Tag: Of Boys Nams

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More on Boys’ Names

Oscar Wilde Blog6 Comments

BEYOND Ernest/Earnest

In an earlier article I noted that John Gambril Nicholson’s 1892 collection Love in Earnest: Sonnets, Ballades, and Lyrics (Elliot Stock, 1892) is a probable source of Wilde’s Earnest/Ernest wordplay.

And I showed how in one poem, Of Boys’ Names, there are other names with Wildean parallels, including the names of Oscar’s own sons: Cyril and Vyvyan.

Research now leads me to a further connections in a back issue of the publication The Book Collector (Summer, 1978).

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Frankel and Earnest

Oscar Wilde Blog6 Comments
A caricature of a man wearing a large hat, with an expressionless face and distinct features, showcasing artistic lines and colors.

The Annotated Importance of Being Earnest

Nicholas Frankel’s scholarly edition

Nicholas Frankel’s edition of The Annotated Importance of Being Earnest1 contains many new and scholarly annotations in a running commentary usefully laid out side-by-side with the text of the play.

The publisher, Harvard University Press, says Frankel’s annotation “ties the play closely to Wilde’s personal life and sexual identity, illuminating literary, biographical, and historical allusions.”

These allusions include not only insight into Wilde’s meaning, but also information about the chronology of Wilde’s textual changes, some of which were made four years after the play was first staged.

From all of this stems something revelatory.

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