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.
Dixon, Ella Hepworth. "As I Knew Them". Huchinson.
71
Through the...
Friends, Associates
Evelyn Sharp
ES
wrote later that at no time in her life did she make intimate friends easily. Most people she had to do with she liked up to a certain point only, but she could count...
Friends, Associates
Ethel Lilian Voynich
Stepniak and his work, including Underground Russia, 1883, were influential in ELV
's personal life and career.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.
Gray, Anne, and Pam Blevins. The World of Women in Classical Music. WordWorld Publications, pp. 876-7.
876
He taught her Russian, pushed her to continue writing, and was the first to introduce her...
Friends, Associates
Jane Francesca, Lady Wilde
In London JFLW
associated with writers such as Marie Corelli
, Ouida
, and Violet Hunt
. Oscar
, an emerging celebrity, introduced his mother to the city's artistic circle.
Through her brother James, she moved in intellectual circles that included George Moore
and Oscar Wilde
.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.
Health
E. Owens Blackburne
EOB
was blind for some years. She lost her sight at about eleven but regained it after an operation performed by Sir William R. Wilde
(father to Oscar
) when she was eighteen.
O’Donoghue, David James. The Poets of Ireland. Gale Research.
62
Boase, Frederic. Modern English Biography. F. Cass.
Health
Viola Tree
Shortly after her wedding, in September 1912, VT
went back to Italy to resume voice training, but difficulty with her throat left her unable to sing. She tried a number of different remedies but none...
Intertextuality and Influence
Jane Francesca, Lady Wilde
Elgee's translation gained this novel a wider audience. In later years Dante Gabriel Rossetti
developed a positive passion for it, and it became very popular with the Pre-Raphaelites
.
Murray, Isobel. “Sidonia the Sorceress: Pre-Raphaelite Cult Book”. Durham University Journal, Vol.
The title-page quotes And each man kills the thing he loves . . . , from Wilde
's recent The Ballad of Reading Gaol. The title comes from a phrase applied by a snobbish...
Intertextuality and Influence
Mathilde Blind
MB
's rendering contributed to making the journal a sensation in England, and a major influence on a generation and more of English journal writers, including Katherine Mansfield
. It is, indirectly, the inspiration for...