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.
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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.
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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.

Connections

Connections Sort descending Author name Excerpt
Friends, Associates John Strange Winter
JSW had an extensive social circle in London—her biographer, Oliver Bainbridge , notes that a number of social claims were made upon her by reason of her popularity, and that these were always in advance...
Friends, Associates Katharine Tynan
Among those who frequented KT 's salon were George Russell (Æ), Irish Nationalist and Fenian leader John O'Leary , Gaelic scholar and revivalist Douglas Hyde (founder of the Gaelic League , 1893), and George Sigerson
Friends, Associates Olive Schreiner
In England she also formed close friendships and intellectual bonds with feminist and socialist intellectual Eleanor Marx , barrister and mathematics professor Karl Pearson , and socialist pioneer Edward Carpenter . Others she met in...
Friends, Associates Frances Sarah Hoey
FSH was also a close friend of her fellow-Catholic Edmund Downey . Her husband was a friend of Richard Holt Hutton , joint editor of The Spectator. She recalled, at the time of his...
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, 1908–2024, 22 vols. plus supplements.
Her wide circle of friends and acquaintances included Henry James (the two became extremely...
Friends, Associates Michael Field
Katharine and Edith Cooper shared a great many distinguished friends in the worlds of literature and aesthetics: Walter Pater , Oscar Wilde , Arthur Symons , Charles Shannon , Sarianna Browning , Thomas Sturge Moore
Friends, Associates F. Mabel Robinson
FMR shared to the full the social involvement of her family with entertaining leading figures in London cultural life: such men as John Singer Sargent , Robert Browning , William Morris , and Oscar Wilde
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...
Friends, Associates Elizabeth Robins
ER 's first few years in London brought her into contact with several important literary and theatre figures, including Henry James , Oscar Wilde , actor-manager Herbert Beerbohm Tree , and actress Ellen Terry ...
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, 1987.
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Burkhart, Charles. Ada Leverson. Twayne, 1973.
21
She was a tower of strength to him at the time...
Friends, Associates Alice Meynell
Following her early conquest of Tennyson , AM went on to develop a large circle of literary acquaintances. Callers on the Meynells at Palace Court included Irish writer Katharine Tynan , Aubrey Beardsley (while he...
Friends, Associates A. Mary F. Robinson
Her parents, who were the friends of many literary and artistic people, introduced her to an impressive social circle. Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning , William Michael Rossetti , Thomas Hardy , Walter Pater ,...
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, 1968.
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Boase, Frederic. Modern English Biography. F. Cass, 1965, 6 vols.
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 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, 1973.
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