In this video Dr Andy Smith takes you through his interpretation of the passage from ‘The Importance of Being Earnest’. He highlights a number of issues, such as:
- The urban view of the country
- The limits of polite society
- The stage directions
- how do they direct the actors to articulate their growing anger through bodily gestures and tone of voice?
- Cecily’s rather nonchalant reference to the ‘agricultural depression’. This was an economic depression that effectively ended the political power of the aristocracy.
By looking at these elements, you can see how polite society starts to unravel at a time when the aristocratic country house values on which they depend were under considerable threat.
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