An Electronic
Journal for the Exchange of Information
on Current
Research, Publications and Productions
concerning
Oscar Wilde and His Circles
Vol. I No.
3
August 2001
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The second issue of THE OSCHOLARS built upon the first, and established both its niche and its format in a way acceptable to its readers. This issue will be transmitted to 241 readers in twenty-one countries, the majority in one or other of nearly a hundred and thirty universities or university colleges. As always, suggestions for improvements, additions and above all corrections, are very welcome indeed.
Nothing in THE OSCHOLARS© is copyright to the Journal unless indicated by ©, and the usual etiquette of attribution will doubtless be observed. Please feel free to re-format it, print it, store it electronically whole or in part, copy and paste parts of it, and (of course) forward it to colleagues.
Names italicised in the text below are those of subscribers to THE OSCHOLARS, who may be contacted through Melmoth@aliceadsl.fr.
D.C. Rose
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I. GUIDANCE FOR SUBMISSIONS
Publication is on the last day of each month (or if this is not possible, the first day of the next); copydate is not later than the 25th.
Please only add your e-mail address if you are willing to correspond with other readers.
Work in Progress: Please give the provisional title, status (e.g. article, book, M.A. Dissertation, Ph.D. thesis etc.)and where appropriate your university affiliation.
Publications: Full title, publisher, place and date of publication as usual, ISBN if possible.
Notices: If you are kindly submitting notices of events, such as conferences, productions, broadcasts or lectures, please include as many details as you can: venue, date, time, and contact address if possible or relevant.
Notes & Queries: These can include points that you might like to see discussed in a 'Letters to the Editor' column.
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II. NEWS FROM SUBSCRIBERS
1. Publications and Papers
Christopher Keep (University of Western Ontario) is giving a paper on 'Subverting the Informatic Self: Surveillance and Panopticism in Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray' at the Victorian Subversions Conference, Vancouver, Saturday, 29th September. (Full Conference details are given below.)
A précis of Joan Schenkar's biography of Dolly Wilde can be found at www.findarticles.com/cf_iview/m1285/11_30/66937973/p1/article.jhtml?term=
Margaret Stetz (Georgetown University) writes that her article 'The Bi-Social Oscar Wilde and "Modern" Women' appeared in the March 2001 issue of Nineteenth-Century Literature Vol. 55, No. 4, pp. 515-537.
Professor Stetz has kindly allowed us to reproduce the published an abstract of the article:
'Oscar Wilde was important not only to late-Victorian men but to women as well, especially to those middle-class professional women and feminists who defined themselves as "modern". As an editor, adviser, and advancer of women's careers, Wilde demonstrated that he had learned well the lessons taught by his mother, a working author. His ability to move between the homosocial masculine world and the world of women made him almost uniquely "bi-social". Yet Wilde's concept of friendship- based on a performance-oriented model of high-spot moments and grand gestures, rather than on endurance and dependability - also offended some women writers of his circle and provoked them to create satirical portraits of him. By looking to the now little-known works by "modern" women of the 1890s, we can get a new and more complete view of Wilde himself and of his relation to the development of feminism at the fin-de-siècle.'
Additionally, the final chapter ('Suniti Namjoshi: Laughing with and at Her "Sisters"') of Professor Stetz' new book, British Women’s Comic Fiction, 1890-1990 (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2001; ISBN 0754603903), includes a discussion of the influence of Wilde's fairy tales on Namjoshi's feminist fables of the 1980s.
Dr Linda Wong (Hong Kong Baptist University) is giving a paper on 'The journey motif in selected Wilde's short stories and Chinese works', at the IASIL Conference, Dublin City University, on Wednesday 1st August.
D.C. Rose (Goldsmiths College, London) is giving a paper on 'Blue Roses and Green Carnations: Intertextual Readings of Rudyard Kipling and Oscar Wilde' at the Kipling Conference- One Hundred years of Kim at Magdalene College, Cambridge 5th to 7th September.
2. Work in Progress
Betsy Norris (University of Indiana) writes
'The following is a brief summary of the work I will be doing on Wilde in the next year. I've tried to make clear that they are two separate theses for two separate departments: Having completed a chronology of De Profundis' history, I will be examining the text and its story as a fissure on the earlier notions of public and private spheres, particularly in relation to their conception by Jurgen Habermas. This paper, an undergraduate honors thesis, will be completed in early spring 2002. I will also be writing an honors thesis for the history department about American attitudes towards homosexuality as revealed by the U.S. press coverage of Wilde's visit, trials, and death. This second project will be completed by May 2002.'
