information:highlighting, stylistic:style_transfer, quality:corruption, linguistic:paraphrasing
Use of language

Although Wilde had for several years been famous for dialogue and his use of language, Raby has argued that in this play the author achieved unity and mastery unmatched in his other plays, with the possible exception of Salome. Raby comments that although the earlier comedies suffer from an unevenness resulting from the thematic clash between the trivial and the serious, The Importance of Being Earnest achieves "a pitch-perfect style" that allows these clashes to dissolve. Raby identifies three different registers in the play: Algernon's exchange with his manservant conveying an underlying unity despite their differing attitudes. The imperious pronouncements of Lady Bracknell are as startling for her use of hyperbole and rhetorical extravagance as for her disconcerting opinions. In contrast, the discourse of Dr Chasuble and Miss Prism is distinguished by "pedantic precept" and "idiosyncratic diversion". The play is full of epigrams and paradoxes. Max Beerbohm described it as abounding in "chiselled apothegms – witticisms unrelated to action or character but so good in themselves as to have the quality of dramatic surprise".