Monday, November 10, 2014

Of Oscar Wilde and The Importance of Being Earnest

Hello everyone!

It’s been a while since my last post. So here after several weeks of rushing over tests, assignments and presentations, here comes another page of wonder for you guys. Let’s hope I’ll make a good one here.

Oscar Wilde? Have you guys heard of him?

Before I continue further, just so you know that he’s actually one of my favourite prominent literature writers. His witty writing as well as his language captured my attention from the beginning of my journey as a literature student. Despite his reputation, he did manage to put himself as noticeable Victorian playwright and I found his plays very humorous! Sounds like a fan, am I?



Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde (1854 - 1900) was born to Sir Robert Wills Wilde and Jane Francesca Wilde in Dublin, Ireland. Wilde was a poet, fiction writer, essayist and editor.


 Oscar Wilde is often seen as a homosexual icon although as many men of his day he was also a husband and father. Wilde’s life ended at odds with Victorian morals that surrounded him. He died in exile.

His early education included attending Porotra Royal School in Enniskillen (1873) Trinity College in Dublin (1874-1879), and Magdalen College in Oxford. He excelled in his studies. 

More crucial to his later fame, Oscar Wilde began to practice his aesthetic mode of life. Wilde kept his hair long and affected a highly stylized dress and manner. His rooms were well appointed. His collection of blue china was famous. In 1181,Wilde met his future wife—Constance Mary Lloyd.

Wilde continued to use his style as a way of advancing his reputation. However, his aims were harder to hit in the city. Yet Oscar Wilde wearing knee-breeches and a velvet jacket while carrying a single flower became iconic.

On his return to England, Oscar Wilde continued cultivating his relationship with wealthy and influential members of society. His income from his Irish properties were infrequent and could not cover his extravagances. During this period, he see financial difficulties that would plague him intermittently throughout his life.

In 1883, Wilde traveled to Paris and met Paul Verlaine, Victor Hugo, Stephane Mallarme, and Edmond de Goncourt. On returning to London, Wilde continued his relationship with Constance Lloyd. In August, Wilde returned to the New York for the opening of his first play Vera. The show only ran for a week and received mixed reviews. He became engaged to Constance.

In 1884, he married Constance who had some money ending his early cycle of impoverishment. The young married couple moved to Tite Street in the Chelsea neighborhood of London, which at the time was known for its artistic character. Constance and Oscar Wilde’s first son Cyril was born in June 1885 and his second son Vyvyan was born in November 1886. He would also meet the Canadian art critic and journalist Robert Ross. It is widely held that Robert Ross was Oscar Wilde’s first male lover. In 1891, Oscar Wilde would meet Lord Alfred Douglas—the lover whose troubled relationship with Wilde would dominate his life before Wilde’s arrest and imprisonment on charges of sodomy.
Tired of his intermittent financial difficulties, Oscar Wilde committed himself to writing. 

1886 was also the year that Wilde began regularly contributing to thePall Mall Gazette. From 1887 until 1889, Oscar Wilde was the editor of Woman’s World. His fiction also began to receive regular publication. In 1888, Oscar Wilde published The Happy Prince and Other Tales, a collection of children’s tales.

In 1889, Blackwood’s Magazine published The Portrait of Mr. W.H.. This literary endeavor straddled the genre of essay and short fiction. In this work, Oscar Wilde argues that William William Shakespeare’s sonnets were written to a young male actor. True to his intellectual project, Wilde’s argument does not require facts to support its legitimacy.

 The following year Lippincott’s Magazine published The Picture of Dorian Gray, Wilde’s longest work. At the time, many viewed this work as obscene. However, it has became a standard text when looking for homosexual subtext from the Victorian period.

Throughout this period, Oscar Wilde also published a range of essays includingThe Critic as ArtistThe Decay of Lying, and The Soul of Man Under Socialism. Each of these works is wrought with humor and intelligence and frames Wilde’s concepts of aestheticism. His intellectual prowess is tempered with a playfulness that resembles his fiction.

In 1892, Oscar Wilde encountered his first legal difficulties when his play Salomewas banned in England. The following year Wilde circumvented this censorship by publishing a French version of Salome. In 1893, Wilde would return to the English stage by mounting his play A Woman of No Importance.

