The Importance of Being Earnest | Style

The Importance of Being Earnest Style

Romantic Comedy

Most commonly seen in Shakespeare's romance plays like As You Like It or A Midsummer Night's Dream, the plot of a typical romantic comedy involves an idealized pan: of lovers who the circumstances of daily life or social convention seem destined to keep apart. Along the way, the lovers escape their troubles, at least for a while, entenng an ideal world (like the Garden of Eden) where contacts resolve and the lovers ultimately come together. The plots of such comedies contain pairs of characters and conclude happily, often exhibiting poetic justice, with the good rewarded and the evil punished.

While The Importance of Being Earnest certainly fits this description, it is a play that is appraised beyond simple romantic comedy. In fact, part of the play' s wide and lasting appeal is that it so competently fits into any number of comedy genres, including comedies of manners, farces, and...
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