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= = = Act II = = =
The Garden of the Manor House , Woolton
Cecily is studying with her governess , Miss Prism . Algernon arrives , pretending to be Ernest Worthing , and soon charms Cecily . Long fascinated by Uncle Jack 's hitherto absent black sheep brother , she is predisposed to fall for Algernon in his role of Ernest ( a name she , like Gwendolen , is apparently particularly fond of ) . Therefore , Algernon , too , plans for the rector , Dr. Chasuble , to rechristen him " Ernest " .
Jack , meanwhile , has decided to abandon his double life . He arrives in full mourning and announces his brother 's death in Paris of a severe chill , a story undermined by Algernon 's presence in the guise of Ernest .
Gwendolen now enters , having run away from home . During the temporary absence of the two men , she meets Cecily , each woman indignantly declaring that she is the one engaged to " Ernest " . When Jack and Algernon reappear , their deceptions are exposed .
= = = Act III = = =
Morning @-@ Room at the Manor House , Woolton
Arriving in pursuit of her daughter , Lady Bracknell is astonished to be told that Algernon and Cecily are engaged . The revelation of Cecily 's trust fund soon dispels Lady Bracknell 's initial doubts over the young lady 's suitability , but any engagement is forbidden by her guardian Jack : he will consent only if Lady Bracknell agrees to his own union with Gwendolen — something she declines to do .
The impasse is broken by the return of Miss Prism , whom Lady Bracknell recognises as the person who , twenty @-@ eight years earlier , as a family nursemaid , had taken a baby boy for a walk in a perambulator ( baby carriage ) and never returned . Challenged , Miss Prism explains that she had absentmindedly put the manuscript of a novel she was writing in the perambulator , and the baby in a handbag , which she had left at Victoria Station . Jack produces the very same handbag , showing that he is the lost baby , the elder son of Lady Bracknell 's late sister , and thus indeed Algernon 's elder brother . Having acquired such respectable relations , he is acceptable as a suitor for Gwendolen after all .
Gwendolen , though , still insists that she can only love a man named Ernest . What is her fiancé 's real first name ? Lady Bracknell informs Jack that , as the first @-@ born , he would have been named after his father , General Moncrieff . Jack examines the army lists and discovers that his father 's name — and hence his own real name — was in fact Ernest . <unk> was reality all along . As the happy couples embrace — Jack and Gwendolen , Algernon and Cecily , and even Dr. Chasuble and Miss Prism — Lady Bracknell complains to her newfound relative : " My nephew , you seem to be displaying signs of triviality . " " On the contrary , Aunt Augusta " , he replies , " I 've now realised for the first time in my life the vital importance of being Earnest . "
= = Themes = =
= = = <unk> = = =
Arthur Ransome described The Importance ... as the most trivial of Wilde 's society plays , and the only one that produces " that peculiar exhilaration of the spirit by which we recognise the beautiful . " " It is " , he wrote , " precisely because it is consistently trivial that it is not ugly . " Ellmann says that The Importance of Being Earnest touched on many themes Wilde had been building since the 1880s — the languor of aesthetic poses was well established and Wilde takes it as a starting point for the two protagonists . While Salome , An Ideal Husband and The Picture of Dorian Gray had dwelt on more serious wrongdoing , vice in Earnest is represented by Algy 's craving for cucumber sandwiches . Wilde told Robert Ross that the play 's theme was " That we should treat all trivial things in life very seriously , and all serious things of life with a sincere and studied triviality . " The theme is hinted at in the play 's ironic title , and " earnestness " is repeatedly alluded to in the dialogue , Algernon says in Act II , " one has to be serious about something if one is to have any amusement in life " but goes on to reproach Jack for ' being serious about everything ' " . Blackmail and corruption had haunted the double lives of Dorian Gray and Sir Robert Chiltern ( in An Ideal Husband ) , but in Earnest the protagonists ' duplicity ( Algernon 's " bunburying " and Worthing 's double life as Jack and Ernest ) is undertaken for more innocent purposes — largely to avoid unwelcome social obligations . While much theatre of the time tackled serious social and political issues , Earnest is superficially about nothing at all . It " refuses to play the game " of other dramatists of the period , for instance Bernard Shaw , who used their characters to draw audiences to grander ideals .
