Civil Disobedience and The Importance of Being Earnest
Civil Disobedience and The Importance of Being Earnest
Wilde’s most successful play portrays the ruling class as being both haunted and mirrored by the spectre of disruptive politics and the threat of revolution. Centred on Lady Bracknell’s claim that the expansion of education can “prove a serious danger to the upper classes, and probably lead to acts of violence in Grosvenor Square”, it explores the play’s engagement with late Victorian radicalism in relation to this key reference to its most shocking contemporary expression - the riot. This play parodies and subverts the concept of private property which, he warned in “The Soul of Man Under Socialism”, had already crushed the human spirit. Exploring the play as a text concerned with the problem of violent authority, this chapter points to its darkly subtle commentary on the readiness of the middle and upper classes to deploy coercion and maintain its political authority.
Keywords: Authority, Violence, Riot, Comedy, Revolution
Edinburgh Scholarship Online requires a subscription or purchase to access the full text of books within the service. Public users can however freely search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter.
Please, subscribe or login to access full text content.
If you think you should have access to this title, please contact your librarian.
To troubleshoot, please check our FAQs, and if you can't find the answer there, please contact us.
