The Importance of Being Earnest

Use these questions or activities to help gauge students’ familiarity with and spark their interest in the context of the work, giving them an entry point into the text itself.

Short Answer

1. What are some plays you have read about or have heard of from the late 19th century or the early 20th century? Consider examples such as George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion, Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House, and Thornton Wilder’s Our Town. What were the characteristics of the theater during this period?

Teaching Suggestion: Theater in the late 19th and early 20th centuries was characterized by many different trends and movements, with realism or naturalism becoming particularly notable. Playwrights of this period reflected on their world and society and its issues, often using satire, farce, or irony. Understanding these literary movements and literary devices can help students access and think about the text on a deeper level.

• This resource page provides a glossary of many literary elements and devices, including farce, satire, and irony.
• This article from the British Library discusses theater in the 19th century.

2. Oscar Wilde produced The Importance of Being Earnest in 1895, toward the end of the Victorian Era (1837-1901). What was the Victorian Era? What are the characteristics or social and artistic movements you associate with this period?