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.
MEB
published (as M.E. Braddon) her novel The Rose of Life, which fictionalises aspects of the life and trial of her friend Oscar Wilde
.
British Library Catalogue. http://explore.bl.uk/primo_library/libweb/action/search.do?dscnt=0&tab=local_tab&dstmp=1489778087340&vid=BLVU1&mode=Basic&fromLo.
MEB
continued after this to maintain a rate of about one new novel a year. In Gerard, which appeared in 1891, she combined elements from Goethe
's Faust with others from Balzac
's La...
Textual Features
Mary Elizabeth Braddon
The slight psychological interest of this story is overshadowed, however, by a fascination with Helen's rescuer, aesthete and poet Daniel Lester, who in his larger-than-life physical presence and flamboyant personality is patently Wilde
. Lester...
Textual Features
Mary Elizabeth Braddon
The novel recounts Lester's life from his childhood as the youngest of four sons (a superfluity; he was matter in the wrong place
Braddon, Mary Elizabeth. The Rose of Life. Brentano’s.
35
) and the emergence of his adult persona by the...
Intertextuality and Influence
Brigid Brophy
One of the twelve sections is no more fifty words. The novel's decadent style inhabits the minds of several characters, particularly that of the tall, fragile, perpetually exhausted but secretly sexually voracious Antonia Mount. Her...
Friends, Associates
Rhoda Broughton
RB
's vitality, sincerity, and pungent wit gained her the friendship of some of the most notable people of her day.
Stephen, Sir Leslie, and Sidney Lee, editors. The Dictionary of National Biography. Smith, Elder.
Her wide circle of friends and acquaintances included Henry James
(the two became extremely...
Textual Features
Rhoda Broughton
Critics have pointed to a range of influences and allusions in this novel. Kate Flint
has suggested that the representation of the sorrowful-eyed aesthete Francis Chaloner was a satiric jab at Oscar Wilde
, who...
Literary responses
Frances Burney
The reanimation of FB
's comedies is a happy story. Tara Ghoshal Wallace
edited A Busy Day in paperback in 1984. A fringe production performed in Bristol in 1993, then in Islington, London, in...
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...
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...
Cultural formation
Anne Carson
As a teenager, AC
fancied herself a reborn Oscar Wilde.
Wachtel, Eleanor. “An Interview With Anne Carson”. Brick: A Literary Journal, No. 89, pp. 29-53.
30
She was drawn to Wilde's aesthetic sensibility and sense of irony. She shared this affectation with some of her highschool friends. They would...
Education
Anne Carson
When she was in highschool AC
's brother, four years older, liked her to do his homework for him.
During the early part of ICB
's career she was little regarded or understood. Raymond Mortimer
was one of the first to perceive her quality, and she quickly began to attract the attention of younger...
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...
27 March 1958: The Belgrade Theatre in Coventry was the...
Building item
27 March 1958
The Belgrade Theatre
in Coventry was the first theatre built in Britain after the war.
1966: US cultural critic Susan Sontag published...
Writing climate item
1966
US cultural critic Susan Sontag
published Against Interpretation, her first essay collection. The title piece, On Style, and Notes on Camp (dedicated to Oscar Wilde
and exploring the idea of life as theatre)...
30 November 2000: The age of consent all over Britain was set...
Building item
30 November 2000
The age of consent all over Britain was set at sixteen for either heterosexual or homosexual relations.
14 July 2006: The Bow Street Magistrates Court, one of...
Building item
14 July 2006
The Bow Street Magistrates Court
, one of London's most famous courts, closed after dispensing justice for 267 years.