöjornas dans för sin styvfar Herodes. Pjäsen är löst baserad på en biblisk händelse men i Wildes version så är Salome kär i Johannes Döparen, vilket hon inte är i bibeln, men han avvisar hennes försök. Pjäsens genomgående tema är sexuell åtrå men kanske främst en åtrå som inte uppfylls eller besvaras. Jag gillade Salome relativt mycket. Det är Vi ser det dels i situationer som den mellan Salome och Johannes Döparen, dels mellan alla pjäsens karaktärer och månen.

Jag tycker att Salome var relativt bra. Det är ett halvljummet utlåtande men om jag ska vara ärlig förstod jag den inte riktigt. Handlingen är förvisso tydlig men jag förstår nog inte varför Wilde har skrivit pjäsen och jag förstår absolut inte vad den har att göra i samlingsvolymen The Importance of Bing Earnest and Other Plays där både Lady Windermere’s Fan och The Importance of Being Earnest finns med. Det är även det en pjäs men så fasligt olik de båda andra. Salome är trots dessa frågor en intressant pjäs med fint bildspråk. Jag gillar till exempel hur månen beskrivs i pjäsen som något heligt och orört.(less)

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Jul 31, 2012 Justin Evans rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: poetry-and-drama

Sometimes your reading habits look completely nonsensical. Why would I have read any Wilde? Sure, he was a socialist, elitist wit. But why would I like such a thing?

Anyway, I'm glad I got around to reading some of his plays. 'Lady Windemere's Fan' is very clever, and feels to me almost like a mythical allegory: social outsider takes on herself the 'sins' of society. Only the social outsider can do this, because only she is willing to recognize that those sins aren't particularly sinful. Happine...more

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Jun 14, 2012 Marialyce rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: classics, victorian-novels, june-2012

Oscar Wilde is such joyous fun! He makes us look at ourselves in the most ironic and funny ways. Certainly he was a master of satire and in this play, he has presented the characters in what I have come to think of as the stiff British way. I loved that is poked a great deal of fun at the staid Victorian period. Mr Wilde himself was certainly everything else but staid and perhaps in thinking of him, we see a man born before his time.

The play on the words "Earnest" is fun and yet its does point t...more

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Sep 23, 2012 Jenny rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: neighborhood-book-club, classics

3.5 stars. I ended up reading The Importance of being Earnest,, Ideal Husband, and Lady Windemere's Fan. (those 3 are in my version.). Ideal Husband was my favorite of the three. There is an interesting mix of humor, sarcasm and wisdom mixed into these plays.

Like this: Sir Robert Chiltern: "There was your mistake. There was your error. The error all women commit. Why can't you women love us, faults and all? ... We have all feet of clay, women as well as men; but when we men love women, we love k...more

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Feb 04, 2012 Mitchell rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

It breaks down like this:

Lady Windermere's Fan: 3 stars
An Ideal Husband: 4 stars
The Importance of Being Earnest: 5 stars

That's the chronological order in which Wilde wrote them and the order in which I recommend reading them. It actually made me kind of giddy to read all three in just over a week and see how Wilde's playwriting improved by an order of magnitude with each play. Lady Windermere is a rather silly melodrama with some of Wilde's funniest lines lightly sprinkled throughout; An Ideal H...more

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Jul 09, 2011 kelly rated it 4 of 5 stars

Whoa. I didn’t realize the original versions would be so politically incorrect. Same sharp, shocking wit as ever, though. ("Salome" is the only odd outlier I couldn't get into--no traces of the familiar Wilde there.) I’m pretty sure I would totally have fallen for Oscar if I’d known him.

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Sep 21, 2011 Jessica rated it 5 of 5 stars

Oscar Wilde is a truly fantastic writer. The Importance of Being Earnest being one of his most erudite, witty and salacious of plays.

The men and women in this play are constantly in a good natured war of the tongue, outdoing and tripping each other with their words. Wilde truly shows his ability to manipulate language to his whim in the play, causing it to be a wonderful read.

Wilde lovingly punishes the upper classes with his wit. It is clear that the ridicule they suffer is not one of an embit...more

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Mar 26, 2012 David rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: big-white-square

Lady Windermere’s Fan: "Do you want answers?" "I think I'm entitled to it." "You want answers?" "I want the truth!" "You can’t handle the truth!" Switch and repeat.

Salome: "They'll love it in Pomona." Mishima directed it in Japan!

A Woman of No Importance: A bit preachy and hysterical.

An Ideal Husband: "Do you want answers?" "I think I'm entitled to it." "You want answers?" "I want the truth!" "You can’t handle the truth! Oh, wait. It seems that you can." Switch and repeat.

