Quintessential Wilde

Book excerpt: This volume presents interpretive essays utilizing a variety of approaches to honor the 160th anniversary of Oscar Wilde’s birth, celebrating the writer’s genius. This unique collection of scholarship explores a broad spectrum of subjects, including his travels, sexuality, children’s literature, jail writings, novel, poetry, individualism, masks, homosexuality, influence on others, and morality. It offers historical, biographical, psychological and sociological perspectives written by international experts and features a broad spectrum of subjects which will appeal to a range of scholars seeking original and alternative approaches to understanding Oscar Wilde, his aesthetics and his influence in a variety of genres in the twenty-first century. The multiplicity of interest in the writer expands across genres, disciplines, cultures and time. Quintessential Wilde examines his intellectual strength in “His Worldly Place,” analyzes his ingenious thoughts in “His Penetrating Philosophy,” and recounts his enduring place in “His Influential Aestheticism.”