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.
Robert Ross
, journalist, art historian, and Roman Catholic convert, who is remembered principally as a friend of Oscar Wilde
, was her uncle.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.
under Robert Baldwin Ross
Textual Production
Marghanita Laski
The programme considered contemporary political and social subjects through the lens of historical and classical literary texts by, for instance Shakespeare
, Byron
, Shaw
, and Wilde
. It was shown on Sunday evenings.
Lewisohn, Mark. “Dig This Rhubarb”. The bbc.co.uk Guide to Comedy.
One of the first and most appreciative readers of VL
's work was John Addington Symonds
, a leading cultural historian of the time. Her book also brought her the notice and friendship of other...
Reception
Vernon Lee
This book lost Lee the friendship of others who had admired her Studies of the Eighteenth Century in Italy. Broken friendships included those with Oscar Wilde
(refigured as the character Posthlethwaite), Jane
and William Morris
Author summary
Ada Leverson
AL
has been best remembered for her association with Oscar Wilde
. But her six novels have never disappeared from public view or critical appreciation, and today interest has also developed in her journalism: stories...
Friends, Associates
Ada Leverson
AL
's first meeting with Oscar Wilde
is variously dated 1892 or 1893. They became very close, exchanging compliments, paradoxes, and flattery.
Ellmann, Richard. Oscar Wilde. Viking.
392
Burkhart, Charles. Ada Leverson. Twayne.
21
She was a tower of strength to him at the time...
Intertextuality and Influence
Ada Leverson
AL
's style and reputation are bound up with those of Oscar Wilde
. Her biographer Charles Burkhart
accepts that Wilde was the catalyst of her writing career, though he insists that she does not...
Intertextuality and Influence
Ada Leverson
This dialogue brings together several fictional characters, including Wilde
's Salome, Ibsen
's Nora, Pinero
's Mrs Tanqueray, and Madame Santuzza from Mascagni
's opera Cavalleria Rusticana.
Burkhart, Charles. Ada Leverson. Twayne.
69
Literary responses
Ada Leverson
Wilde
, who thought highly of AL
's work, praised her Minx before publication (as most brilliant, but should be longer),
Leverson, Ada, and Oscar Wilde. “Reminiscences of the Author”. Letters to the Sphinx from Oscar Wilde, Duckworth, pp. 19-49.
50
and a dialogue (as brilliant and delightful and dangerous).
Leverson, Ada, and Oscar Wilde. “Reminiscences of the Author”. Letters to the Sphinx from Oscar Wilde, Duckworth, pp. 19-49.
52
In...
Intertextuality and Influence
Ada Leverson
The First World War is an important theme in this novel; Edith Ottley's guests find it hard to talk about anything else. Aylmer has returned into Edith's life as a wounded war hero. She decides...
Friends, Associates
Ada Leverson
Oscar Wilde
, virtually homeless in the limbo following his first trial, went to stay with AL
and her husband
; his wife
visited him at their house.
AL
(who may or may not have been already acquainted with Oscar Wilde
) published in the humorous magazine PunchAn Afternoon Party, a parody of his Dorian Gray.
