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, 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.
"Oscar Wilde" Retrieved from https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0e/Oscar_Wilde_%281854-1900%29_1889%2C_May_23._Picture_by_W._and_D._Downey.jpg.
Who Was Who in Literature, 1906-1934. Gale Research, 1979, 2 vols.
vol. 1
She also belonged to the Society of Authors
, and acted as a steward (along with over a hundred other luminaries including Walter Besant
Leisure and Society
Kate Marsden
Scholars argue that the destruction of KM
's reputation was completed by private knowledge of her erotic relationships with women. Hewett
not only spread information to Hapgood
about these relationships, but also ensured that Henry Labouchere
Literary responses
Constance Naden
William R. Hughes
provided for the Midland Naturalist a review of this book which CN
called kind.
Hughes, William Richard et al. Constance Naden: A Memoir. Bickers and Son, 1890.
38-9
. The Woman's World (edited by Oscar Wilde
) gave the book one of its several...
Literary responses
Ivy Compton-Burnett
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...
Literary responses
Rosamund Marriott Watson
Oscar Wilde
's review of this collection for The Woman's World called RMWone of our most artistic workers in poetry.
qtd. in
Hughes, Linda K. “A Woman Poet Angling for Notice: Rosamund Marriott Watson”. Marketing the Author: Authorial Personae, Narrative Selves and Self-Fashioning, 1880-1930, edited by Marysa Demoor and Marysa Demoor, Palgrave Macmillan, 2004, pp. 134-55.
139
In 1902William Archer
called the collection less mature than her later volumes...
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, 1930, 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, 1930, pp. 19-49.
52
In...
Literary responses
May Sinclair
Reviews were almost all positive.
Raitt, Suzanne. May Sinclair: A Modern Victorian. Clarendon Press, 2000.
255
Writing in the Dial in September 1922, T. S. Eliot
used this novel as the most notable example of the psychoanalytical type which, however, he disapproved in principle. Its...
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
Julia Constance Fletcher
Wilde
said of Fleming's first two novels: she writes as cleverly as she talks,
Again Henry James
reviewed the book. He mentioned neither his earlier review of the same author, nor his personal acquaintance with...
Literary responses
Mary Augusta Ward
The novel was a massive success, in the words of Henry Jamesa momentous public event.
qtd. in
Ward, Mary Augusta. “Introduction”. Robert Elsmere, edited by Rosemary Ashton, Oxford University Press, 1987, 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
Ethel M. Arnold
Quoting Oscar Wilde
in a discussion of the new Victorian woman, scholar Ann Ardis
describes Susan and Ronald's relationship as providing both parties intellectual friction to rouse [one] up to talk and think
Ardis, Ann. “New Women and the New Hellenism”. The New Woman in Fiction and in Fact, edited by Angelique Richardson and Chris Willis, Palgrave Macmillan, 2002, pp. 107-22.
117
With...
Literary responses
Amy Levy
After AL
's premature death, much comment focussed on the possible causes of her suicide. But some critics focussed on her writing, notably Oscar Wilde
in The Woman's World. To write thus at six-and-twenty...
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, 1951.
27-8
Charles Duffy
described her writing as a substantial force in Irish politics, the vehement will of a woman of...
