The Importance of Being Earnest
1893
- british and irish drama (dramatic works by one author)
- english life
- readers
- etiquette
- love
- manners
- marriage
- play
- children's fiction
- youth, fiction
The story
Set in England during the late Victorian era, the play's humour derives in part from characters maintaining fictitious identities to escape unwelcome social obligations. It is replete with witty dialogue and satirises some of the foibles and hypocrisy of late Victorian society. It has proved Wilde's most enduringly popular play. - [*Wikipedia*][1] [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Importance_of_Being_Earnest
What it’s like
Crisp, glittering dialogue on the page, the sort of prose that rewards reading aloud in a sunny drawing room with the afternoon teacups going cold. Its voice is brisk and epigrammatic, every exchange tossed back with a smile, and the whole texture feels like well-pressed linen and cut-glass manners: drawing rooms, garden lawns, muffins and cucumber sandwiches, a flirtatious ease wrapped around a sharp little sting. Vibe-wise this is bright, playful and faintly mischievous, with a cool, delighted cynicism about respectability. It suits a lazy Sunday, a comfort reread, a sit-down with a pot of tea, or an afternoon when you want to be entertained without being moved too deeply. The pace is quick and clockwork, scene after scene of misunderstanding and sparkling repartee, and the emotional register stays light even as its young lovers and their elders bluff, bicker and reinvent themselves. Its intensity is very low: no violence, no gore, no sexual content, only mild social embarrassment and a few mock-dramatic threats. It is for readers who love wit, Victorian comedy of manners, and cleverly turned lines more than suspense or emotional depth.
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