Betsy Norris brnorris@indiana.edu
3. Wilde on the Curriculum
In the last issue of THE OSCHOLARS, we suggested publishing an annual report of Wilde on the curriculum. The following have been received, and we hope more will follow.
Annette Pankratz (University of Passau) writes 'Next semester (winter term 2001/2002) I will teach a seminar on "Wilde Things: adaptations of The Importance of being Earnest"(including plays by Stoppard, Ravenhill, Orton and Fleming).'
Frederick Roden (University of Connecticut) writes 'I noticed your mention about Wilde curricula. In the Fall 2001 term I am teaching an undergraduate course on Wilde at University of Connecticut. While I don't yet have the formal syllabi written up, we will be looking at the Wilde phenomenon in the 20th century...besides his texts and film adaptations of his works, we will also be studying appropriations of Wilde, as in Hare's Judas Kiss, Kaufman’s Gross Indecency, the film A Man of No Importance, and the Wilde biopic.'
Marie-Noelle Zeender (University of Nice) writes 'I teach advanced students in D.E.A. (Diplôme des Études Approfondies) a course devoted to the problems of identity in Irish gothic-fantastic literature of the XIXth century ("Problématique de l’identité dans la littérature 'gothique' et fantastique irlandaise au XIXe siècle"). The books studied are Maturin's Melmoth the Wanderer, Le Fanu's Uncle Silas, Wilde's The Pictureof Dorian Gray, and Stoker's Dracula. The main themes tackled are the Big House, the wandering Irishman, exile, the mirror.'
Marie-Noelle Zeender's article 'Pour une lecture politique du roman
"gothique" irlandais' was published in Annales du monde anglophone,
8 (November 1998): 51-60
The Importance of being Earnest is a set text on the course ENGL4530 taught by Richard Menke (University of Georgia).
4. Picked from the Platter
Bruce Stewart (Princess Grace Library) writes 'By way of approbation I have added a reference to THE OSCHOLARS to the Criticism Bibliography on the EIRData Wilde Page.' See
http://www.pgil-eirdata.org/html/pgil_bulletin/index.htm and
http://www.pgil-eirdata.org/html/az_datasets/index.htm
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III. NEWS FROM ELSEWHERE
1. The late Andrew McDonnell 1951 - 2001.
We note with regret the death on 29th July of Andrew McDonnell.
Rosemary McGlashon (Oscar Wilde Literary Trust) writes:
Andrew McDonnell first became known in Wilde circles at the formation of the Oscar Wilde Society in 1990. In its first year of life, when the Society was in imminent danger of collapse, Andrew rescued it - in what was to become an archetypal action - by hiring the Lily Langtry Rooms in the Cadogan Hotel, calling an Extraordinary General Meeting, and persuading the members to rally round. His work for the Society involved him in fund raising, commemorations and educational events that made the most of his boundless energy and organising skills and his great rapport with people from very different spheres of life. His ambition for the Society, his imagination and his outward looking personality instigated a number of memorable events including, in 1995, the placing of a plaque, to commemorate the first performances there of A Woman of No Importance and An Ideal Husband, at the stage door of the Theatre Royal, Haymarket, unveiled by Sir John Gielgud. Other memorials included the presentation of specially mounted and framed commemorative photographs to Kettner's Restaurant and the Chelsea Arts Club. In 1997, to mark the centenary of Wilde's release from prison, Andy organised a recital of The Ballad of Reading Gaol by Martin Jarvis at Hatchard's Bookshop (where Wilde had been snubbed 100 years before) and, in conjunction with the Royal Mail, the issue of a commemorative First Day Cover on which the franking was by a special hand stamp designed by himself.
One of Andy's primary goals was the establishment of a Literary Prize in honour of Oscar Wilde. He came near to achieving this in 1993, when the news of the competition was made public, and a panel of judges was established. Unfortunately, however, the publisher who had originally agreed to back the prize and publish the winner withdrew at the last minute. Undeterred by this, Andy later negotiated the setting up of the Oscar Wilde Memorial Prize at Reading Gaol, or Reading Remand Centre as it is now known. In 1998, Andy left the organising committee of the Oscar Wilde Society and became a founder member of the Oscar Wilde Literary Trust, one of whose aims is to raise sufficient money to create a Literary Memorial.
