Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
Oscar Wilde
-
Standard Name: Wilde, Oscar
Birth Name: Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde
OW
's significance as poet, playwright, and writer of prose fiction, remained in eclipse for many years after his notorious trial and imprisonment in Reading Gaol
, events whose chilling impact on poetry and prose in England was not reversed until the modernists returned to the struggle for unfettered aesthetic expression. A leading proponent of art for art's sake in England, OW
was a follower of Walter Pater
, from whose work he borrows in lavish quantity, and, like Pater, he was much influenced by the French l'art pour l'art poets, notably Charles Baudelaire
and Théophile Gautier
.
Clements, Patricia. Baudelaire and the English Tradition. Princeton University Press.
140-83
More recently, his brilliant aesthetic essays have drawn serious attention as the basis for many critical propositions . . . which we like to attribute to more ponderous names.
Ellmann, Richard, editor. The Critic as Artist: Critical Writings of Oscar Wilde. Random House.
x
His notoriety as a casualty of oppressive laws against the practice of homosexuality is also the subject of a good deal of recent critical comment.
The novel is an indictment of the Decadent Movement for its immorality and sensationalism, yet critic Annette R. Federico
notes that the antidecadent novel is packaged as the very flower of decadence, even down to...
Cultural formation
Dinah Mulock Craik
DMC
identified strongly as a working woman across established class boundaries. She wrote towards the end of her life to Oscar Wilde
, suggesting that he should alter the name of the monthly magazine he...
Who Was Who in Literature, 1906-1934. Gale Research.
vol. 1
She also belonged to the Society of Authors
, and acted as a steward (along with over a hundred other luminaries including Walter Besant
Literary responses
Victoria Cross
Sewell Stokes
, in a brief portrait of VC
in 1928, described her as one who had at one time been accused of poisoning the purity of British homes with her sordid writings ....
Textual Features
Nancy Cunard
In fact, it was part of the effort of the early modernists to break free of the cosy escapism which had befallen English verse after the trial of Oscar Wilde
. The Wheels group took...
Occupation
Ella D'Arcy
As well as a writer, EDA
was an editor, assistant to Henry Harland
on the avant-garde Yellow Book, published by John Lane
of the Bodley Head
. Sources agree on this, though she herself...
Textual Features
Ella D'Arcy
It reverses the traditional story of a male philanderer rejected by a pure-minded woman. Lulie Thayer, an American girl, pursues, loves, and drops every man she meets. She is an adventuress . . . but...
Family and Intimate relationships
Florence Dixie
Florence's eldest brother, Lord John
, later became the notorious ninth Marquess of Queensberry, father of Lord Alfred Douglas
. It was he who destroyed Oscar Wilde
by bringing the court case against him.
Publishing
Ella Hepworth Dixon
EHD
published her first article in Oscar Wilde
's journal Woman's World, a piece entitled Murder—or Mercy? A Story of To-day. She also became the editor of the journal this year.
Fehlbaum, Valerie. Ella Hepworth Dixon: the Story of a Modern Woman. Ashgate.
68n71
Dixon, Ella Hepworth. “Introduction”. The Story of a Modern Woman, edited by Steve Farmer, Broadview, pp. 9-39.
37
Dixon, Ella Hepworth. The Story of a Modern Woman. Editor Farmer, Steve, Broadview.
Dixon, Ella Hepworth. "As I Knew Them". Huchinson.
71
Through the...
Publishing
Ella Hepworth Dixon
As a member of the Yellow Book circle, named for the illustrated quarterly largely initiated by Wilde
, EHD
naturally wrote for this journal as well. It too turned out to be less radical than...
Textual Features
Ella Hepworth Dixon
EHD
depicts Oscar Wilde
as the jealous, selfish, and corrupt dramatist Gilbert Vincent in The World's Slow Stain. Envious of one-time novelist Adela Buller's marriage to the lover who had formerly rejected her, Gilbert...
The eldest of GD
's brothers, John Sholto Douglas, the heir, became Marquess of Queensberry
at their father's early death. He later became notorious as the father of Lord Alfred Douglas
and the enemy of...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text
Maureen Duffy
From Methuen's first-published author, Edna Lyall
, she traces the firm's dealings with other progressive activists, with canonical names in many genres including books for children, and with such controversial figures as Ibsen
, Wilde
, and Lawrence
.
