Mastery Of Epigram And The Audacity And Polish Of His Wit Essay, Research Paper

Critics of the play refer to Wilde’s “mastery of epigram and the audacity and polish of his wit”. Illustrate this mastery using examples which you have enjoyed from the play.

Proposal for opening:

According to Collins English Dictionary wit is “the talent or quality of using unexpected associations between contrasting or disparate words or ideas to make a clever humorous effect”, it is more intellectual than straightforward humour which can include slapstick. An epigram is “a witty, often paradoxical remark, concisely expressed”. The Importance of being Earnest is a play overflowing with both epigrams and wit. The title itself is a play on the words Ernest and earnest. There are so many examples of Wilde’s “mastery of epigram and the audacity and polish of his wit” that, unfortunately, only a few can be used to illustrate this essay. They can be grouped into four main types: play on words, opposite to what is expected or accepted (paradox), other epigrams and plain wit.

Or:

According to Webster’s Encyclopedic Dictionary wit is “the ability to relate seemingly unlike things so as to illuminate or amuse”, it is more intellectual than straightforward humour which can include slapstick. An epigram is “a brief witty saying”. …

Could also group by subject : wordplay, truth, love/marriage, diary, death, education, illness, Society, … (Maybe too many groups this way, could perhaps cut them down).

Examples: too many: to be winnowed:

Play on words:

Title: The Importance of Being Earnest

I.5:5 Algernon: “As far as the piano is concerned, sentiment is my forte.” (Play on the word pianoforte.)

I.12:161 Algernon:”You look as if your name was Ernest. You are the most earnest looking person I ever saw in my life.” (Play on Ernest and earnest)

II.67ish. Gwendolen: “Mamma, whose views on education are remarkably strict, has brought me up to be extremely short-sighted, it is part of her system; so do you mind my looking at you through my glasses?” (Short-sighted – not looking towards the future and needing to wear glasses)

Plain Wit:

I.33:611 Algernon: “I love hearing my relations abused. It is the only thing that makes me put up with them at all. Relations are simply a tedious pack of people, who haven’t got the remotest knowledge of how to live, nor the smallest instinct about when to die.” (From “Relations are … die” is probably an epigram, perhaps the first bit is an opposite)

II.41.6 Cecily: On German: “It isn’t at all a becoming language. I know perfectly well that I look quite plain after my German lesson.”

II.59.381 Algernon: “It is perfectly childish to be in deep mourning for a man who is actually staying for a whole week in your house as a guest.”

II.78.824 Algernon: “…It is very vulgar to talk about one’s business. Only people like stockbrokers do that, and then merely at dinner parties.”

Epigrams:

I.6:24 Lane: “I have only been married once. That was a consequence of a misunderstanding between myself and a young person.”

I.7:47 Jack: “When one is in town one amuses oneself. When one is in the country one amuses other people.” It appears that Jack never speaks to any of his neighbours which leads Algernon to remark: “How immensely you must amuse them!”

I.8:65 Algernon: “My dear fellow, the way you flirt with Gwendolen is perfectly disgraceful. It is almost as bad as the way Gwendolen flirts with you.” Algernon feels that after a proposal has been made and accepted, which it almost always done, the excitement fades away because “… the very essence of romance is uncertainty”. If he should get married he will try to forget that he has done so. To this Jack replies:

I.8:79 Jack: “The Divorce Court was specially invented for people whose memories are so curiously constituted”. Algy’s reply (9:82) is an example of an opposite:

I.14:212 Jack: “That … is the whole truth pure and simple”‘ Alg: “The truth is rarely pure and never simple.”

I.18:297 To Jack’s remark : “You’re quite perfect, Miss Fairfax.” Gwendolen: “Oh! I hope I am not that. It would leave no room for developments, and I intend to develop in many directions.” (Outwards ?)

I.20:344 Lady B.: “… Illness of any kind is hardly a thing to be encouraged in others.”

I.27:496 Lady B: “Ignorance is like a delicate exotic fruit; touch it and the bloom is gone.”

I.30:539 Lady B: “… To lose one parent may be regarded as misfortune – to lose bothseems like carelessness.”

I.31:570 Lady B: “… To be born, or at any rate bred, in a hand-bag … seems to me to display a contempt for the ordinary decencies of family life that reminds one of the worst excesses of the French Revolution.”

I.33:625 Algernon: “All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That’s his.”

I.34:644 Algernon: “The only way to behave to a woman is to make love to her if she is pretty, and to someone else if she is plain.”

II.46.123 Cecily: “I hope you have not been leading a double life, pretending to be wicked and being really good all the time. That would be hypocrisy.”

II.47.140 Cecily: “I know, of course, how important it is not to keep a business engagement, if one wants to retain any sense of the beauty of life.”

II.51.223 M.Prism: On learning of the death of Ernest: “…what a lesson for him! I trust he will profit by it.” (How, if he is dead?)

II.55.312 M.Prism: On learning that Ernest is alive: “After we had all been resigned to his loss, his sudden return seems to me pecurliarly distressing.” (Normally death would be distressing)

II.59.396 Algernon: “If I am occasionally a little over-dressed, I make up for it by being always immensely over-educated.”

II.70.655 Gwendolen: “I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read in the train.”

III.83.28 Gwendolen: “… In matters of grave importance, style, not sincerity, is the vital thing.”

III.86.71 Lady B.: “… Hesitation of any kind is a sign of mental decay in the young, of physical weakness in the old.”

