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.
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...
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...
Literary responses
Lady Colin Campbell
The Saturday Review found its contributor's protagonist to be vigorously drawn and harmoniously developed and compacted of simple and healthy aspirations.
Saturday Review. Chawton.
68.1773 (19 October 1889): 436
The publicity from LCC
's recent divorce trial contributed...
Literary responses
E. Nesbit
When EN
asked Bernard Shaw
to review the first Lays and Legends for To-Day, he responded with a pretend review contained in a letter, a masterpiece in faint praise: The author has a fair...
Literary responses
Arabella Shore
Oscar Wilde
offered slightly faint praise. AS
, he wrote, had tried to guide modern readers through Dante's great poem as Virgil
guided Dante through the afterworld, and her modest literary guide-book was unlike many...
Literary responses
Mary Augusta Ward
The novel was a massive success, in the words of Henry Jamesa momentous public event.
Ward, Mary Augusta. “Introduction”. Robert Elsmere, edited by Rosemary Ashton, Oxford University Press, p. vii - xviii.
vii
Critic John Sutherland deems it the best-selling work of quality fiction in the nineteenth century. By the summer...
Literary responses
Amy Levy
The Jewish press was outraged by what it saw as the antisemitism of this novel. The Jewish Chronicle did not review it, but implied strong disapprobation in an article entitled Critical Jews. The Jewish...
Literary responses
Jane Francesca, Lady Wilde
The future JFLW
's early verse inspired many to submit articles to the Nation.
Wyndham, Horace. Speranza. T. V. Boardman.
27-8
Charles Duffy
described her writing as a substantial force in Irish politics, the vehement will of a woman of...
Occupation
Marie Corelli
From 1886, when she published her first novel, A Romance of Two Worlds, onward, MC
produced books at great speed. She was an instant success, and throughout her life she sold approximately 100,000 books...
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...
Occupation
Jane Francesca, Lady Wilde
She became so well-known as a writer that during her son Oscar
's 1882 American tour he was heralded simply as Speranza's Son.
Thesing, William B., editor. Dictionary of Literary Biography 199. Gale Research.
199: 298
In later years, when his literary fame increased, she...
politics
Julia Ward Howe
In 1882 Oscar Wilde
, making his lecture tour of the USA, spoke at the Boston Music Hall. While he was in Boston he made several visits to the Howe residence, and he also...
politics
Josephine Butler
Even after her retirement from an active public life, JB
continued to be interested in a number of international causes. She supported Home Rule in Ireland (two bills for which were defeated in 1886); she...
Author summary
Natalie Clifford Barney
Natalie Clifford Barney
, though American, is best known as a Paris salonnière. She specialized in memoirs and pensées, though she also produced poetry, drama, novels, essays, and dialogues. Writing primarily in French but also...
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...