In 1894, Lord Alfred Douglas’s father, Marquess of Queensberry, witnessed his son and Oscar Wilde eating at Café Royal. This would mark the start of a conflict that would end in Wilde’s imprisonment. The Marquess would visit Wilde’s home and threaten the poet and his family. Oscar Wilde continued his relationship with Lord Alfred Douglass—traveling to Europe with him in 1894, and to Algiers in 1895. The French colonies in North Africa had become a haven for sexual tourism. It was during this second trip that Wilde met Andre Gide. It is commonly held that Wilde spiritually (but not physically) seduced Andre Gide into discovering the pleasures of homosexuality. Wilde tried to persuade Andre Gideto follow him in search of more angelic boys.

On returning to England, Wilde’s play The Importance of Being Earnest opened. This play, which concerns creating alternate social postures, is viewed as Wilde’s greatest work. It carefully straddles the line of celebrating and ridiculing Victorian society. This work insured Wilde was viewed as a preeminent artist.

Unfortunately, the success that The Importance of Being Earnest seemed to promise was short lived because of the worsening feud with the Marquess of Queensberry. 

During his imprisonment after losing the case against Marquess, Constance Wilde (with Cyril and Vyvyan) fled to Europe. She changed their last name to Holland in an attempt to shield her sons from Oscar Wilde’s infamy. In 1898, she died after complications to a spinal surgery, which was performed in Italy. Her family took legal recourse to prevent Oscar Wilde from ever seeing the children again.

In 1897, Oscar Wilde was released from prison. He exiled himself to Europe and lived under the name Sebastian Melmoth, a pseudonym derived from the Saint Sebastian and his great uncle Charles Maturin’s novel, Melmoth the Wanderer. He lived with Robert Ross during this period. Later in that year, Wilde renewed his relationship with Lord Alfred Douglas. Their relationship ended after a few month when their families threatened to deprive the two men of their allowances.

Wilde’s life ended in Hotel d’Alsace in Paris. In 1900, Wilde contracted cerebral meningitis. Some virulently homophobic critics maintain this was a result of syphilis, but the original medical report does not suggest this. He sent for Robert Ross and was conditionally baptized into the Catholic Church. He died on the thirtieth of November. Wilde was originally buried in Cimetière de Bagneux, but in 1909 his body was moved to Cimetière du Père-Lachaise.


A SUMMARY OF THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST


Jack Worthing, the play’s protagonist, is a pillar of the community in Hertfordshire, where he is guardian to Cecily Cardew, the pretty, eighteen-year-old granddaughter of the late Thomas Cardew, who found and adopted Jack when he was a baby. In Hertfordshire, Jack has responsibilities: he is a major landowner and justice of the peace, with tenants, farmers, and a number of servants and other employees all dependent on him. For years, he has also pretended to have an irresponsible black-sheep brother named Ernest who leads a scandalous life in pursuit of pleasure and is always getting into trouble of a sort that requires Jack to rush grimly off to his assistance. In fact, Ernest is merely Jack’s alibi, a phantom that allows him to disappear for days at a time and do as he likes. No one but Jack knows that he himself is Ernest. Ernest is the name Jack goes by in London, which is where he really goes on these occasions—probably to pursue the very sort of behavior he pretends to disapprove of in his imaginary brother.



Jack is in love with Gwendolen Fairfax, the cousin of his best friend, Algernon Moncrieff. When the play opens, Algernon, who knows Jack as Ernest, has begun to suspect something, having found an inscription inside Jack’s cigarette case addressed to “Uncle Jack” from someone who refers to herself as “little Cecily.” Algernon suspects that Jack may be leading a double life, a practice he seems to regard as commonplace and indispensable to modern life. He calls a person who leads a double life a “Bunburyist,” after a nonexistent friend he pretends to have, a chronic invalid named Bunbury, to whose deathbed he is forever being summoned whenever he wants to get out of some tiresome social obligation.

At the beginning of Act I, Jack drops in unexpectedly on Algernon and announces that he intends to propose to Gwendolen. Algernon confronts him with the cigarette case and forces him to come clean, demanding to know who “Jack” and “Cecily” are. Jack confesses that his name isn’t really Ernest and that Cecily is his ward, a responsibility imposed on him by his adoptive father’s will. Jack also tells Algernon about his fictional brother. Jack says he’s been thinking of killing off this fake brother, since Cecily has been showing too active an interest in him. Without meaning to, Jack describes Cecily in terms that catch Algernon’s attention and make him even more interested in her than he is already.

