The Critical Writings of Oscar Wilde : An Annotated Selection / Oscar Wilde ; edited by Nicholas Frankel.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Wilde, Oscar, Author.

Contributor:

Frankel, Nicholas, editor.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Literature--History and criticism.

Literature.

England--Social life and customs--19th century.

England.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (416 pages)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Massachusetts : Harvard University Press, 2022.

Summary:

An authoritative edition of Oscar Wilde's critical writings shows how the renowned dramatist and novelist also transformed the art of commentary.Though he is primarily acclaimed today for his drama and fiction, Oscar Wilde was also one of the greatest critics of his generation. Annotated and introduced by Wilde scholar Nicholas Frankel, this unique collection reveals Wilde as a writer who transformed criticism, giving the genre new purpose, injecting it with style and wit, and reorienting it toward the kinds of social concerns that still occupy our most engaging cultural commentators."Criticism is itself an art," Wilde wrote, and The Critical Writings of Oscar Wilde demonstrates this philosophy in action. Readers will encounter some of Wilde's most "able writings, such as "The Decay of Lying," which famously avers that "Life imitates Art far more than Art imitates life." But Frankel also includes lesser-known works like "The American Invasion," a witty celebration of modern femininity, and "Aristotle at Afternoon Tea," in which Wilde deftly (and anonymously) carves up his former tutor's own criticism. The essays, reviews, dialogues, and epigrams collected here cover an astonishing range of themes: literature, of course, but also fashion, politics, masculinity, cuisine, courtship, marriage--the breadth of Victorian England. If today's critics address such topics as a matter of course, it is because Wilde showed that they could. It is hard to imagine a twenty-first-century criticism without him.

Contents:

Frontmatter

CONTENTS

Photoportrait of Wilde, by Napoleon Sarony, 1882.

Introduction

A Note on the Texts

REVIEWS

Invitation

Mr. Whistler’s Ten O’Clock (1885)

Dinners and Dishes (1885)

A Handbook to Marriage (1885)

Great Writers by Little Men (1887)

Aristotle At Afternoon Tea (1887)

From “A Chinese Sage” (1890)

From “Mr. Pater’s Last Volume” (1890)

ESSAYS AND DIALOGUES

From “The Philosophy of Dress” (1885)

The American Invasion (1887)

The American Man (1887)

From “London Models” (1889)

From “The Soul of Man Under Socialism” (1891)

From Intentions (1891)

LETTERS TO THE PRESS

From “Woman’s Dress” (1884)

To Read, or Not to Read (1886)

From “Fashions in Dress” (1891)

Puppets and Actors (1892)

EPIGRAMS AND PARADOXES

Preface to The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891)

A Few Maxims for the Instruction of the Over-Educated (1894)

Phrases and Philosophies for the Use of the Young (1894)

Further Reading

Illustration Credits

Acknowledgments

Index

Notes:

Includes index.

Description based on: online resource; title from PDF information screen (De Gruyter, viewed November 22, 2022).

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

ISBN:

9780674287426

0674287428

9780674287419

067428741X

OCLC:

1343104158