III.91.188 Lady B.: “Never speak disrespectfully of Society … Only people who can’t get into it do that.”

III.94.280 Lady B.: “London Society is full of women of the very highest birth who have, of their own free choice, remained thirty-five for years.”

Opposites:

- Subtitle: A Trivial Comedy for Serious People

I.6:33 Algernon: “Really, if the lower orders don’t set us a good example, what on earth is the use of them?” (Accepted that upper classes should set examples)

I.9:82 Algernon: “Divorces are made in heaven.” (Usually marriages)

I.13:185 Algernon: “Now produce your explanation, and pray make it improbable.” (Should be plausible)

I.14:218 Algernon: “Literary criticism … You should leave that to people who haven’t been at a University.” (Would expect them to have been to university – is this a ‘dig’ at the literary critics of Wilde’s plays ?”

I.16:249 Algernon: “The amount of women in London who flirt with their own husbands is perfectly scandalous. … It is simply washing one’s clean linen in public.” (Usually dirty linen)

About Lady Harbury

I.19:300 Lady B.: “… since her poor husband’s death. I never saw a woman so altered; she looks quite 20 years younger” (would expect older)

I.20:321 Algernon: “… her hair has turned quite gold from grief” (white) Lady B: “It certainly has changed it’s colour. From what cause I, of course, cannot say.”

I.22:382 Gwendolen: “… Mamma has a way of coming back suddenly into a room that I have often had to speak to her about.” (Usually Mamma should speak to daughter)

I.27:487 When Jack admits to Lady Bracknell that he smokes, she replies: Lady B: “I am glad to hear it. A man should always have an occupation of some kind. There are far too many idle men in London as it is.” (First part opposite of what would be expected nowadays, maybe not then, however ridiculous that smoking should be considered an occupation!)

I.27:495 Lady B: “… I do not approve of anything that tampers with natural ignorance. Ignorance is like a delicate exotic fruit; touch it and the bloom is gone. The whole theory of modern education is radically unsound. Fortunately in England, at any rate, education produces no effect whatsoever. If it did, it would pose a serious danger to the upper classes …” (Epigram: “Ignorance … gone”; Would expect education to be a good thing, and to have some effect).

I.34:641 Jack: “… the truth isn’t quite the sort of thing one tells to a nice sweet refined girl.” (If you don’t tell her the truth, what do you tell her?)

I.27:690 Algernon: “It is awfully hard work doing nothing. However, I don’t mind hard work where there is no definite object of any kind.”

I.38:701 Gwendolen: “… Few parents nowadays pay any regard to what their children say to them. The old-fashioned respect for the young is fast dying out.” (Would expect children and parents to be switched, and young replace by old).

II.45.94 M.Prism: On an Economics text book: “… The chapter on the Fall of the Rupee you may omit. It is somewhat too sensational. Even these metallic problems have their melodramatic side.” (Would never expect a text about the collapse of a currency to be sensational.)

II.49.186 Cecily: “I don’t think I would care to catch a sensible man. I shouldn’t know what to talk to him about.” (Most people would like to catch one, and would know …)

II.61.430 Cecily: On being asked by Algernon if he may look at her diary: “Oh no. You see, it is simply a very young girl’s record of her own thoughts and impressions, and consequently meant for publication … I delight in taking down from dictation.” (1. He can’t look but it is to be published. 2. Own thoughts and impressions can not be dictated by someone else.)

II.65.536 Cecily: “Dr. Chasuble is a most learned man. He has never written a single book, so you can imagine how much he knows.” (Don’t learned men write books to show how much they know?)

II.67.583 Gwendolen: “Outside the family circle, papa, I am glad to say, is entirely unknown. I think that is quite as it should be. The home seems to me to be the proper sphere for the man. And certainly once a man begins to neglect his domestic duties he becomes painfully effeminate, does he not? And I don’t like that. It makes men so very attractive.” (1. Usually a woman’s sphere in the home. 2. Neglecting domestic duties would make him less effeminate ? 3. Being more effeminate would surely make him less attractive ?)

II.76.767 Jack: “… it is very painful for me to be forced to speak the turth It is the first time in my life that I have ever been reduced to such a painful position, and I am really quite inexperienced in doing anything of the kind.” (Don’t people usually speak the truth?)

III.88.121 Lady B.: “… the number of engagements that go on seems to me considerably above the proper average that statistics have laid down for our guidance.” (Normally what happens provides the average for statistics, not the other way round).

III.92.204 Lady B.: “I am not in favour of long engagements. They give people the opportunity of finding out each other’s character before marriage, which I think is never advisable.” (Isn’t that one of the ideas of an engagement, a commitment without the legal hassle if, after finding out the other’s character defects, one wishes to not get married after all?)

III.96.293 Lady B.: “… we have already missed five, if not six, trains. To miss any more might expose us to comment on the platform.” (Who knows they have not gone to catch the train they get if they weren’t on the platform when the other +5 or 6 trains went?)

III.99.374 Gwendolen: “If you are not too long, I will wait here for you all my life.” (Contradiction – all my life and not too long)

III.104.477 Jack: “… it is a terrible thing for a man to find out suddenly that all his life he has been speaking nothing but the truth. Can you forgive me?” (Shouldn’t he beg forgiveness for telling lies, not the truth?)

Conclusion:

Hopefully, from these examples the critics view of Wilde’s “mastery of epigram and the audacity and polish of his wit” have been proven.

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