The Importance of Being Earnest: Context

This 26-slide lesson provides a comprehensive introduction to the context and comedy of Oscar Wilde’s ‘The Importance of Being Earnest’.

The lesson features information on Wilde’s life and literary career and on Victorian contexts of gender, sexuality, and morality. The genre of comedy is considered in detail, and the key themes, characters, and conventions of ‘The Importance of Being Earnest’ are outlined. Questions, discussion points, and tasks are included for students.

This lesson would work particularly well for those teaching Wilde on AQA’s Aspects of Comedy paper for English Literature A level, but is still useful for those exploring the play for other courses.

PowerPoint saved as PDF.