Autorentext

Known for his flamboyant dress, his wit, and glittering conversational skill, Oscar Wilde, or Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde, was born October 16, 1854, in Dublin, Ireland. Oscar's father was knighted in 1864 for his work as the author of a National Census Report, and was Ireland's leading ear and eye surgeon. His mother Jane Francesca Elgee was a poet and authority on Celtic myth and folklore and a skilled linguist. Wilde attended the Portora Royal School at Enniskillen and was awarded the Royal School Scholarship to attend Trinity College in Dublin. From there, he studied at Magdalen College in Oxford where his poem "Ravenna" won the Newdigate Prize for the best English verse composition by an Oxford undergraduate. After graduation, he moved to London, focused on poetry and became a spokesman for aestheticism. He published his first collection, Poems, in 1881. In 1882, he traveled to New York City and embarked on an American lecture tour, delivering 140 lectures in just nine months. He also met with leading American scholars and literary figures, including Henry W. Longfellow, Oliver Wendell Holmes and Walt Whitman.

Klappentext

First published in 1898, The Importance of Being Earnest is a play written by Oscar Wilde that takes place during the Victorian Era. It is a classic comedy of manners, in which two flippant young men in order to impress their respective beloveds, pretend that their names are ""Earnest."" The title of the play is described as a pun, since the word ""Farnest"" can be understood in two different ways. Firstly, ""Farnest"" can be understood in the sense of serious or honest. However, Ernest is also the name of the alter egos that the protagonists use to escape social and moral obligations. Apart from this, there are many other incidents that exhibit that the play was written for the purpose of social satire. Through farcical comedy, the dramatist has exposed the reality of the upper-class Victorian society and has shown their snobbery. Oscar Wilde has freely used techniques like epigrams, humor, paradoxes in an interesting manner that can never be said directly to the people. He has conveyed his message to his own people and showed them the mirror.