Oscar Wilde in Context

Description

Oscar Wilde was a courageous individualist whose path-breaking life and work were shaped in the crucible of his time and place, deeply marked by the controversies of his era. This collection of concise and illuminating articles reveals the complex relationship between Wilde's work and ideas, and contemporary contexts including Victorian feminism, aestheticism and socialism. Chapters investigate how Wilde's writing was both a resistance to and quotation of Victorian master narratives and genre codes. From performance history to film and operatic adaptations, the ongoing influence and reception of Wilde's story and work is explored, proposing not one but many Oscar Wildes. To approach the meaning of Wilde as an artist and historical figure, the book emphasises not only his ability to imagine new worlds, but also his bond to the turbulent cultural and historical landscape around him - the context within which his life and art took shape.

Kerry Powell is the author of Acting Wilde (2009), preceded by Oscar Wilde and the Theatre of the 1890s and Women and Victorian Theatre. He edited The Cambridge Companion to Victorian and Edwardian Theatre and is Professor of English at Miami University. Peter Raby is the author of a study of Oscar Wilde and the editor of The Cambridge Companion to Oscar Wilde and The Cambridge Companion to Harold Pinter. Among his other books are biographies of Harriet Smithson Berlioz, Samuel Butler and Alfred Russel Wallace. He is a Fellow Emeritus of Homerton College, Cambridge.

'... this volume will serve as an indispensable primer for those who wish to fit text to context and context to Wilde.' Gregory Castle, Breac: A Digital Journal of Irish Studies '... Powell and Raby offer a wonderful spectrum of new and old contexts for Oscar Wilde that will interest scholars and afficionados alike. Taken together, the chapters illustrate just how impossible it is to pin Wilde down in any particular context. Like Dorian's ego, Wilde's life 'fits no single narrative', as Ravenhill reminds us. Oscar Wilde in Context is a testament to the richness of Wilde scholarship today and a welcome new addition to it.' Petra Dierkes-Thrun, Journal of Pre-Raphaelite Studies