Editorial Journal of John Cooper on Oscar Wilde
Oscar Wilde’s American visits resulted in mixed fortunes: he failed to achieve too much literary advance, and although his tour met with a mixed reception critically, it was a great commercial success. We can see these fortunes reflected in the above cartoon from Judge magazine of September 1883.
Continue reading “Not A Joy Forever”
Who Owns The Legacy of Oscar Wilde?
—A REVIEW—
So it was to Drew University (Madison, NJ) hopeful of enlightenment as to the nominal question posed by the conference: Who Owns The Legacy of Oscar Wilde?
To the question of who owns the legacy of an author in the public domain the literal answer is usually nobody. However, this conference was a reminder, should it be needed, that in the sphere of Wilde studies nobody often translates into anybody willing to marry the subject, for better or worse, to their own vision of Wilde. This is not surprising given Wilde’s dualities of nationality, gender and style, and over the years writers have enjoyed an open season and taken careful aim at their subject, giving us their specific visions of Oscar.
And a forum such as this the subject becomes a moving target, so we had varied visions. Not only of the Irish Wilde and the gay Wilde, as might be expected, but also an array of topics ranging from thesis to the practical; subjects from Wilde’s reputation as a classicist to the ownership of his work and imagery.
Continue reading “Conference: Legacy of Oscar Wilde”