Download or read book The Invention of Oscar Wilde written by Nicholas Frankel and published by Reaktion Books. This book was released on 2021-06-10 with total page 287 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “One should either wear a work of art, or be a work of art,” Oscar Wilde once declared. In The Invention of Oscar Wilde, Nicholas Frankel explores Wilde’s self-creation as a “work of art” and a carefully constructed cultural icon. Frankel takes readers on a journey through Wilde’s inventive, provocative life, from his Irish origins—and their public erasure—through his challenges to traditional concepts of masculinity and male sexuality, his marriage and his affairs with young men, including his great love Lord Alfred Douglas, to his criminal conviction and final years of exile in France. Along the way, Frankel takes a deep look at Wilde’s writings, paradoxical wit, and intellectual convictions.
Download or read book Wilde in America Oscar Wilde and the Invention of Modern Celebrity written by David M. Friedman and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2014-10-06 with total page 271 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The story of Oscar Wilde’s landmark 1882 American tour explains how this quotable literary eminence became famous for being famous. On January 3, 1882, Oscar Wilde, a twenty-seven-year-old “genius”—at least by his own reckoning—arrived in New York. The Dublin-born Oxford man had made such a spectacle of himself in London with his eccentric fashion sense, acerbic wit, and extravagant passion for art and home design that Gilbert & Sullivan wrote an operetta lampooning him. He was hired to go to America to promote that work by presenting lectures on interior decorating. But Wilde had his own business plan. He would go to promote himself. And he did, traveling some 15,000 miles and visiting 150 American cities as he created a template for fame creation that still works today. Though Wilde was only the author of a self-published book of poems and an unproduced play, he presented himself as a “star,” taking the stage in satin breeches and a velvet coat with lace trim as he sang the praises of sconces and embroidered pillows—and himself. What Wilde so presciently understood is that fame could launch a career as well as cap one. David M. Friedman’s lively and often hilarious narrative whisks us across nineteenth-century America, from the mansions of Gilded Age Manhattan to roller-skating rinks in Indiana, from an opium den in San Francisco to the bottom of the Matchless silver mine in Colorado—then the richest on earth—where Wilde dined with twelve gobsmacked miners, later describing their feast to his friends in London as “First course: whiskey. Second course: whiskey. Third course: whiskey.” But, as Friedman shows, Wilde was no mere clown; he was a strategist. From his antics in London to his manipulation of the media—Wilde gave 100 interviews in America, more than anyone else in the world in 1882—he designed every move to increase his renown. There had been famous people before him, but Wilde was the first to become famous for being famous. Wilde in America is an enchanting tale of travel and transformation, comedy and capitalism—an unforgettable story that teaches us about our present as well as our past.
Download or read book The Aesthetics of Self invention written by Shelton Waldrep and published by . This book was released on 2004 with total page 203 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: By printing the title "Professor of Aesthetics" on his visiting cards, Oscar Wilde announced yet another transformation-and perhaps the most significant of his career, proclaiming his belief that he could redesign not just his image but his very self. Shelton Waldrep explores the cultural influences at play in Wilde's life and work and his influence on the writing and performance of the twentieth century, particularly on the lives and careers of some of its most aestheticized performers: Truman Capote, Andy Warhol, David Hockney, and David Bowie. As Waldrep reveals, Wilde's fusing of art with commerce foresaw the coming century's cultural producers who would blend works of both "high art" and mass-market appeal. Whether as a gay man or as a postmodern performance artist ahead of his time, Wilde ultimately emerges here as the embodiment of the twentieth-century media-savvy artist who is both subject and object of the aesthetic and economic systems in which he is enmeshed. Shelton Waldrep is associate professor of English at the University of Southern Maine. He is the coauthor of Inside the Mouse: Work and Play at Disney World (1995) and editor of The Seventies: The Age of Glitter in Popular Culture (2000).
Download or read book The Unmasking of Oscar Wilde written by Joseph Pearce and published by Ignatius Press. This book was released on 2009-09-03 with total page 390 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Vilified by fellow Victorians for his sexuality and his dandyism, Oscar Wilde, the great poet, satirist and playwright, is hailed today, in some circles, as a progressive sexual liberator. But this image is not how Wilde saw himself. Joseph Pearce's biography strips away pretensions to show the real man, his aspirations and desires. It uncovers how he was broken by his prison sentence; it probes the deeper thinking behind masterpieces such as The Picture of Dorian Gray and De Profundis; and it traces his fascination with Catholicism through to his eleventh-hour conversion. Pearce removes the masks and reveals the Wilde beneath the surface. He has written a profound, wide-ranging study with many original insights on a great literary figure.
