Importance of Being Earnest, The, by the Irish-born playwright Oscar Wilde, ranks among the most popular comedies in English-language theater. The play, which opened in London in 1895, is subtitled A Trivial Comedy for Serious People.
The Importance of Being Earnest is a satire on Victorian social manners as well as the British aristocracy and clergy. The play is filled with witty dialogue. The dominant character in the play is the overbearing Lady Bracknell, one of the great comic figures in English literature.
The play centers on Jack Worthing and Algernon Moncrieff, two fashionable young Englishmen. Worthing lives in the country with his pretty young ward Cecily Cardew. His friend Algernon lives in London. Jack has invented an imaginary brother in London named Ernest, which gives him an excuse to leave his country home to visit the city. While in the city, he uses the name Ernest. Algernon, while on a visit to Jack’s country home, pretends to be Jack’s brother Ernest. Algernon falls in love with Cecily, while Jack loves Algernon’s cousin Gwendolyn Fairfax, who is also Lady Bracknell’s daughter. After a series of comic confusions over the identity of Ernest, the play ends with the two couples happily engaged to be married.
See also Wilde, Oscar.
