Premium Content An Age of Surfaces: Oscar Wilde's Society Above and Below the Surface
By Emily R. Stein - February 26, 2007
“We live, I regret to say, in an age of surfaces” (2257). So the character of Lady Bracknell observes at the conclusion of Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest. The play as a whole is one firmly preoccupied with the idea of surfaces and their importance in Victorian society, where it must have often seemed (especially to someone as…
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