Download or read book The Invention of Love written by Tom Stoppard and published by Grove Press. This book was released on 1998 with total page 116 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Poetry, scholarship, and love are entwined in Tom Stoppard's new play about A.E. Housman, which "Variety" has called "vintage Stoppard in its intelligence and wit". "Stoppard is at the top of form. . . . "The Invention of Love" does not just make you think, it also makes you feel".--"Daily Telegraph".
Download or read book Greek Epigram in Reception written by Gideon Nisbet and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2013-10 with total page 398 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tracing the evolution and reception history of a collection of ancient Greek epigrams from the early nineteenth to twentieth century, the volume analyses the rhetoric which writers and translators brought to the text, highlighting the after effects of this cultural war on the interpretations of Ancient Greece in British print culture.
Download or read book The Short Stories of Oscar Wilde written by Oscar Wilde and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2020-11-17 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An innovative new edition of nine classic short stories from one of the greatest writers of the Victorian era. “I cannot think other than in stories,” Oscar Wilde once confessed to his friend André Gide. In this new selection of his short fiction, Wilde’s gifts as a storyteller are on full display, accompanied by informative facing-page annotations from Wilde biographer and scholar Nicholas Frankel. A wide-ranging introduction brings readers into the world from which the author drew inspiration. Each story in the collection brims with Wilde’s trademark wit, style, and sharp social criticism. Many are reputed to have been written for children, although Wilde insisted this was not true and that his stories would appeal to all “those who have kept the childlike faculties of wonder and joy.” “Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime” stands alongside Wilde’s comic masterpiece The Importance of Being Earnest, while other stories—including “The Happy Prince,” the tale of a young ruler who had never known sorrow, and “The Nightingale and the Rose,” the story of a nightingale who sacrifices herself for true love—embrace the theme of tragic, forbidden love and are driven by an undercurrent of seriousness, even despair, at the repressive social and sexual values of Wilde’s day. Like his later writings, Wilde’s stories are a sweeping indictment of the society that would imprison him for his homosexuality in 1895, five years before his death at the age of forty-six. Published here in the form in which Victorian readers first encountered them, Wilde’s short stories contain much that appeals to modern readers of vastly different ages and temperaments. They are the perfect distillation of one of the Victorian era’s most remarkable writers.
Download or read book The Annotated Prison Writings of Oscar Wilde written by Oscar Wilde and published by . This book was released on 2018 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Serving prison time with hard labor for the crime of gross indecency, Oscar Wilde wrote some of his most powerful works. A savage indictment of society, and testimony to private sufferings, his prison writings--illuminated by Nicholas Frankel's notes--reveal a different man from the dandy and aesthete who shocked or amused the English-speaking world.
Download or read book Oscar s Ghost written by Laura Lee and published by Amberley Publishing Limited. This book was released on 2017-08-15 with total page 725 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The dramatic story of the legal and emotional battle that raged between two of Oscar Wilde's closest friends – both former lovers – following the playwright's death
Download or read book Oscar Wilde the Great Drama of His Life written by Ashley H. Robins and published by Apollo Books. This book was released on 2012-07-23 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the 1890s, Oscar Wilde enjoyed one of the most high-profile reputations in Britain. Yet, virtually overnight, he was plunged into disgrace and ruin. What were the reasons for this extraordinary reversal of fortune? This book - now available in paperback - explores Wilde's motivation in prosecuting the Marquess of Queensberry, and it elaborates on the precarious legal situation that effectively quashed any prospect of a withdrawal from the lawsuit without dire consequences. The book examines the medical and psychiatric aspects of Wilde's two-year imprisonment and reveals the machinations among prison officials and doctors to cover up Wilde's state of health, based on the original Home Office records. Wilde's medical history is presented with an expert evaluation of his terminal illness, including a resolution of the syphilis controversy. The book also details Wilde's tangled matrimonial affairs during his imprisonment and goes on to disclose the maneuvers adopted by friends to secure his early release, citing hitherto unpublished letters to show that bribery of prison personnel was seriously contemplated. The issue of homosexuality is discussed not only in relation to Oscar Wilde, but from the broader historical, legal, and biological perspective. Wilde's character and behavior is portrayed through the images he projected onto society, by the strong but mixed public reaction to him, and by the quality of his interpersonal relationships with his wife, family, and close friends. Finally, Wilde's personality is assessed using internationally accepted diagnostic criteria. In an unusual and innovative experiment, a group of Wildean scholars completed a psychological questionnaire as if they were doing so for Oscar Wilde himself. Drawing on these findings and on his own extensive psychiatric experience, author Ashley Robins concludes that Wilde had a personality disorder that culminated in the final and tragic phase of his life.
