Wilde's intentions : the artist in his criticism

Resource Information

The work Wilde's intentions : the artist in his criticism represents a distinct intellectual or artistic creation found in University of Liverpool. This resource is a combination of several types including: Work, Language Material, Books.

Label

Wilde's intentions : the artist in his criticism

Title remainder

the artist in his criticism

Statement of responsibility

Lawrence Danson

Creator

• Danson, Lawrence

Subject

• Wilde, Oscar, 1854-1900 -- Criticism and interpretation
• Wilde, Oscar, 1854-1900 -- Critique et interprétation

Language

eng

Summary

What were Wilde's intentions? They had always been suspect, from the time of Poems, when the charge was plagiarism, to his trials, when the charge was sodomy. In Intentions (1891), the book on which his claim as a theoretical critic chiefly lies, and in two related essays, 'The Portrait of Mr W.H., and 'The Soul of Man Under Socialism', Wilde's epigrammatic dazzle and paradoxical subversions both reveal and mask his designs upon fin-de-siecle society. In the first extended study of Wilde's criticism, Lawrence Danson examines these essays/dialogues/fictions (unsettling the categories was one of their intentions) and assesses their achievement. Danson sets Wilde's criticism in context. He shows how the son of an Irish patriot sought to create a new ideal of English culture by elevating 'lies' above history, levelling the distinction between artist and critic, and ending the sway of 'nature' over liberated human desire

Cataloging source

DLC

Nature of contents

bibliography