= = = As a satire of society = = =
The play repeatedly mocks Victorian traditions and social customs , marriage and the pursuit of love in particular . In Victorian times earnestness was considered to be the over @-@ riding societal value , originating in religious attempts to reform the lower classes , it spread to the upper ones too throughout the century . The play 's very title , with its mocking paradox ( serious people are so because they do not see trivial comedies ) , introduces the theme , it continues in the drawing room discussion , " Yes , but you must be serious about it . I hate people who are not serious about meals . It is so shallow of them , " says Algernon in Act 1 ; allusions are quick and from multiple angles .
Wilde managed both to engage with and to mock the genre , while providing social commentary and offering reform . The men follow traditional matrimonial rites , whereby suitors admit their weaknesses to their prospective brides , but the foibles they excuse are ridiculous , and the farce is built on an absurd confusion of a book and a baby . When Jack apologises to Gwendolen during his marriage proposal it is for not being wicked :
<unk> : Gwendolen , it is a terrible thing for a man to find out suddenly that all his life he has been speaking nothing but the truth . Can you forgive me ?
<unk> : I can . For I feel that you are sure to change .
In turn , both Gwendolen and Cecily have the ideal of marrying a man named Ernest , a popular and respected name at the time . Gwendolen , quite unlike her mother 's methodical analysis of John Worthing 's suitability as a husband , places her entire faith in a Christian name , declaring in Act I , " The only really safe name is Ernest " . This is an opinion shared by Cecily in Act II , " I pity any poor married woman whose husband is not called Ernest " and they indignantly declare that they have been deceived when they find out the men 's real names .
Wilde embodied society 's rules and rituals artfully into Lady Bracknell : minute attention to the details of her style created a comic effect of assertion by restraint . In contrast to her encyclopaedic knowledge of the social distinctions of London 's street names , Jack 's obscure parentage is subtly evoked . He defends himself against her " A handbag ? " with the clarification , " The Brighton Line " . At the time , Victoria Station consisted of two separate but adjacent terminal stations sharing the same name . To the east was the ramshackle LC & D Railway , on the west the up @-@ market LB & SCR — the Brighton Line , which went to Worthing , the fashionable , expensive town the gentleman who found baby Jack was travelling to at the time ( and after which Jack was named ) .
= = = Suggested homosexual subtext = = =
It has been argued that the play 's themes of duplicity and ambivalence are inextricably bound up with Wilde 's homosexuality , and that the play exhibits a " flickering presence @-@ absence of … homosexual desire " . On re @-@ reading the play after his release from prison , Wilde said : " It was extraordinary reading the play over . How I used to toy with that Tiger Life . " As one scholar has put it , the absolute necessity for homosexuals of the period to " need a public mask is a factor contributing to the satire on social disguise . "
The use of the name Earnest may have been a homosexual in @-@ joke . In 1892 , three years before Wilde wrote the play , John <unk> Nicholson had published the book of pederastic poetry Love In Earnest . The sonnet Of Boys ' Names included the verse : " Though Frank may ring like silver bell / And Cecil softer music claim / They cannot work the miracle / – ' Tis Ernest sets my heart a @-@ flame . " The word " earnest " may also have been a code @-@ word for homosexual , as in : " Is he earnest ? " , in the same way that " Is he so ? " and " Is he musical ? " were employed .
Sir Donald Sinden , an actor who had met two of the play 's original cast ( Irene Vanbrugh and Allan Aynesworth ) , and Lord Alfred Douglas , wrote to The Times to dispute suggestions that " Earnest " held any sexual connotations :
Although they had ample opportunity , at no time did any of them even hint that " Earnest " was a synonym for homosexual , or that " bunburying " may have implied homosexual sex . The first time I heard it mentioned was in the 1980s and I immediately consulted Sir John Gielgud whose own performance of Jack Worthing in the same play was legendary and whose knowledge of theatrical lore was encyclopaedic . He replied in his ringing tones : " No @-@ No ! Nonsense , absolute nonsense : I would have known " .