Download or read book The Wilde Century written by Alan Sinfield and published by . This book was released on 1994 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Explores how the characters in Oscar Wilde's plays, though not specifically gay, epitomize today's image of the effeminate male, how they relate to British theatrical fops and other characters since early modern times, how the representation of same-sex passion was altered by Wilde's expose and trial as a homosexual, and how the stereotype of the gay man became established in the 20th century. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
Download or read book The Secret Life of Oscar Wilde written by Neil McKenna and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2009-03-05 with total page 588 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Oscar Wilde said of himself, "I put all my genius into my life; I put only my talent into my work." Now, for the first time, Neil McKenna focuses on the tormented genius of Wilde's personal life, reproducing remarkable love letters and detailing Wilde's until-now unknown relationships with other men. McKenna has spent years researching Wilde's life, drawing on extensive new material, including never-before published poems as well as recently discovered trial statements made by male prostitutes and blackmailers about Wilde. McKenna provides explosive evidence of the political machinations behind Wilde's trials for sodomy, as well as his central role in the burgeoning gay world of Victorian London. Dazzlingly written and meticulously researched, The Secret Life of Oscar Wilde fully charts Wilde's astonishing odyssey through London's sexual underworld and paints a frank and vivid psychological portrait of a troubled genius.
Download or read book The Picture of Dorian Gray written by Oscar Wilde and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2011-04-11 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Picture of Dorian Gray altered the way Victorians understood the world they inhabited, heralding the end of a repressive era. Now, more than 120 years after Wilde handed it over to his publisher, Wilde’s uncensored typescript is published here for the first time, in an annotated, extensively illustrated edition.
Download or read book Oscar Wilde written by Nicholas Frankel and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2017-10-16 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nicholas Frankel presents a revisionary account of Oscar Wilde’s final years, spent in poverty and exile in Europe following his release from an English prison for the crime of gross indecency between men. Despite repeated setbacks and open hostility, Wilde—unapologetic and even defiant—attempted to rebuild himself as a man, and a man of letters.
Download or read book The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde written by Oscar Wilde and published by . This book was released on 1910 with total page 454 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Making Oscar Wilde written by Michèle Mendelssohn and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Packed with new evidence, "Making Oscar Wilde" tells the untold story of a local Irish eccentric who became a global cultural icon. This must-read book dramatizes Oscar Wilde's remarkable rise in Victorian England and post-Civil War America. Michele Mendelssohn interweaves biography and social history to reveal a life like no other.
Download or read book Wilde s Women written by Eleanor Fitzsimons and published by ABRAMS. This book was released on 2017-09-26 with total page 408 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A lively debut biography of the flamboyant Irish writer . . . focusing on the women who loved and supported him” (Kirkus Reviews). In this essential work, Eleanor Fitzsimons reframes Oscar Wilde’s story and his legacy through the women in his life, including such scintillating figures as Florence Balcombe; actress Lillie Langtry; and his tragic and witty niece, Dolly, who, like Wilde, loved fast cars, cocaine, and foreign women. Fresh, revealing, and entertaining, full of fascinating detail and anecdotes, Wilde’s Women relates the untold story of how a beloved writer and libertine played a vitally sympathetic role on behalf of many women, and how they supported him in the midst of a Victorian society in the process of changing forever. “Fitzsimons reminds us of the many writers, actresses, political activists, professional beauties and aristocratic ladies who helped shape the life and legend of the era’s greatest wit, esthete and sexual martyr . . . provide[s] a potted biography of the multitalented writer and gay icon . . . highly enjoyable.” —The Washington Post “Fitzsimons brilliantly calls attention to the progressive ideas and beliefs which drew the most daring and interesting women of the time to his side. The depth and painstaking care of Fitzsimons’ research is a fitting tribute to Wilde’s fascinating life and exquisite writing—and really, what better compliment is there than that?” —High Voltage
