Pre-Raphaelite Paintings in Oliver Parker’s Adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest

Abstract

In Oliver Parker’s film adaptation (2002) of Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest (1895), Cecily’s fictional diary features two Victorian paintings: John Everett Millais’ The Knight Errant (1870) and John Melhuish Strudwick’s Acrasia (1888). In my paper, I would like to explore how these visual references contribute to the viewers’ understanding of the plot and the characters, and what is suggested by their application about the director’s view of the pictures themselves.