Oscar Wilde and the Radical Politics of the Fin de Siécle
Deaglán Ó Donghaile
Abstract
Oscar Wilde’s political identity informed his literary writings, which were motivated by his revolutionary outlook as much as they were driven by his Paterian “passion for sensations”. Addressing his radical engagements with anarchism, socialism and anticolonial thought, this monograph provides a new interpretation of Oscar Wilde’s aestheticism and of his major works by emphasising the importance of progressive politics to his positioning and self-identification within late Victorian literary culture. Consisting of previously unpublished material, it provides a politicised and historicised acc ... More
Oscar Wilde’s political identity informed his literary writings, which were motivated by his revolutionary outlook as much as they were driven by his Paterian “passion for sensations”. Addressing his radical engagements with anarchism, socialism and anticolonial thought, this monograph provides a new interpretation of Oscar Wilde’s aestheticism and of his major works by emphasising the importance of progressive politics to his positioning and self-identification within late Victorian literary culture. Consisting of previously unpublished material, it provides a politicised and historicised account of Wilde’s key works by situating them within the framework of his very pronounced – but to date critically under-recognised and as yet untheorised - ideological commitment to these radical political causes. This book interprets Wilde’s better-known works against the important political contexts addressed in his correspondence, reviews, lectures and journalism, and through his personal relationships with contemporary radicals.
Keywords:
Oscar Wilde,
aestheticism,
ideology,
fin-de-siècle,
politics,
anarchism,
Irish republicanism,
Fenianism,
Ireland,
anticolonialism
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2020 |
Print ISBN-13: 9781474459433 |
| Published to Edinburgh Scholarship Online: September 2021 |
DOI:10.3366/edinburgh/9781474459433.001.0001 |
