Oscar Wilde - play - 1895 - pp. 154, 155, 157, 158, 186    
Making its premiere on Valentine’s Day, 1895, this Oscar Wilde farce skewers grandiose familial traditions and English properties. The main characters, Algernon and Ernest, are longtime friends who exchange witty banter throughout, working to contrive a scheme to help Ernest woo Gwendolen by distracting her mother, the imposing Lady Bracknell. Over the course of the play, it is revealed that Ernest’s real name is actually Jack and that he was orphaned, hence Lady Bracknell’s disapprobation. Jack’s ward, Cecily, enters the fray and grows fond of Algernon--who has assumed the name “Ernest” to suit her tastes.

Its heterosexual romance notwithstanding, the play contains pronounced homoerotic undertones and the loaded term “Bunbury”--an invented friend whom Algernon occasionally visits out in the country.

Wilde himself was an integral figure in the development of modern conceptions of sexual orientation.

Key elements: absent father, Europe, homosexuality, origin stories