The text of this Norton Critical Edition of The Importance of Being Earnest is the established three-act version. Originally in four acts, Wilde shortened it to three at the urging of George Alexander, the owner of the St. James Theatre and first actor to play Jack Worthing. The play is accompanied by explanatory annotations and by an appendix of excised portions.
"Backgrounds" includes essays on Wilde and the 1890s by prominent cultural critics Joseph Donohue, Regenia Gagnier, and Karl Beckson.
"Reviews and Reactions" collects contemporary responses to The Importance of Being Earnest, among them George Bernard Shaw's famous dissenting view and the American assessment by H. F. "Essays in Criticism" includes six diverse assessments of Wilde and the play by E. H. Mikhail, Camille Paglia, Christopher Craft, Michael Patrick Gillespie, Peter Raby, and Richard Haslam.
A Chronology and Selected Bibliography are also included.
About the Series: No other series of classic texts equals the caliber of the Norton Critical Editions. Each volume combines the most authoritative text available with the comprehensive pedagogical apparatus necessary to appreciate the work fully. Careful editing, first-rate translation, and thorough explanatory annotations allow each text to meet the highest literary standards while remaining accessible to students. Each edition is printed on acid-free paper and every text in the series remains in print. Norton Critical Editions are the choice for excellence in scholarship for students at more than 2,000 universities worldwide.
About the Author
Michael Patrick Gillespie is Louis Edna Goeden Professor of English at Marquette University. He is the author of Oscar Wilde and the Poetics of Ambiguity, The Aesthetics of Chaos: Nonlinear Thinking and Contemporary Literary Criticism, Inverted Volumes Improperly Arranged: James Joyce and His Trieste Library, Reading the Book Himself: Narrative Strategies in the Works of James Joyce, and Reading William Kennedy, among others. His edited works include James Joyce and the Fabrication of an Irish Identity and Joyce through the Ages: A Non-Linear View.
【作者简介】
Michael Patrick Gillespie is Louis Edna Goeden Professor of English at Marquette University. He is the author of Oscar Wilde and the Poetics of Ambiguity, The Aesthetics of Chaos: Nonlinear Thinking and Contemporary Literary Criticism, Inverted Volumes Im
【目录】
Preface
The Text of The Importance of Being Earnest
Excised Portions of the Play
Backgrounds
Karl Beckson·London in the 1890s
Joseph Donohue·Wilde and the Idea of a Theatre
Regenia Gagnier·Creating the Audience
Criticism
REVIEWS AND REACTIONS
William Archer·On The Importance of Being Earnest
H. F.·On The Importance of Being Earnest
George Bernard Shaw·On The Importance of Being Earnest
H. G. Wells·On The Importance of Being Earnest
ESSAYS IN CRITICISM
Eva Thienpont·From Faltering Arrow to Pistol Shot: The Importance of Being Earnest
E. H. Mikhail·The Four-Act Version of The Importance of Being Earnest
Camille A. Paglia·Oscar Wilde and the English Epicene
Christopher Craft·Alias Bunbury: Desire and Termination in The Importance of Being Earnest
Michael Patrick Gillespie·From Beau Brummell to Lady Bracknell: Re-viewing the Dandy in The Importance of Being Earnest
Peter Raby·The Genesis of the Play
Richard Haslam·Oscar Wilde and the Imagination of the Celt
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