In 2000, the Literary Trust organised two major public events to commemorate the centenary of Oscar Wilde's death. In September, a Weekend Symposium was held at Magdalen College, Oxford, and on 30th November 2000, the centenary of Wilde's death, a service of celebration was held, in Westminster Abbey, with Simon Callow, Sir John Mortimer, Merlin Holland and songs from Patience.
Andy was a passionate defender of Wilde and his family against those who wished to appropriate Wilde for their own ends. He was a tireless correspondent to newspapers, journals and auction houses to correct the more foolish or misguided assumptions about Wilde and his life.
Andy undertook a considerable amount of research into Wilde's family. He made several visits to Italy to trace the movements of Constance Wilde in and around Genoa, as well as those of Wilde in Naples. He was directly responsible for the discovery that the exact sites of the graves of both Lady Wilde and her elder son Willie were still known to The General Cemetery Company at Kensal Green, thus enabling the centenary of Lady Wilde's death to be suitably commemorated at her graveside. In 2000, together with Merlin Holland and an anonymous donor, Andy designed the Celtic Cross, in Kilkenny blue limestone, which now marks Lady Wilde's grave, and, with members of the Literary Trust, organised the ceremony for its installation.
Andy was also making a continuing contribution to the research on Wilde's legacy. In 1996, he published a catalogue of the contents of the Robert Ross Collection in the Bodleian Library, and was assembling material for a D.Phil on the relationships between Wilde's associates between 1900 and 1932, on which he was due to start work at the beginning of the next academic year, at Wadham College, Oxford, under the supervision of Dr Sos Eltis.
Andy was raised on a Yorkshire farm, and gained a degree in art and design in Harrogate. He subsequently worked in theatres all over Britain, spending the 1970s at the Oxford Playhouse, before settling in Oxford to teach art. He was very committed to his tutorial and examination work with 'A' level students, many of whom gained entry to art college.
Andy took a great interest in his local community, and was an active member of the Oxford Lesbian & Gay Centre. He campaigned assiduously for homosexual law reform. Recently he worked as a researcher for Liberal Democrat MP Dr Evan Harris, to whose Oxford constituents Andy was well known.
Andrew died suddenly of bacterial meningitis within hours of becoming ill on 29th June 2001. He was 49. Andy had no descendants, but leaves relatives in Yorkshire and California. Andy always had time to encourage others in their study of Wilde and his death will be mourned by his many friends and by his colleagues in both the Oscar Wilde Society and the Oscar Wilde Literary Trust.
v
Andrew McDonnell, Oscar Wilde
activist, b.30th October 1951; d.29th June 2001
2. 'The Doubleness of Oscar Wilde'
Terry Eagleton's lecture 'The Doubleness of Oscar Wilde', given to the Royal Society of Literature in London on 2nd November 2000 has now been published in the volume News from the Royal Society of Literature (pp.34-40). Unfortunately, this rather substantial little volume contains no ISBN reference, nor date of publication nor volume number. And what are we to make of Professor Eagleton's statement that 'the British state put up Edward Carson as Wilde's prosecuting counsel'? Can it be that the source for this is a play called Saint Oscar, by Terry Eagleton?
3. Future Conferences which may have a bearing on Wilde.
Any specific papers on Wilde will be noted in future issues of THE OSCHOLARS
(a) 'Flaming Intellects and Floating Acolytes'.
3rd Annual Southwest Postgraduate Humanities Conference, School of English, University of Exeter, 3rd September.
'This postgraduate conference is concerned with influence between individuals, texts, groups, movements and ideologies. We want to explore how the acolyte has rejected, imitated, parodied or enshrined the intellect that set it aloft. What happens to The Golden Bowl in Ismail Merchant's hands? What happens to Horace when Pope makes him into an eighteenth-century gentleman? Or, indeed, what does Bart do to Kenny?
'Topics to include: plagiarism; forgery; appropriation; imitation; collaboration; co-operation; adaptation and bastardization. Postgraduates, postdoctoral researchers and newly appointed lecturers are invited to tailor relevant aspects of their research into a 20-minute presentation. Plenary Speakers: Dr Ashley Tauchert, Professor Colin MacCabe and Dr Nick Groom.