A number of theories have also been put forward to explain the derivation of Bunbury , and <unk> , which are used in the play to imply a secretive double life . It may have derived from Henry Shirley Bunbury , a <unk> acquaintance of Wilde 's youth . Another suggestion , put forward in 1913 by Aleister Crowley , who knew Wilde , was that Bunbury was a combination word : that Wilde had once taken train to Banbury , met a schoolboy there , and arranged a second secret meeting with him at Sunbury .
= = Dramatic analysis = =
= = = Use of language = = =
While Wilde had long been famous for dialogue and his use of language , Raby ( 1988 ) argues that he achieved a unity and mastery in Earnest that was unmatched in his other plays , except perhaps Salomé . While his earlier comedies suffer from an unevenness resulting from the thematic clash between the trivial and the serious , Earnest achieves a pitch @-@ perfect style that allows these to dissolve . There are three different registers detectable in the play . The <unk> insouciance of Jack and Algernon — established early with Algernon 's exchange with his manservant — betrays an underlying unity despite their differing attitudes . The formidable pronouncements of Lady Bracknell are as startling for her use of hyperbole and rhetorical extravagance as for her disconcerting opinions . In contrast , the speech of Dr. Chasuble and Miss Prism is distinguished by " pedantic precept " and " idiosyncratic diversion " . Furthermore , the play is full of epigrams and paradoxes . Max Beerbohm described it as littered with " chiselled <unk> — witticisms unrelated to action or character " , of which he found half a dozen to be of the highest order .
Lady Bracknell 's line , " A handbag ? " , has been called one of the most malleable in English drama , lending itself to interpretations ranging from incredulous or scandalised to baffled . Edith Evans , both on stage and in the 1952 film , delivered the line loudly in a mixture of horror , incredulity and condescension . Stockard Channing , in the Gaiety Theatre , Dublin in 2010 , hushed the line , in a critic 's words , " with a barely audible ' A handbag ? ' , rapidly swallowed up with a sharp intake of breath . An understated take , to be sure , but with such a well @-@ known play , packed full of witticisms and aphorisms with a life of their own , it 's the little things that make a difference . "
= = = Characterisation = = =
Though Wilde deployed characters that were by now familiar — the dandy lord , the overbearing matriarch , the woman with a past , the puritan young lady — his treatment is subtler than in his earlier comedies . Lady Bracknell , for instance , embodies respectable , upper @-@ class society , but <unk> notes how her development " from the familiar overbearing duchess into a quirkier and more disturbing character " can be traced through Wilde 's revisions of the play . For the two young men , Wilde presents not stereotypical stage " dudes " but intelligent beings who , as Jackson puts it , " speak like their creator in well @-@ formed complete sentences and rarely use slang or vogue @-@ words " . Dr Chasuble and Miss Prism are characterised by a few light touches of detail , their old @-@ fashioned enthusiasms , and the Canon 's fastidious pedantry , pared down by Wilde during his many redrafts of the text .
= = = Structure and genre = = =
Ransome argues that Wilde freed himself by abandoning the melodrama , the basic structure which underlies his earlier social comedies , and basing the story entirely on the Earnest / Ernest verbal conceit . Now freed from " living up to any drama more serious than conversation " Wilde could now amuse himself to a fuller extent with quips , bons @-@ mots , epigrams and repartee that really had little to do with the business at hand .
The genre of the Importance of Being Earnest has been deeply debated by scholars and critics alike who have placed the play within a wide variety of genres ranging from parody to satire . In his critique of Wilde , Foster argues that the play creates a world where “ real values are inverted [ and ] , reason and unreason are interchanged " . Similarly , Wilde 's use of dialogue mocks the upper classes of Victorian England lending the play a satirical tone . Reinhart further stipulates that the use of farcical humour to mock the upper classes " merits the play both as satire and as drama " .
= = Publication = =
= = = First edition = = =
Wilde 's two final comedies , An Ideal Husband and The Importance of Being Earnest , were still on stage in London at the time of his prosecution , and they were soon closed as the details of his case became public . After two years in prison with hard labour , Wilde went into exile in Paris , sick and depressed , his reputation destroyed in England . In 1898 , when no @-@ one else would , Leonard Smithers agreed with Wilde to publish the two final plays . Wilde proved to be a diligent <unk> , sending detailed instructions on stage directions , character listings and the presentation of the book , and insisting that a playbill from the first performance be reproduced inside . Ellmann argues that the proofs show a man " very much in command of himself and of the play " . Wilde 's name did not appear on the cover , it was " By the Author of Lady Windermere 's Fan " . His return to work was brief though , as he refused to write anything else , " I can write , but have lost the joy of writing " .
