Oscar Wilde’s Society Plays

1. Introduction: The Importance of Laughing in Earnest
Michael Y. Bennett

Part I. Contexts

2. Wit in Earnest: Wilde’s Irish Word-Play
Jerusha McCormack

3. The Tragicomedies of Oscar Wilde: A Wilde Response to Melodrama
Michael Y. Bennett

4. Oscar Wilde’s Unfinished Society Plays: Mr. and Mrs. Daventry, a Wife’s Tragedy, and Love is Law
Joseph Bristow

5. Wilde’s Comedic Takes on the New Woman: A Comparison with Ibsen and Shaw
Petra Dierkes-Thrun

6. Three Comedies and a Funeral: The Endgame of The Importance of Being Earnest
Melissa Knox

Part II. Texts

7. Deconstructive Strategies in Wilde’s Social Comedies: From Melodrama to Deconstruction
Steven Price

8. Ernest in Name, But How Earnest in Manner?: Acting in Wilde’s Comedy
Richard Allen Cave

9. “Would You Kindly Inform Me Who I Am?”: Wilde’s Comedies of Manners as Tragedies
Helena Gurfinkel

10. “You Will Call Me Sister, Will You Not?”: Friendship, Solidarity, and Conflict between Women in Wilde’S Society Plays
Helen Davies

11. Modern Ontologics and the Impotence of Being Earnest
S. I. Salamensky

Keywords: Science, Science, general