'To reserve a place, please send a cheque for £10.00 (payable to Flaming Intellects), giving your contact details. The fee includes lunch (please indicate any dietary requirements).'
Queries: Andrew Shail (a.e.shail@exeter.ac.uk) or Min Wild (g.l.wild@exeter.uk.ac).
(b) VISAWUS (the Victorian Interdisciplinary Studies Association of the Western US)
announces its sixth annual conference, hosted by the Department of English at UCLA 18th to 20th October, 2001.
'The focus of this year's conference on the Centennial of Queen Victoria's death is "The Victorian World: Britain, the Empire, and the United States in the Nineteenth Century." We invite proposals for 20 minute papers or full panels that focus on the connection between Victorian Britain and the empire, Victorian Britain and the United States, or the empire and the United States. Proposals may focus on what constitutes "Victorianness", cultural awareness, all of those "others", political and military relations, art and literary relations, empire building, technology and its discontents, and so on.'
Information from Richard Fulton rfulton@whatcom.ctc.edu
(c) NEMLA Conference, Toronto 12th to 13th April, 2002: Panel on Victorian Obsessions
For information on NEMLA 2002 see: http://www.nova.edu/~stoddart/sessionproposals.htm
'After a century-long absence, the word "obsession" returned in 1824 to English dictionaries, which defined it primarily as "a mental fixation"(though one lacking any of the clinical connotations that it represents to us today) while also documenting its more archaic senses of 'a siege' and 'a spiritual haunting.' This return was accompanied by a British interest in the conceptually related French terms "idée fixe" (a recurrent theme) and "monomania" (a mental fixation that did connote what we would recognize today as clinical obsession). Papers are welcome on any medical, historical, political, social, or literary consideration of obsession, monomania, or compulsion in Victorian England, though of particular interest will be papers that find obsession, monomania, or compulsion productive for the culture or the individual in some way.
One-page abstracts must be received by 15th September. Please submit to: jhodge@emerald.tufts.edu or Jon Hodge, English Department, East Hall, Tufts University, Medford, MA 02155 TEL: 781-391-4603 FAX: 617-627-3606’
(d) NEMLA Conference, Toronto 12th to 13th April, 2002: Panel on Biopics
For information on NEMLA 2002 see:
http://www.nova.edu/~stoddart/sessionproposals.htm
'Biopics are emerging as an exciting subgenre in film, with filmmakers producing more and more filmed lives each year. As the popular culture and academic interest in all things biographical increases exponentially, the film industry recognizes the potential of filming lives. While there are many examples of biopics, historically these have been isolated incidents in the overall development of movies. However, the last decade has seen a marked increase in lives on film, to the point that three of five actors nominated for Academy Awards in 2001 were nominated for their roles as biographical characters. Javier Bardem (Before Night Falls), Ed Harris (Pollock), and Geoffrey Rush (Quills)all played artists (two writers and a painter) in skillfully made films which granted centrality to the work which makes Arenas, Pollock, and de Sade characters of interest to audiences. This session hopes to attract papers which focus on literary lives (such as Wilde, Total Eclipse, and Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle), painters' lives (such as Artemisia, Carrington, and Vincent and Theo), political lives (such as Nixon, Ghandi, and Kundun), royal lives (such as Nicholas and Alexandra, The Last Emperor and Mrs. Brown), and even film-directors’ lives(such as Gods and Monsters and Ed Wood). The session might also include papers which discuss the broader theoretical issues of filming lives in general, or those which consider women's or men's lives, queer lives, sports lives, or musicians' lives.
Please send proposals in the body of an e-mail message to A. Mary Murphy, Session Chair. ammurphy@canuck.com. All submissions will be acknowledged.’
Those interested in Wilde and biopics may also like to know about the Call for Papers from The Film Colloquium at The University of Washington for its Second Annual Interdisciplinary Film Conference and Short Film Festival, 7th to 9th November. Possible panels might include:
v · Discussions of Form within Films
v · Emerging Film Genres
v · Emerging Voices (Ethnicity, Sexuality, and Gender)
v · Evolutions of Traditional Genres
Deadline 15th September. Please submit a 350 word abstract and one-page CV. Mail submissions to the Film Colloquium, Department of English, Box 354330, University of Washington, Seattle, WA98195-4330, USA or send abstracts and cover letters via e-mail to film.col@u.washington.edu.