On 19 October 2007 , a first edition ( number 349 of 1 @,@ 000 ) was discovered inside a handbag in an Oxfam shop in Nantwich , Cheshire . Staff were unable to trace the donor . It was sold for £ 650 .
= = = In translation = = =
The Importance of Being Earnest 's popularity has meant it has been translated into many languages , though the homophonous pun in the title ( " Ernest " , a masculine proper name , and " earnest " , the virtue of steadfastness and seriousness ) poses a special problem for translators . The easiest case of a suitable translation of the pun , perpetuating its sense and meaning , may have been its translation into German . Since English and German are closely related languages , German provides an equivalent adjective ( " ernst " ) and also a matching masculine proper name ( " Ernst " ) . The meaning and tenor of the wordplay are exactly the same . Yet there are many different possible titles in German , mostly concerning sentence structure . The two most common ones are " Bunbury oder ernst / Ernst sein ist alles " and " Bunbury oder wie <unk> es ist , ernst / Ernst zu sein " . In a study of Italian translations , Adrian <unk> found thirteen different versions using eight titles . Since wordplay is often unique to the language in question , translators are faced with a choice of either staying faithful to the original — in this case the English adjective and virtue earnest — or creating a similar pun in their own language .
Four main strategies have been used by translators . The first leaves all characters ' names unchanged and in their original spelling : thus the name is respected and readers reminded of the original cultural setting , but the liveliness of the pun is lost . Eva <unk> varied this source @-@ oriented approach by using both the English Christian names and the adjective earnest , thus preserving the pun and the English character of the play , but possibly straining an Italian reader . A third group of translators replaced Ernest with a name that also represents a virtue in the target language , favouring transparency for readers in translation over fidelity to the original . For instance , in Italian , these versions variously call the play L <unk> di essere Franco / Severo / <unk> , the given names being respectively the values of honesty , propriety , and loyalty . French offers a closer pun : " Constant " is both a first name and the quality of steadfastness , so the play is commonly known as De l <unk> d 'être Constant , though Jean Anouilh translated the play under the title : Il est important d 'être Aimé ( " Aimé " is a name which also means " beloved " ) . These translators differ in their attitude to the original English honorific titles , some change them all , or none , but most leave a mix partially as a compensation for the added loss of Englishness . Lastly , one translation gave the name an Italianate touch by rendering it as Ernesto ; this work liberally mixed proper nouns from both languages .
= = Adaptations = =
= = = Film = = =
Apart from multiple " made @-@ for @-@ television " versions , The Importance of Being Earnest has been adapted for the English @-@ language cinema at least three times , first in 1952 by Anthony Asquith who adapted the screenplay and directed it . Michael Denison ( Algernon ) , Michael Redgrave ( Jack ) , Edith Evans ( Lady Bracknell ) , Dorothy Tutin ( Cecily ) , Joan Greenwood ( Gwendolen ) , and Margaret Rutherford ( Miss Prism ) and Miles Malleson ( Canon Chasuble ) were among the cast . In 1992 Kurt Baker directed a version using an all @-@ black cast with Daryl Keith Roach as Jack , Wren T. Brown as Algernon , Ann Weldon as Lady Bracknell , <unk> Chapman as Cecily , Chris Calloway as Gwendolen , CCH Pounder as Miss Prism , and Brock Peters as Doctor Chasuble , set in the United States . Oliver Parker , an English director who had previously adapted An Ideal Husband by Wilde , made the 2002 film ; it stars Colin Firth ( Jack ) , Rupert Everett ( Algy ) , Judi Dench ( Lady Bracknell ) , Reese Witherspoon ( Cecily ) , Frances O 'Connor ( Gwendolen ) , Anna Massey ( Miss Prism ) , and Tom Wilkinson ( Canon Chasuble ) . Parker 's adaptation includes the <unk> solicitor Mr. <unk> who pursues Jack to Hertfordshire ( present in Wilde 's original draft , but cut at the behest of the play 's first producer ) . Algernon too is pursued by a group of creditors in the opening scene .