A Florentine Tragedy: I...more

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Jan 11, 2011 Christy rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: best-2011

HA HA HA! What a fabulous play. It was probably one of the wittiest pieces that I have ever read. The play is full of wicked insights, flippant remarks, and audaciously clever social commentary. Almost every line left me either with my mouth hanging open or absolutely cracking up.

Years ago I read Wilde's "The Picture of Dorian Gray" and liked it, but it wasn't enough to make me look for more of his work. I happened to pick up Wilde again because my husband likes him so much, and this time I have...more

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Feb 28, 2011 Alexander Arsov rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: oscar-wilde, favorites

Oscar Wilde

The Importance of Being Earnest and Other Plays

Penguin Classics Paperback, 2000.
8vo. xxx, 432 pp. Edited with an Introduction [vii-xxvi], Commentaries and Notes [pp. 364-432] by Richard Allen Cave. Excised scene from The Importance of Being Earnest [pp. 359-363].

First published thus, 2000.

Contents

Introduction
A Note on the Texts
Select Bibliography

Lady Windermere's Fan
Salome
A Woman of No Importance
An Ideal Husband
A Florentine Tragedy
The Importance of Being Earnest

Appendix: The excised s...more

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Nov 12, 2011 Michael rated it 4 of 5 stars

I liked the plays very much. Having read 'The Picture of Dorian Gray' I was expecting a linear brand of storytelling but I was gladly disappointed. The plot of each tale is introduced through wit and comedy, which reaches satirical levels at points.

However such introduction somehow feels slow and when the plot reaches it's climax, I felt like I was purposefully starved only to be nourished again with clever lines and outstanding maxims such as my favourite: 'All women become like their mothers....more

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Mar 23, 2013 Kami rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

My Thoughts on The Importance of Being Earnest:

- The movie adaption of this was kinda corny, but I found the play quite humorous! I liked it a lot better!

- Algernon is funny. He is very clever and witty. Sometimes he can be a bit egotistical, but I like his character.

- Cecily is such a dreamer! I can't believe she isn't embarrassed by some of the things she has in her diary. I would never let anyone read my journal, let alone a diary like the one Cecily keeps.

- Jack and Algernon's bickering is...more

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Apr 16, 2013 Toni King rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: plays-theatre

This book contains four plays: THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST, AN IDEAL HUSBAND, SALOME, and LADY WINDERMERE'S FAN. I re-read it to remember the details of EARNEST, but found that I didn't like that play as much as I had remembered liking it. This time around I found that I preferred LADY WINDERMERE instead. IDEAL HUSBAND was much too boring for my taste, but I can appreciate the fact that the crux of the story would have been fascinating and scandalous for the people that would have been viewi...more

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Mar 02, 2013 Erica rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 19th-century-british, candidacy-exams

Play on posing as someone else who doesn't exist. Jack "Ernest," an orphan, uses the pseudonym "Ernest" to come to town as often as he likes. Algernon has a invalid friend "Bunbury" whom he goes to visit in the country to escape from invitations he doesn't want to fulfill.

Jack proposes to Algernon's cousin, Gwendolyn, who admits that she loves him primarily because of his name "Ernest" and couldn't marry him if his name was anything else. Thus, Jack tries to kill off his imaginary brother Ernes...more

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Mar 18, 2012 Arti rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This review and rating refer to The Importance of Being Earnest only.

Though written in 1894, Wilde's work is surprisingly modern. Subtitled "A Trivial Comedy for Serious People", it is a mashup of mistaken identities, social satire, biting ironies, and one-liners worthy of our late-night talk shows.

You can finish the breezy eighty-some pages in one sitting, but don't read it in public. You don't want to be mistaken. To most people, only a lunatic would LOL alone without a bluetooth hanging on hi...more

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Mar 18, 2012 Kingsleyk rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites

