Reading Oscar Wilde

An Introduction

Michael Patrick Gillespie

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2025
• Topic: Literature
• eBook ISBN:
  9781040303832
• Subtopic: English Literary Criticism
• Index: Literature

Reading Oscar Wilde is a comprehensive interpretive guide designed for students and readers who come to Wilde's writings for the first time, delivering a fuller understanding of the works and the background from which the canon has emerged. This ready-at-hand compendium details the scholarly perspectives of Wilde's vast literary output. Meticulously arranged, this accessible volume includes freestanding discussions of individual works, including clarification of Wilde's pioneering contextual examinations and his innovative and influential stylistic achievements. Readers will find a solid foundation for understanding his works and will benefit from new insights into the impact of his writing on subsequent authors. Additionally, the surveys of the interpretive approaches offered by contemporary literary theories will highlight for readers a range of research possibilities. This book also includes lists of selected websites and artistic adaptations of Wilde's works, a chronology of Wilde's publications, and a comprehensive secondary bibliography to permit readers to develop both a wide-ranging background and a selective focus of interests.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Preparatory to Anything Else: What We Do When We Read
• 1 Life as a Brand
• 2 Making Performative Art
• 3 The Integrity of Wilde’s Short Fiction
• 4 Fifty Shades of Dorian Gray
• 5 Establishing a Dramatic Presence: Wilde’s Plays of the Early Nineties
• 6 Realizing “The Vital Importance of Being Earnest”
• 7 Aesthetic Occasions: Wilde’s Poetry
• 8 Blueprints of Creativity: Wilde’s Essays, Letters, and Miscellany
• 9 Conclusion: “The Only Thing Worse Than Being Talked About Is Not Being Talked About”
• A Chronology of Important Dates in Oscar Wilde’s Life
• Appendix: John Ruskin, Walter Pater, and Art for Art’s Sake
• Bibliography
• Filmography
• Index