= = = Operas and musicals = = =
In 1960 , Ernest in Love was staged Off @-@ Broadway . The Japanese all @-@ female musical theatre troupe Takarazuka Revue staged this musical in 2005 in two productions , one by Moon Troupe and the other one by Flower Troupe .
In 1963 , Erik Chisholm composed an opera from the play , using Wilde 's text as the libretto .
In 1964 , Gerd <unk> composed the musical Mein Freund Bunbury based on the play , 1964 premiered at <unk> Theater Berlin .
According to a study by Robert <unk> , by 2002 there had been least eight adaptations of the play as a musical , though " never with conspicuous success " . The earliest such version was a 1927 American show entitled Oh Earnest . The journalist Mark <unk> comments , " The libretto of a 1957 musical adaptation , Half in Earnest , deposited in the British Library , is scarcely more encouraging . The curtain rises on Algy strumming away at the piano , singing ' I can play <unk> , Lane ' . Other songs include — almost predictably — ' A <unk> I Must Go ' . "
Gerald Barry created the 2011 opera , The Importance of Being Earnest , commissioned by the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Barbican Centre in London . It was premiered in Los Angeles in 2011 . The stage premiere was given by the Opéra national de Lorraine in Nancy , France in 2013 .
= = = Radio and television = = =
There have been many radio versions of the play . In 1925 the BBC broadcast an adaptation with Hesketh Pearson as Jack Worthing . Further broadcasts of the play followed in 1927 and 1936 . In 1977 , BBC Radio 4 broadcast the four @-@ act version of the play , with Fabia Drake as Lady Bracknell , Richard Pasco as Jack , Jeremy Clyde as Algy , Maurice Denham as Canon Chasuble , Sylvia Coleridge as Miss Prism , Barbara Leigh @-@ Hunt as Gwendolen and Prunella Scales as Cecily . The production was later released on CD .
To commemorate the centenary of the first performance of the play , Radio 4 broadcast a new adaptation on 13 February 1995 ; directed by Glyn Dearman , it featured Judi Dench as Lady Bracknell , Michael Hordern as Lane , Michael Sheen as Jack Worthing , Martin Clunes as Algernon Moncrieff , John Moffatt as Canon Chasuble , Miriam Margolyes as Miss Prism , Samantha Bond as Gwendolen and Amanda Root as Cecily . The production was later issued on audio cassette .
On 13 December 2000 , BBC Radio 3 broadcast a new adaptation directed by Howard Davies starring Geraldine McEwan as Lady Bracknell , Simon Russell Beale as Jack Worthing , Julian Wadham as Algernon Moncrieff , Geoffrey Palmer as Canon Chasuble , Celia Imrie as Miss Prism , Victoria Hamilton as Gwendolen and Emma Fielding as Cecily , with music composed by Dominic <unk> . The production was released on audio cassette .
A 1964 commercial television adaptation starred Ian Carmichael , Patrick Macnee , Susannah York , Fenella Fielding , Pamela Brown and Irene <unk> .
BBC television transmissions of the play have included a 1974 Play of the Month version starring Coral Browne as Lady Bracknell with Michael Jayston , Julian Holloway , Gemma Jones and Celia Bannerman . Stuart Burge directed another adaptation in 1986 with a cast including Gemma Jones , Alec McCowen , Paul McGann and Joan Plowright .
It was adapted for Australian TV in 1957 .
= = = Commercial recordings = = =
Gielgud 's performance is preserved on an EMI audio recording dating from 1952 , which also captures Edith Evans 's Lady Bracknell . The cast also includes Roland Culver ( Algy ) , Jean Cadell ( Miss Prism ) , Pamela Brown ( Gwendolen ) and Celia Johnson ( Cecily ) .
Other audio recordings include a " Theatre Masterworks " version from 1953 , directed and narrated by Margaret Webster , with a cast including Maurice Evans , Lucile Watson and Mildred Natwick ; a 1989 version by California Artists Radio Theatre , featuring Dan O 'Herlihy Jeanette Nolan , Les Tremayne and Richard Erdman ; and one by L.A. Theatre Works issued in 2009 , featuring Charles Busch , James Marsters and Andrea Bowen .
= Lloyd Mathews =