(e) NEMLA Conference, Toronto 12th to 13th April, 2002: Panel on 'Narratives of deviance / deviant narratives'
For information on NEMLA 2002 see: http://www.nova.edu/~stoddart/sessionproposals.htm
The short description of the panel – which is listed in the 'comparative literatures' category and hence does not require work that is located within English/American studies, exclusively- reads as follows:
'Narratives of Deviance/Deviant Narratives': The panel solicits papers that address representations of deviant bodies, subjectivities, and/or behaviors in 'texts' – broadly defined as inclusive of literary texts, film, hypertext, critical-theoretical reflections, ‘personal narratives’, etc. - that, themselves, clearly deviate from dominant norms/forms, or narrative conventions. Send inquiries or short abstracts to Sabine Meyer viâ Meye0336@unm.edu (submissions by 3rd September) if you would like to be considered as a panelist.
is the topic of the Victorian Studies Association of Western Canada 30th Annual Conference University of British Columbia, 27th to 29th September.
Papers in alphabetical order are
Nancy Armstrong (Brown University): 'Why a Good Man is Hard to Find in Victorian Fiction';
Lisa Brocklebank (Brown University): '"The Story of Augustus Who Would Not Have Any Soup": A Literary(Sub)Version of the Medical Construction of Anorexia Nervosa';
Elizabeth Chang (University of California at Berkeley): '"Travelling in the Chinese Costume": Robert Fortune as Racial Cross-Dresser and Horticultural Spy’;
Colette Colligan (Queen's University, Kingston): '"Love Tips from Around the Globe": Foreign Sexuality in Victorian Pornography';
Ginger Frost (Samford University): '"The Black Lamb of the Black Sheep": Illegitimacy in the Respectable Working Class in Victorian England';
Richard Dellamora (Trent University): 'Not Subversion but Contestation: Constituting Citizenship in Victorian and Neo-Victorian England';
Mandakini Dubey (Duke University): 'Esoterotic Fantasies: Translation and Transgression in Victorian Popularizations of Sufism';
Christopher Keep (University of Western Ontario): 'Subverting the Informatic Self: Surveillance and Panopticism in Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray';
Grace Kehler (McMaster University): 'Prima Donna Performances: Histrionics and Autobiography';
Christopher Kent (University of Saskatchewan): 'Victorian Men's Clubs and the Subversion of Domesticity';
Mary Elizabeth Leighton (University of Alberta): 'Eminent Bohemians: Fictions of the Artist and Late-Victorian Studio Culture';
Jill Matus (University of Toronto): 'Subversions of Self: Altered States, Memory, and the Soul in Dickens and Bulwer-Lytton';
Jill MacLachlan (University of British Columbia): '"The Lady Vanishes": Mrs. Julia Margaret Cameron Performed on the Late-Twentieth-Century Cultural Stage';
Juliet McMaster (University of Alberta): 'VSAWC-it-to-me!';
Lynda Nead (Birkbeck College, University of London): '"The Academy of Filth": Gender, Space and Obscene Displays in Mid-Victorian London';
Denise Quirk (Rutgers University): 'The "Uncomfortable Consciousness of Something Unexplained": Masquerade, Artifice, and Feminist Cross-Gender Performance';
Ellen Rosenman (University of Kentucky): 'Edith Simcox, Victorian Lesbian: Identification and Desire';
Gail Savage (St.Mary's College of Maryland): '"Far Worse than Death?" The Social Basis for the Demand for Divorce in Victorian England';
Peter Sinnema (University of Alberta): 'Repositioning Self-Help'.
Further details from Pamela Dalziel, Department of English, University of British Columbia (604)822-5408 pdalziel@interchange.ubc.ca; or Joy Dixon, Department of History, University of British Columbia (604) 822-5748 joydixon@interchange.ubc.ca; or view the conference website:
http://www.english.ubc.ca/projects/vsawc/UBCVSAWC.HTM
— and for the record:
On 11th July on BBC Radio 4, Merlin Holland appeared on the programme 'Midsummer Midweek' in conversation with a journalist called David Aaronovitch. This does not appear to have been archived, and we regret that we did not know about it in time to trail it in the last OSCHOLARS.
