In the late-nineteenth-century play, The Importance of Being Earnest, Oscar Wilde satirizes the society in which he lived, which is now called the Victorian period. This period of the reign of Queen Victoria is characterized by British imperialism and growing power of its empire, extravagance in e...

1. The Misanthrope A central theme that runs throughput this play and which forms the basis of this discussion is the issue of the compromise between the critique of the fallacies and pretensions of society and the need to ameliorate these criticisms with false praise and lies in order to make ...

Oscar Wilde Essayist, dramatist, novelist, and poet Oscar Wilde was better known for his scandalous lifestyle than his literary theories and their execution in his dramas. However, subsequent generations have regularly revived his delightful comedies of manners, and now it seems as thou...