The paradox of identity : Oscar Wilde's The importance of being earnest

The Importance of Being Earnest is Wilde's most well-known play, yet it has long been the most misunderstood. Far from being a mere absurd farce, the play proves to be subversive as it not only deals strong blows to the Victorian conformism, reversing gender conventions and satirising the foibles of the age, but as it also parodies the literary conventions of the time, at the dawn of modernism.

Wilde the Irishman infiltrates the snobbish British upper-class and builds the figure of Jack Worthing the interloper who invents a doppelganger, Ernest, to reflect on the very notion of identity which paradoxically comes out of multiplicity. Baffling all expectations, the joyful plot triggers a reflexion on the Supremacy of Art over Life, as fictive lovers appear flesh and blood out of diaries, on the Truth of Masks, as elaborate lies turn out to be true, and on the power of comic creativity, all of which are key notions to grasp Wilde's aesthetic concern.

Providing with close readings of the text to analyse the Wildean poetics, this book will offer a thorough discussion of the play with its historical background, major issues and critical references.