The Importance of Being Earnest
A Trivial Comedy for Serious People
by Oscar Wilde · first published 1893
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Set in England during the late Victorian era, the play's humour derives in part from characters maintaining fictitious identities to escape unwelcome social obligations. It is replete with witty dialogue and satirises some of the foibles and hypocrisy of late Victorian society. It has proved Wilde's most enduringly popular play. - [Wikipedia][1] [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Importance_of_Being_Earnest
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Listening to, watching and otherwise enjoying The Importance of Being Earnest has increased my understanding and love of the English language no end: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-V_7SoF1HLQ It's one of a very small number of plays from Wilde's era that is still performed…
on “Oscar Wilde’s Radical Wit” ↗You're welcome :) Let's throw in The Importance of Being Earnest and HHGTTG (don't watch the movie). Maybe also some Vonnegut books? My favourite is Hocus Pocus.
on “I start taking English classes at the age of 46” ↗There's a quote I recall from the introduction to Oscar Wilde's Importance of Being Earnest in the Norton Anthology the first time I encountered the play years ago as a college undergraduate in an English Literature survey class. Something to effect: Oscar Wilde's play held a mirror up to Victorian…
on “A touch of absurdity can help to wrap your mind around reality” ↗Look to literature that is "punny" or very culturally specific. An example: The title The Importance of Being Earnest is itself a pun on the character's (eventual) nature and name. Translating that to another language you'd need to change the name of the character to maintain the pun in the new language, which may not…
on “Fernando Pessoa’s Disappearing Act (2017)” ↗…setting up shell corporations and then saying they made this purchase or that deal for tax reasons isn't exactly being honest. It reminds me of the "characters" Bunbury and Ernest from Oscar Wilde's "The Importance of Being Earnest": """ You have invented a very useful younger brother called Ernest, in order that you may be able to come up to town as often as you like. I have invented an invaluable permanent invalid called Bunbury,…
on “Shouting ‘pay your taxes,’ activists occupy Apple retail stores across France” ↗"Earnestness sounds like a boring, even Victorian virtue." Well, that's because it's even in the title of a Victorian book: The Importance of being Earnest, Oscar Wilde.
on “Earnestness” ↗…‘Memory, my dear Cecily, is the diary that we all carry about with us.’ Cecily: ‘Yes, but it usually chronicles the things that have never happened, and couldn’t possibly have happened.’ (Oscar Wilde: The Importance of Being Earnest)
…England, at any rate, education produces no effect whatsoever. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hrQQAa6AARc Lady Bracknell: A handbag??! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oyuoUwxCLMs (Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest)
on “HypChain, the first completely hypothetical blockchain” ↗Some might say this observation/trend/etc. is much older than the 1990s, as perhaps exemplified by Oscar Wilde's The Importance Of Being Earnest in 1895 (where literally all that matters is some one's name being "Earnest"). (Apologies if Shakespeare or the Greek Comedies or other got there first - feel free to cite!)
on “Cargo Cult Science (1974)” ↗“To lose one parent, Mr. Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.” ― Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest 150 times is a lot of carelessness.
> The Importance of Being Earnest To add to this, in Spanish the title is translated so that it loses all sense of being a pun: "La importancia de llamarse Ernesto". "Ernesto" in Spanish has no correlation with "earnestness", it doesn't…
on “Fernando Pessoa’s Disappearing Act (2017)” ↗It does rather come down to expectations, doesn't it. I (and this is just me) expect my local library to carry 125 year old stage plays such as The Importance of Being Earnest .. and it does. I expect an online libray of AV media to carry copies of material that was influential and popular when I was 30 .. (such as the anime series under discussion). If Crunchyroll is just…
I love his way of putting it. Memorizing lines as a kid for plays always felt easy but it’s because of something like what he describes. My biggest play to memorize was as one of the leads of The Importance of Being Earnest in high school and a big part of knowing it end to end was how I memorize talks today, just repeating it until you become the part, and feel like you know “your part” not “the lines”. You’re not regurgitating…
on “How actors remember their lines” ↗…"adult", so let me take the chance to point out this common mistake. Horror films, Warhammer 40K and 2000 AD comics are all famously dark, but they're for kids or teens. A Midsummer Night's Dream and The Importance of Being Earnest are light but grown-up. It's a weird deformation of the past generation to think that being depressing makes you deep.
on “The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance Is a Stone-Cold Masterpiece” ↗