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IV. NOTES AND QUERIES
1. Yinka Shonibare
Yinka Shonibare is a Nigerian English artist, born in London in 1962 and associated with the group then known as Young British Artists, who once taught at Goldsmiths College. Among his other themes has a been an exploration of Victorian dandyism, photographing himself in scenes consciously drawn from The Picture of Dorian Gray. One of these is reproduced at www.iniva.org/051100/html/britain.html. The photographs are currently part of an exhibition at the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh (Popular CultureS: Installations by Michael Parakowhai, Ravinder Reddy and Yinka Shonibare, 10th June to 2nd September). Shonibare’s work is handled in London by the Stephen Friedman Gallery (25-28 Old Burlington Street, London W1S 3AN; http://www.stephenfriedman.co.uk)
Yinka Shonibare: Dorian Gray
Series. No.1
Reproduced by kind permission of the Stephen Friedman Gallery
2. Oscar Wilde in Popular Culture
As the Wilde Legacy is beginning to emerge as a subject of scrutiny and even study, THE OSCHOLARS will in future collect examples of Wilde’s more unlikely manifestations. Dorian Gray seems to feature much in this issue, so we begin there. As always, contributions are welcome.
'The music jarred, and Dorian Gray started and stared at his friend' (Ch. XIX). It will be recalled that Gray was a piano player of some distinction (although the validation of this as 'better than most amateurs' is a demonstration of Wilde's unease with the language of music appreciation), and he is much commemorated in the music world. The Dorian Gray E-news is available through a form on the site www.doriangray.nu- but be warned, this Dorian Gray is a Swedish rock band. Distinguish it carefully from the Italian band of the same name, contactable through wham.it/doriangray, and from the American band (Milwaukee) also of the same name, contactable through www.doriangray.net.
Whether the following qualifies as either popular or even culture is perhaps questionable:
'Sometimes, under the ever-elegant name of "Dorian Gray", I produce music which qualifies as "noise", or "drum & bass" or maybe something else if you’re big into that genre thing. A list of releases I have done (listing all thrice of them) follows, with sound 'samples', by which I mean the entirety of the release as a poorly-mastered yet still beautiful 128k mp3. You could get the 256k versions too, if I had more account space here or if you happened to be at U. Mass and on the campus network while my computer also was. We can all dream, but if I were you I'd dream for something more physically fulfilling. Actually, I just remastered some new mp3s from the original tapes, and now they sound much better. The VBR helped too.' Contact: dorian.gray@likeavagina.net. This address does not quite have the social éclat of Grosvenor Square.
One wonders if collecting these people's memorabilia might support one in one's old age: from valorisation to evaluation to valuation, perhaps. . .? We don't think this is quite what Lord Alfred Douglas had in mind when he wrote that Wilde's 'influence on the whole of literary Europe has been more profound than that of any other English writer except Shakespeare [. . .] I am alluding to the place which he actually occupies in European literature' (Robert Harborough Sherard: Bernard Shaw, Frank Harris and Oscar Wilde. With a preface by Lord Alfred Douglas and an additional Chapter by Hugh Kingsmill. London: T. Werner Laurie 1937 pp.12-13).
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V. PRODUCTIONS DURING AUGUST 2001
The Importance of being Earnest is being staged by the Illyria Theatre Company at the Hawth Theatre, Crawley, West Sussex, England on the 2nd August.
Patience is being performed at the Opera House, Buxton, Derbyshire on the 15th August, conducted by Keith Oliver, directed by by Tim-Hurst Brown, with Tim-Hurst Brown as Grosvenor and Mark Sinnett as Bunthorne.
Germany
As is generally known, The Importance of being Earnest is usually played in Germany under the title Bunbury. That it should surface as Bamburi (17th to 19th August) seems as outré as its venue, the Salztal Klinik in Bad Soden-Salmünster, as part of the Huttenschloß Schloßfestspiele. Perhaps a German reader might like to pursue this?
Scotland
As in previous years, the Edinburgh Fringe Festival is rich in Wilde offerings, the most remarkable being a production of The Importance of being Earnest at The Garage by the National Student Theatre of Belarus. This is being perfomed in Russian, 12th to 18th August (www.belarus.lgpr.co.uk). Moreover there are two other productions of The Importance, at the Bedlam Theatre by the Illyria Theatre Company 6th to 25th August (www.illyria.uk.com) and at Old St Paul's Church & Hall by Exit Theatre, 6th to 11th August.