Gwendolen and her mother, Lady Bracknell, arrive, which gives Jack an opportunity to propose to Gwendolen. Jack is delighted to discover that Gwendolen returns his affections, but he is alarmed to learn that Gwendolen is fixated on the name Ernest, which she says “inspires absolute confidence.” Gwendolen makes clear that she would not consider marrying a man who was not named Ernest.

Lady Bracknell interviews Jack to determine his eligibility as a possible son-in-law, and during this interview she asks about his family background. When Jack explains that he has no idea who his parents were and that he was found, by the man who adopted him, in a handbag in the cloakroom at Victoria Station, Lady Bracknell is scandalized. She forbids the match between Jack and Gwendolen and sweeps out of the house.

In Act II, Algernon shows up at Jack’s country estate posing as Jack’s brother Ernest. Meanwhile, Jack, having decided that Ernest has outlived his usefulness, arrives home in deep mourning, full of a story about Ernest having died suddenly in Paris. He is enraged to find Algernon there masquerading as Ernest but has to go along with the charade. If he doesn’t, his own lies and deceptions will be revealed.

While Jack changes out of his mourning clothes, Algernon, who has fallen hopelessly in love with Cecily, asks her to marry him. He is surprised to discover that Cecily already considers that they are engaged, and he is charmed when she reveals that her fascination with “Uncle Jack’s brother” led her to invent an elaborate romance between herself and him several months ago. Algernon is less enchanted to learn that part of Cecily’s interest in him derives from the name Ernest, which, unconsciously echoing Gwendolen, she says “inspires absolute confidence.”

Algernon goes off in search of Dr. Chasuble, the local rector, to see about getting himself christened Ernest. Meanwhile, Gwendolen arrives, having decided to pay Jack an unexpected visit. Gwendolen is shown into the garden, where Cecily orders tea and attempts to play hostess. Cecily has no idea how Gwendolen figures into Jack’s life, and Gwendolen, for her part, has no idea who Cecily is. Gwendolen initially thinks Cecily is a visitor to the Manor House and is disconcerted to learn that Cecily is “Mr. Worthing’s ward.” She notes that Ernest has never mentioned having a ward, and Cecily explains that it is not Ernest Worthing who is her guardian but his brother Jack and, in fact, that she is engaged to be married to Ernest Worthing. Gwendolen points out that this is impossible as she herself is engaged to Ernest Worthing. The tea party degenerates into a war of manners.

Jack and Algernon arrive toward the climax of this confrontation, each having separately made arrangements with Dr. Chasuble to be christened Ernest later that day. Each of the young ladies points out that the other has been deceived: Cecily informs Gwendolen that her fiancé is really named Jack and Gwendolen informs Cecily that hers is really called Algernon. The two women demand to know where Jack’s brother Ernest is, since both of them are engaged to be married to him. Jack is forced to admit that he has no brother and that Ernest is a complete fiction. Both women are shocked and furious, and they retire to the house arm in arm.

Act III takes place in the drawing room of the Manor House, where Cecily and Gwendolen have retired. When Jack and Algernon enter from the garden, the two women confront them. Cecily asks Algernon why he pretended to be her guardian’s brother. Algernon tells her he did it in order to meet her. Gwendolen asks Jack whether he pretended to have a brother in order to come into London to see her as often as possible, and she interprets his evasive reply as an affirmation. The women are somewhat appeased but still concerned over the issue of the name. However, when Jack and Algernon tell Gwendolen and Cecily that they have both made arrangements to be christened Ernest that afternoon, all is forgiven and the two pairs of lovers embrace. At this moment, Lady Bracknell’s arrival is announced.

Lady Bracknell has followed Gwendolen from London, having bribed Gwendolen’s maid to reveal her destination. She demands to know what is going on. Gwendolen again informs Lady Bracknell of her engagement to Jack, and Lady Bracknell reiterates that a union between them is out of the question. Algernon tells Lady Bracknell of his engagement to Cecily, prompting her to inspect Cecily and inquire into her social connections, which she does in a routine and patronizing manner that infuriates Jack. He replies to all her questions with a mixture of civility and sarcasm, withholding until the last possible moment the information that Cecily is actually worth a great deal of money and stands to inherit still more when she comes of age. At this, Lady Bracknell becomes genuinely interested.



