Oscar Wilde

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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, 1985.
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, 1969.
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.
Black and white photograph of Oscar Wilde sitting

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
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, 2005.
68n71
Dixon, Ella Hepworth. “Introduction”. The Story of a Modern Woman, edited by Steve Farmer, Broadview, 2004, pp. 9-39.
37
Dixon, Ella Hepworth. The Story of a Modern Woman. Editor Farmer, Steve, Broadview, 2004.
289
Friends, Associates Ella Hepworth Dixon
She often stayed with Count and Countess Lützow in Bohemia, where in 1903 she met Sibell, Countess of Cromartie , whom she described as one of my firmest friends ever since.
Dixon, Ella Hepworth. "As I Knew Them". Huchinson, 1930.
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...
Family and Intimate relationships George Douglas
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 .
Maureen Duffy: Author, poet, playwright. http://www.maureenduffy.co.uk/.
Intertextuality and Influence George Egerton
GE 's realism was influenced by the Scandinavian authors she had read while living in Norway, including Ibsen , Strindberg , and Björnson .
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.
Ledger, Sally. The New Woman. Manchester University Press, 1997.
193-4
Mix, Katherine Lyon. A Study in Yellow: The Yellow Book and Its Contributors. Greenwood Press, 1969.
173
Yet her work was also informed by the...
Residence Lili Elbe
Before finding a permanent residence in Paris the couple stayed in the Hotel D'Alsace, where Oscar Wilde died. After they settled, Gerda was asked to contribute to a well-known Parisian illustrated periodical, and she...
Friends, Associates Violet Fane
VF made her mark on London's social life. She knew Robert Browning , Algernon Swinburne , Alexander William Kinglake , Alfred Austin , the Duchess of Argyll , James McNeil Whistler , and Lillie Langtry
Literary responses Violet Fane
Oscar Wilde wrote to request a copy so that he could review it for The Woman's World.
Wilde, Oscar. The Letters of Oscar Wilde. Editor Hart-Davis, Rupert, Rupert Hart-Davis, 1962.
238
Textual Features Violet Fane
Titles include Hazely Heath (a sonnet which had first appeared in the inaugural issue of Wilde 's The Woman's World in November 1887) and The Mer-Baby (which Wilde persuaded her to contribute in August 1888)...
Literary responses Violet Fane
Oscar Wilde called Hazely Heatha beautiful gem.
Wilde, Oscar. The Letters of Oscar Wilde. Editor Hart-Davis, Rupert, Rupert Hart-Davis, 1962.
211
According to Dorothea Mosley Thompson 's entry in the Dictionary of Literary Biography, many of these poems address the trite themes of the period (which...
Education U. A. Fanthorpe
She later called her boarding school (where she was sent by her parents because of the heavy wartime bombing in their home area) inadequate,
Blain, Virginia et al., editors. The Feminist Companion to Literature in English: Women Writers from the Middle Ages to the Present. Yale University Press; Batsford, 1990.
and likened its staff to Oscar Wilde 's Lady Bracknell...
Literary responses Florence Farr
Dorothy Shakespear commented on the novel in a letter to Ezra Pound : Such a Sargasso Sea muddle. Every body divorced several times, & in the end going back to their originals: & a young...
Literary responses Michael Field
George Meredith thought the play would act well but added this criticism: I do not find in your dramatic prose the complete ring that there is in the sound and volume of your blank verse...

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Texts

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