Also in Edinburgh The Picture of Dorian Gray is being produced at Rocket@Kirk o' Field by the Bare and Ragged Theatre Company 13th to 18th August; The Happy Prince at the Quaker Meeting House by the Get Stuck In Theatre in Education Company 20th to 25th August, and Moises Kaufman's Gross Indecency at The Underbelly by Double Edge Drama 5th to 26th August; while Cameo present an evening with Oscar Wilde, a costumed entertainment combining excerpts from Wilde's writing with period music, wittily entitled An Evening with Oscar Wilde, at St Mark's Unitarian Church on the 27th and 28th August.
The Boston Symphony Orchestra is playing Salome on 4th August at Tanglewood, Lenox, Massachusetts.
The Importance of Being Earnest is at the Charles Ives Center for the Arts, Western Connecticut State University, on the 26th August. The same play is being performed by cast of ten 18 year-olds, the Brookfield Players, Route 25, Brookfield, CT, also on the 26th.
Michéal MacLiammóir's The Importance of Being Oscar, recently revived by Simon Callow, is being given by Vincent O'Neill on the 2nd August at SUNY Buffalo, UB Center for the Arts, Buffalo, NY. [The MacLiámmóir version may be found at www.geocities.com/~newgeneration/wilde/macliammoir.html]
— and for the record:
Moises Kaufman's Gross Indecency was produced by The Actors' Group, at the Yellow Brick Studio, Honolulu 15th June to 1st July. (Information kindly supplied by Patricia Elser Gillespie of The Actors’ Group.)
An Ideal Husband directed by Kent Thompson was produced at the Alabama Shakespeare Festival, Montgomery, Alabama, 29th May to 14th July [The Importance of Being Earnest was produced here 7th April to 5th May 1998], and at the Weston Playhouse, Weston, Vermont, directed by Philip Kerr 12th to 21st July. [We regret not having known about these productions early enough to include them in the July issue of THE OSCHOLARS.]
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An Ideal Husband |
ALABAMA |
VERMONT |
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Scenic Designer |
Charles
Caldwell |
Ann
Sheffield |
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Costume Designer |
Beth
Novak |
Gail
Brassard |
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Lighting Designer |
Rachel
Budin |
Jeff
Davis |
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Sound Designer |
Don
Tindall |
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Dramaturg |
Gwen
Orel |
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Voice & Dialect
Coach |
Jan Gist |
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Fight Director / Movement
Coach |
Colleen
Kelly |
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Assistant Fight / Movement
Coach |
J. P. Scheidler |
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Stage Manager |
Sara Lee
Howell |
Joel
Markus |
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Assistant Stage Manager |
Mark D. Leslie |
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Casting |
Alan
Filderman |
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Mrs. Marchmont |
Jen Faith
Brown |
Natalie
Ross |
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Lady Basildon |
Mendy
Garcia |
Patricia
Lavery |
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Vicomte De
Nanjac |
J. P.
Scheidler |
Justin
Miller |
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Mason |
Scot Mann |
Thomas
Cox |
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Lord Caversham |
Richard
Thomsen |
Sam Lloyd, Sr. |
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Lady Chiltern |
Kathleen
McCall |
Libby Chistophersen |
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Mabel Chiltern |
Tarah
Flanagan |
Jodi
Jinks |
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Lady Markby |
Sonja Lanzener |
Barbara Lloyd |
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Mrs. Cheveley |
Susan
Wands |
Kate
Goehring |
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Sir Robert
Chiltern |
Mark
Damon Espinoza |
Bill Camp |
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Lord Goring |
Sam
Gregory |
Rob
Breckenridge |
|
Phipps |
Chris
Mixon |
Clark
Gesner |
|
Mr. Montford |
Chris
Mixon |
|
|
Mr. Trafford |
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Logan
Lipton |
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James, a Footman |
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Tyler
Murree |
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Rose, a Maid |
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Stephanie Ila Silver |
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Violinist |
|
Brigit
Knecht |
· Contributions to this section of THE OSCHOLARS from anywhere in the world will be very welcome indeed.
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VI. WEB FOOT NOTES
A monthly look at websites (contributions welcome).
The website for the British Library's Oscar Wilde exhibition 'A Life in Six Acts' in its next showing, at the J.P.Morgan Library (14th September to 13th January), is
http://www.morganlibrary.org/exhibitions/upcoming/html
The September issue of THE OSCHOLARS will cover this.