Jack informs Lady Bracknell that, as Cecily’s legal guardian, he refuses to give his consent to her union with Algernon. Lady Bracknell suggests that the two young people simply wait until Cecily comes of age, and Jack points out that under the terms of her grandfather’s will, Cecily does not legally come of age until she is thirty-five. Lady Bracknell asks Jack to reconsider, and he points out that the matter is entirely in her own hands. As soon as she consents to his marriage to Gwendolen, Cecily can have his consent to marry Algernon. However, Lady Bracknell refuses to entertain the notion. She and Gwendolen are on the point of leaving when Dr. Chasuble arrives and happens to mention Cecily’s governess, Miss Prism. At this, Lady Bracknell starts and asks that Miss Prism be sent for.

When the governess arrives and catches sight of Lady Bracknell, she begins to look guilty and furtive. Lady Bracknell accuses her of having left her sister’s house twenty-eight years before with a baby and never returned. She demands to know where the baby is. Miss Prism confesses she doesn’t know, explaining that she lost the baby, having absentmindedly placed it in a handbag in which she had meant to place the manuscript for a novel she had written. Jack asks what happened to the bag, and Miss Prism says she left it in the cloakroom of a railway station. Jack presses her for further details and goes racing offstage, returning a few moments later with a large handbag. When Miss Prism confirms that the bag is hers, Jack throws himself on her with a cry of “Mother!” It takes a while before the situation is sorted out, but before too long we understand that Jack is not the illegitimate child of Miss Prism but the legitimate child of Lady Bracknell’s sister and, therefore, Algernon’s older brother. Furthermore, Jack had been originally christened “Ernest John.” All these years Jack has unwittingly been telling the truth: Ernest is his name, as is Jack, and he does have an unprincipled younger brother—Algernon. Again the couples embrace, Miss Prism and Dr. Chasuble follow suit, and Jack acknowledges that he now understands “the vital Importance of Being Earnest.”

**I think the ending was really really really funny though. 

and here's a little excerpt from an article I found on the net: 




The article was written during Utah Shakespeare Festival, copyrighted in 2013. It basically writes about Wilde's famous use of wit, defiance as public attitude and other essential elements. The article also inserts Wilde's comments on this play and here's one of them: 

When asked what sort of a play to expect with The Importance of Being Earnest, Wilde replied, “It is exquisitely trivial, a delicate bubble of fancy, and it has its philosophy . . . that we should treat all the trivial things of life seriously, and all the serious things of life with sincere and studied triviality.”

Here's another excerpt from the first 3 paragraphs that comments on Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest:

This play is Oscar Wilde’s masterpiece. The Importance of Being Earnest is wholly dedicated to wit; it is written in Wilde’s best style, and directly comments on the drabness of ordinary speech and the real world. The play, in fact, represents the full embodiment of Wilde’s lifelong assault upon what he deemed to be commonplace life and commonplace values. It is pure farce in which paradox and artificiality reign supreme and the preposterous becomes the norm.

Wilde termed Sin an essential element of progress, believing that without it the world would stagnate, grow old, or become colorless. His fiction and drama invariably tend to give prominence to some secret sin, and The Importance of Being Earnest is no exception. Both its heroes assume false identities to sow their wild oats, although Wilde apparently felt sufficiently carefree about secret sin to be here lampooning the idea.

Defiance was always part of Wilde’s public attitude, but only in this play was he so bold as to make this defiance plain from the beginning to the end. The Importance of Being Earnest shares some traits with plays belonging to the great Restoration period of English high comedy, including the two country boors Miss Prism and Canon Chasuble, both of whom know nothing of fashion and whose wit is invariably unintended. Jack and Algemon are obviously dandyish masters of wit and fashion; both are foppish. Algernon tells us, “If I am occasionally a little overdressed, I make up for it by being always immensely overeducated.” Likely both Wilde and his work would have been more accepted in the roistering days of Charles II than they were in the England of Queen Victoria.

Citation: 




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