The Important of Being Earnest is the most famous composition by Oscar Wilde. It is as thought provoking as The Picture of Dorian Gray but exceeds the latter. It attacks the conventional value of nineteenth Century England, expecailly the view to love, in a humourous and light-hearted way. Whereas The Picture of Dorian Gray sends chill down my spine when I was reading. The subtle evilness and malice that evolves from the pursuit of beauty and happiness, which gradually changes the pure, beautifu...more The Important of Being Earnest is the most famous composition by Oscar Wilde. It is as thought provoking as The Picture of Dorian Gray but exceeds the latter. It attacks the conventional value of nineteenth Century England, expecailly the view to love, in a humourous and light-hearted way. Whereas The Picture of Dorian Gray sends chill down my spine when I was reading. The subtle evilness and malice that evolves from the pursuit of beauty and happiness, which gradually changes the pure, beautiful Dorian into an ugly monster. They are both very critical against the society, but very different in nature.
The relationship between the two couples- John Worthing and Gwendolen, Algernon and Cecily, reveals the deceptiveness and contradiction of love. Just look at how the two men cheated their lover. They both concealed their identity, pretending to be someone else, but that false decoy is precisely the source of facsination in the eyes of Gwendolen and Cecily. I think, here Oscar Wilde attempted to show that we all wear a mask in relationship. We became another person, and that's where love emerges- in the midst of lies and self-deceptiveness.
Another notable characteristic is that the play is full of nonsense like "Three is a company, two is a none.", "it is absurd to have a hard and fast rule about what one should read and what one shouldn’t. More than half of modern culture depends on what one shouldn’t read." and so on. I can only say that well-spoken nonsense is better than the dull lecture I recieves in my literature class. I disagree with some of the moral viewpoints in the play, but they are simply facsinating and pursuasive. It is like Oscar Wilde himself preaching in the book.
The plot is concise and well structured, not muddling with details. There is no superfluous scene and lines. Just right in length. Some literatures are too wordy that I lost the courage to finish it soon after I started.
Perhaps the only flaw of the play is it is too detached from reality. I feel like an observer when I am reading, not a participant as I am absorbed in The Great Expectation.(less)

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Feb 06, 2011 Raj rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: classic, play

Containing five of Wilde's most famous plays, this collection is a great introduction to his work. While I was somewhat familiar with The Importance of Being Ernest I've not seen or read any other of Wilde's plays until now.

I quite enjoyed both Lady Windermere's Fan and A Woman of No Importance but was left a little cold by An Ideal Husband which, while having some flashes of humour, felt much more (melo)dramatic than the others. Reading these three plays in fairly quick succession revealed some...more

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Dec 21, 2010 Ally rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2010, university

This collection offers newly edited texts of Lady Windermere's Fan, A Woman of No Importance, Salome, An Ideal Husband, and, arguably the greatest farcical comedy in English, The Importance of Being Earnest. I bought this collection of plays primary as it was one of the texts in my class and secondly because I've never read/watched any of Oscar Wilde's plays.

I've only read An Ideal Husband, so this review will only be about An Ideal Husband and it's going to be an extremely short review, as I di...more

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Jan 06, 2011 Nicole rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2011

It took me a long time to get through all of the plays, probably because of the timing (final exams and holiday parties).
Each one of these plays was unique.
The first one (The Importance of Being Earnest) was very funny. It was nice start to the set of plays because it really introduced me to Wilde's style. I don't quite remember all of the details because I read this one back in November.
Lady Windermere's Fan was good too, and I feel like I should describe as "scandalous".
A Woman of No Importan...more

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Jul 21, 2010 Julia rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: plays, comedy, classics, british

All five of Oscar Wilde’s most famous plays in one handy-dandy volume: Lady Windermere's Fan, A Woman of No Importance, An Ideal Husband, Salome, and, of course, The Importance of Being Earnest, easily the best of the bunch. It’s a comedy of manners about two well-to-do ne’er-do-wells who must both pretend to be the same fictitious character, Ernest Worthing, in order to successfully woo their respective sweethearts. Because a girl can’t trust a man if he isn’t Ernest, right? Yes, it’s a silly p...more

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Jun 04, 2010 Rowland Bismark rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Marriage is of paramount importance in The Importance of Being Earnest, both as a primary force motivating the plot and as a subject for philosophical speculation and debate. The question of the nature of marriage appears for the first time in the opening dialogue between Algernon and his butler, Lane, and from this point on the subject never disappears for very long. Algernon and Jack discuss the nature of marriage when they dispute briefly about whether a marriage proposal is a matter of “busi...more Marriage is of paramount importance in The Importance of Being Earnest, both as a primary force motivating the plot and as a subject for philosophical speculation and debate. The question of the nature of marriage appears for the first time in the opening dialogue between Algernon and his butler, Lane, and from this point on the subject never disappears for very long. Algernon and Jack discuss the nature of marriage when they dispute briefly about whether a marriage proposal is a matter of “business” or “pleasure,” and Lady Bracknell touches on the issue when she states, “An engagement should come on a young girl as a surprise, pleasant or unpleasant, as the case may be.” Even Lady Bracknell’s list of bachelors and the prepared interview to which she subjects Jack are based on a set of assumptions about the nature and purpose of marriage. In general, these assumptions reflect the conventional preoccupations of Victorian respectability—social position, income, and character.

