The Importance of Being Earnest and Other Plays

The Importance of Being Earnest and Other Plays Kısa Özet

The Importance of Being Earnest is a glorious comedy of mistaken identity, which ridicules codes of propriety and etiquette. Manners and morality are also victims of Wilde`s sharp wit in Lady Windermere`s Fan, A Woman of No Importance and An Ideal Husband, in which snobbery and hypocrisy are laid bare. In Salome and A Florentine Tragedy, Wilde makes powerful use of historical settings to explore the complex relationship between sex and power. The range of these plays displays Wilde`s delight in artifice, masks and disguises, and reveals the pretentions of the social world in which he himself played such a dazzling and precarious part.

Richard Allen Cave`s introduction and notes discuss the themes of the plays and Wilde`s innovative methods of staging. This edition includes the excised `Gribsby` scene from The Importance of Being Earnest.