Importance of Being Earnest - Brossura

Wilde, Oscar

Brossura

ISBN 10: 0140436065 ISBN 13: 9780140436068

Casa editrice: Penguin Classics, 2001

Riassunto

Combining epigrammatic brilliance and shrewd social observation, the works collected in Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest and Other Plays are edited with an introduction, commentaries and notes by Richard Allen Cave in Penguin Classics.

'To lose one parent may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness'

The Importance of Being Earnest is a glorious comedy of mistaken identity, which ridicules codes of propriety and etiquette. Manners and morality are also victims of Wilde's sharp wit in Lady Windermere's Fan, A Woman of No Importance and An Ideal Husband, in which snobbery and hypocrisy are laid bare. In Salomé and A Florentine Tragedy, Wilde makes powerful use of historical settings to explore the complex relationship between sex and power. The range of these plays displays Wilde's delight in artifice, masks and disguises, and reveals the pretentions of the social world in which he himself played such a dazzling and precarious part.

Richard Allen Cave's introduction and notes discuss the themes of the plays and Wilde's innovative methods of staging. This edition includes the excised 'Gribsby' scene from The Importance of Being Earnest.

Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) was educated in Dublin and Oxford and became the leading exponent of the new Aesthetic Movement. His work, including short fiction such The Happy Price (1888), his novel The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891), gradually won him a reputation, which was cemented by his phenomenally successful plays, including A Woman of No Importance (1893), An Ideal Husband (1895) and The Importance of Being Earnest (1895). Imprisoned for homosexual acts, he died after his release, in exile in Paris.

If you enjoyed The Importance of Being Earnest and Other Plays, you might like George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion, also available in Penguin Classics.

'Beneath the wit there is always an intense emotional reality. He criticised his audience while he entertained it'
Peter Hall, Guardian

Su questo libro

L'autore:

Born in Ireland, Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde (1854-1900) was educated in Dublin & Oxford and went on to become the leading and most prominent exponent of flamboyant aestheticism. As well as his many plays, he wrote one novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890), and published several volumes of poetry and criticism. He was imprisoned in 1895 for homosexual offences and after his release he died in exile in Paris. Richard Cave has edited a selection of Yeats' plays for Penguin Classics.

Product Description:

Book by Oscar Wilde

Su questa edizione

• Editore: Penguin Classics
• Data di pubblicazione: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0140436065
• ISBN 13: 9780140436068
• Rilegatura: Copertina flessibile
• Numero edizione: 1
• Numero di pagine: 464
• Redattore: Cave Richard Allen