The play is actually an ongoing debate about the nature of marriage and whether it is “pleasant or unpleasant.” Lane remarks casually that he believes it to be “a very pleasant state,” before admitting that his own marriage, now presumably ended, was the result of “a misunderstanding between myself and a young person.” Algernon regards Lane’s views on marriage as “somewhat lax.” His own views are relentlessly cynical until he meets and falls in love with Cecily. Jack, by contrast, speaks in the voice of the true romantic. He tells Algernon, however, that the truth “isn’t quite the sort of thing one tells to a nice, sweet, refined girl.” At the end of the play, Jack apologizes to Gwendolen when he realizes he had been telling the truth all his life. She forgives him, she says, on the grounds that she thinks he’s sure to change, which suggests Gwendolen’s own rather cynical view of the nature of men and marriage.

Morality and the constraints it imposes on society is a favorite topic of conversation in The Importance of Being Earnest. Algernon thinks the servant class has a responsibility to set a moral standard for the upper classes. Jack thinks reading a private cigarette case is “ungentlemanly.” “More than half of modern culture depends on what one shouldn’t read,” Algernon points out. These restrictions and assumptions suggest a strict code of morals that exists in Victorian society, but Wilde isn’t concerned with questions of what is and isn’t moral. Instead, he makes fun of the whole Victorian idea of morality as a rigid body of rules about what people should and shouldn’t do. The very title of the play is a double-edged comment on the phenomenon. The play’s central plot—the man who both is and isn’t Ernest/earnest—presents a moral paradox. Earnestness, which refers to both the quality of being serious and the quality of being sincere, is the play’s primary object of satire. Characters such as Jack, Gwendolen, Miss Prism, and Dr. Chasuble, who put a premium on sobriety and honesty, are either hypocrites or else have the rug pulled out from under them. What Wilde wants us to see as truly moral is really the opposite of earnestness: irreverence.

Algernon and Jack may create similar deceptions, but they are not morally equivalent characters. When Jack fabricates his brother Ernest’s death, he imposes that fantasy on his loved ones, and though we are aware of the deception, they, of course, are not. He rounds out the deception with costumes and props, and he does his best to convince the family he’s in mourning. He is acting hypocritically. In contrast, Algernon and Cecily make up elaborate stories that don’t really assault the truth in any serious way or try to alter anyone else’s perception of reality. In a sense, Algernon and Cecily are characters after Wilde’s own heart, since in a way they invent life for themselves as though life is a work of art. In some ways, Algernon, not Jack, is the play’s real hero. Not only is Algernon like Wilde in his dandified, exquisite wit, tastes, and priorities, but he also resembles Wilde to the extent that his fictions and inventions resemble those of an artist.

Earnestness, which implies seriousness or sincerity, is the great enemy of morality in The Importance of Being Earnest. Earnestness can take many forms, including boringness, solemnity, pomposity, complacency, smugness, self-righteousness, and sense of duty, all of which Wilde saw as hallmarks of the Victorian character. When characters in the play use the word serious, they tend to mean “trivial,” and vice versa. For example, Algernon thinks it “shallow” for people not to be “serious” about meals, and Gwendolen believes, “In matters of grave importance, style, not sincerity is the vital thing.”

For Wilde, the word earnest comprised two different but related ideas: the notion of false truth and the notion of false morality, or moralism. The moralism of Victorian society—its smugness and pomposity—impels Algernon and Jack to invent fictitious alter egos so as to be able to escape the strictures of propriety and decency. However, what one member of society considers decent or indecent doesn’t always reflect what decency really is. One of the play’s paradoxes is the impossibility of actually being either earnest (meaning “serious” or “sincere”) or moral while claiming to be so. The characters who embrace triviality and wickedness are the ones who may have the greatest chance of attaining seriousness and virtue.

In The Importance of Being Earnest, the pun, widely considered to be the lowest form of verbal wit, is rarely just a play on words. The pun in the title is a case in point. The earnest/Ernest joke strikes at the very heart of Victorian notions of respectability and duty. Gwendolen wants to marry a man called Ernest, and she doesn’t care whether the man actually possesses the qualities that comprise earnestness. She is, after all, quick to forgive Jack’s deception. In embodying a man who is initially neither “earnest” nor “Ernest,” and who, through forces beyond his control, subsequently becomes both “earnest” and “Ernest,” Jack is a walking, breathing paradox and a complex symbol of Victorian hypocrisy.

