Alex Tischer's
British Literary Crusade
A blog delving into British texts from the last 200 years
Oscar Wilde’s “The Importance of Being Earnest” is a fierce farce and a timeless theatrical masterpiece that takes double entendre to new heights. Wildean humor is unmatched in its impudence and hilarity. Set in the Victorian Age in which we are currently studying, Wilde found great success with this play, but soon after was imprisoned because of a scandal involving John Douglas who exposed his homosexuality to the public. His greatest climb became his biggest fall, as he never wrote another dramatic work following imprisonment.
To be Ernest, or not to be earnest? That is the question. That’s what the entire play revolves around. The literal name Ernest is a commodity passed around from Jack to Algernon to the grave and back to Jack very quickly throughout the piece. It signifies the boyish nature of mischievousness in its nature of human duplicity, but also shows the girlish whims of giving affections to a name. The other earnest, the adjective, is the ideal that the English population strived for at the time. To be earnest means to “proceed from an intense and serious state of mind”, as the lovely Merriam-Webster defines. That definition exemplifies the Victorian tendency to act posh and maintain moral rectitude. It is important in the play to act earnestly, just as it is important to quite literally be named Ernest. It seems as if every line in this play is a jab at some societal structure in England at the time. Most of them revolve around the detached nature of the aristocracy, and Wilde lives for quaint and concise lines of dialogue that sting the reader or listener with thought-provoking venom. My favorite line from the play exemplifies this idea. “The very essence of romance is uncertainty. If I ever get married, I’ll certainly try to forget the fact.” - Wilde I love this because not only do I actually agree with the assertion of the quote, but it is Wilde in his greatest form. He lives for instructional quips. Being a musical theatre major, I’ve had to read the play in the past, and every read rings true in infinitely varying ways. That’s one of my favorite things about literature actually. As your world changes because of age and experience, your literary environment and interpretation does as well. Not to delve too deeply into postmodern criticism, Wilde was a literary genius who perfectly encapsulated the Victorian mindset, but even he couldn’t predict the modern equivalent of that mindset. Humans now exhibit those same qualities on social media and throughout the internet, placing importance on the superfluous nature of Instagram and mind-numbing depths of Facebook. The Importance of Being Earnest is a phenomenal duplicity of entertaining theatre and insightful societal remarks. Perhaps if Wilde had, by some wild chance, a brother named Ernest, his imprisonment could’ve been averted and blamed on that terrible invalid... Cool links to check out - https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/subject_specific_writing/writing_in_literature/literary_theory_and_schools_of_criticism/postmodern_criticism.html https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.history.com/.amp/topics/gay-rights/oscar-wilde-trial
2 Comments
David Barnett
5/23/2020 12:42:50 am
I don't mean to go off on an unrelated tangent, but the situation with this story and Oscar Wilde's life itself is an almost fitting parallel with that of Bram Stoker. Of course, there's no hard evidence that Stoker was gay, but it's hard to ignore all the circumstantial evidence. Stoker wrote Dracula simply to write a vehicle for an actor that he rather adored, far beyond friendship or family. Dracula touches on the disgust he felt for women and the rather seductive nature of the titular vampire, but it's his short story The Lair of the White Worm...the sexual repression, the clear disgust he feels towards women. The topic of Stoker's sexuality has been a talking point for decades, and his repression compared to Oscar Wilde embracing who he really is, to me, is a rather fitting comparison when discussing being earnest. I hope my ramblings made sense, as a member of the community, I always enjoy learning of LGBTQA+ historical figures.
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Brandon Lykins
5/24/2020 12:19:48 am
I agree with most of what you have said within your post. Oscar Wilde certainly covered much of the Victorian era mindset within his stories. The importance of the story is both a play on words and a great message to take home with you.
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