In Act III, when Lady Bracknell quips that until recently she had no idea there were any persons “whose origin was a Terminus,” she too is making an extremely complicated pun. The joke is that a railway station is as far back as Jack can trace his identity and therefore a railway station actually is his “origin,” hence the pun. In Wilde’s day, as in the England of today, the first stop on a railway line is known as the “origin” and the last stop as the “terminus.” There’s also a whole series of implicit subsidiary puns on words like line and connection that can refer to either ancestry or travel. Wilde is poking fun at Lady Bracknell’s snobbery. He depicts her as incapable of distinguishing between a railway line and a family line, social connections and railway connections, a person’s ancestral origins and the place where he chanced to be found. In general, puns add layers of meaning to the characters’ lines and call into question the true or intended meaning of what is being said.(less)

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Mar 08, 2009 Darilyn rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: book-club, reread

I fancy Oscar Wilde for making me chuckle all the way through this play, but mostly for giving me Algernon.
Favorite Algy lines:
"I really don't see anything romantic in proposing. It is very unromantic to be in love. But there is nothing romantic about a definite proposal. Why, one may be accepted. One usually is, I believe. Then the excitement is all over. The very essence of romance is uncertainty. If I ever get married, I'll certainly try to forget the fact."

"The truth is rarely pure and neve...more

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Oct 26, 2009 Kornela rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: favorite-books-of-2008, classics

This book included three plays by Wilde: the famous title play; Salome; and Lady Windermere's Fan. I enjoyed all three, but The Importance of Being Earnest was my favorite. It's a tour de force of comedy, misidentification, and love affairs gone astray and represents Oscar Wilde at his wittiest (and that's saying a lot).
The central story is of Jack and Algernon, two friends who each make up a mythical person to get them out of engagements and obligations that they don't want to face. Jack's myt...more This book included three plays by Wilde: the famous title play; Salome; and Lady Windermere's Fan. I enjoyed all three, but The Importance of Being Earnest was my favorite. It's a tour de force of comedy, misidentification, and love affairs gone astray and represents Oscar Wilde at his wittiest (and that's saying a lot).
The central story is of Jack and Algernon, two friends who each make up a mythical person to get them out of engagements and obligations that they don't want to face. Jack's mythical person is a wild younger brother named Ernest. At home in the country Jack is the serious and responsible guardian of his young ward, Cecily; in the city he is the disreputable, carefree Ernest. When Algernon also pretends to be the reckless Ernest, chaos breaks out as the two must battle against each other over their real and false identities as well as try to win the hearts of the women they love.
This play was so much fun to read and full of cheeky, insightful quotes and phrases. Some of my favorites:

Lady Bracknell: "Ignorance is like a delicate exotic fruit; touch it and the bloom is gone. The whole theory of modern education is radically unsound. Fortunately in England, at any rate, education produces no effect whatsoever. If it did, it would prove a serious danger to the upper classes and probably lead to acts of violence in Grosvenor Square."

Lady Bracknell: "I'm sorry if we are a little late, Algernon, but I was obliged to call on dear Lady Harbury. I hadn't been there since her poor husband's death. I never saw a woman so altered; she looks quite twenty years younger."

Jack: "Cecily and Gwendolyn are perfectly certain to be extremely great friends. I'll bet you anything you like that half an hour after they have met, they will be calling each other sister."
Algernon: "Women only do that when they have called each other a lot of other things first."

Cecily: "This is no time for wearing the shallow mask of manners. When I see a spade I call it a spade."
Gwendolyn: "I am glad to say that I have never seen a spade. It is obvious that our social spheres have been widely different."

Lady Bracknell: "Are your parents living?"
Jack: "I have lost both my parents."
Lady Bracknell: "Both?...That seems like carelessness."

Read and enjoy! Also recommended: The underrated movie version starring Colin Firth and Rupert Everett.

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Jul 02, 2008 Mary Etta rated it 4 of 5 stars

I'm quite sure I read this years ago, too many to recall. Polly recently wrote that she and Christopher had had fun watching the film.

As my last flick for the foreseeable future from netflix I saw the Reese Witherspoon, Colin Firth, et al, version. What a kick! I've been thinking it should be viewed along with the various versions of the film versions of Jane Austen books.

I saw it first in the middle of the night when I couldn't sleep as my poor body seemed to be still coming down the mountain...more

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About Oscar Wilde

Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was an Irish playwright, poet and author of numerous short stories and one novel. Known for his biting wit, and a plentitude of aphorisms, he became one of the most successful playwrights of the late Victorian era in London, and one of the greatest celebrities of his day. Several of his plays continue to be widely performed, especially The Importance of Being E...more

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