On exhibitions,
http://www.nyu.edu/library/bobst/research/fales/exhibits/wilde/00main.htm
is the site set up for the Fales Library Exhibition' Reading Wilde, Querying Spaces' in 1997, and serves as a catalogue to that exhibition. A well designed site of considerable interest, grouped according to ten themes of importance in Wilde's life and work.
http://inf4serv.rug.ac.be/~kmoonen/is a site created by Eva Thienpont (whose licentiate-dissertation 'Cherchez l’homme. Masculinities in the Plays of Oscar Wilde' was recently completed and received high distinction) and Kristof Moonen, both of the University of Ghent. It contains the following sections - A Portrait of Oscar Wilde: a concise biography, highlighting some important aspects of Wilde's life; The Picture of Oscar Wilde or how other people saw the man who had never given adoration to anyone but himself; Mutual Criticism: what Wilde said about others and what others said about Wilde; Baisers d'Oscar: a number of stories which are not to be found in the Complete Works, but were part of Wilde's conversational repertoire; Quotes: a selection of Wildëan witticisms; A Quiz, where you can test your knowledge about Wilde; The Very Essential Modern Woman's Guide to Oscar Wilde: a personal exploration of Wilde's philosophy and works, combined with literary criticism. An attractive and elegant site of general interest for beginners and beyond.
http://doriangray.cjb.net/is devoted entirely to The Picture of Dorian Gray, constructed by Mary Papayianni who is also engaged in creating Crime and Punishment and Wuthering Heights sites.
This elaborate site uses background material drawn from the Victorian Web and quotes from Æsthetes and Decadents of the 1890s by George P. Landow
(http://landow.stg.brown.edu/victorian/decadence/decadence.html).
as well as the citation from the Victorian Web from Sex, Scandal and the Novel by William A. Cohen (Duke University Press, 1996). It includes the text of Dorian Gray, chapter by chapter, and, most unusually and very usefully, a concordance to the text. There is a brief bibliography: this includes Ed Cohen: Talk on the Wilde Side: Towards a Genealogy of a Discourse on Male Sexualities (Routledge 1992). It also has a forum for notes from readers similar to those discussed in previous issues of THE OSCHOLARS. Unfortunately, the level of these hardly seems to live up to the style of the rest of the site. The following are plucked verbatim more or less at random:
'Posted by [name omitted] on February 26, 2001, 0:07:26 12.79.69.20 What is Wild's Esthetic Phlosophy, what are the contradictions,
Responses: There are no responses to this message.
Posted by [name omitted] on February 26, 2001,0:10:36 12.79.69.20 What are the Dialectic and Dialogic, and how the characters are Walking concepts?
Responses: There are no responses to this message.
Posted by [name omitted] on June 18, 2001, 17:02:24152.163.204.68 I am looking for a copy of Neil Tennant narratin a picture of Dorian Grey. Can anyone help.??
Responses: There are no responses to this message.'
Both of the above sites represent a great deal of thought, work and dedication.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/oscarwildefans is 'for fans of Oscar Wilde to discuss him, his life, related topics, and meet one another'. Founded in July 2000 it has four members, only one of whom has so far placed a message on the site.
The site merici_teatro@yahoogroups.com, mentioned in THE OSCHOLARS I/1, though listed under the Yahoo Oscar Wilde discussion lists, has no mention of anything to do with Wilde in any of the messages so far posted.
The site www.wildeliterarytrust.org.uk, reported on in the previous issue of THE OSCHOLARS belonged to Andrew McDonnell, whose death we record elsewhere in this issue.
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VII. SOME SELL AND OTHERS BUY
Books in print mentioned in THE OSCHOLARS can be ordered from John Wyse Jackson of Sandoe Books books@jsandoe.demon.co.uk.
John Wyse Jackson is editor of Aristotle at Afternoon Tea: The Rare Oscar Wilde. London: Fourth Estate 1991; paperback edition retitled Uncollected Oscar Wilde 1995.
As recorded in detail in THE OSCHOLARS I/2, on 3rd July Christie's were selling at their King Street, London, branch a copy of Jim Dine: After Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray. London: Petersburg Press 1968. Lot Number 122 Sale Number 6468. Estimated to go for £2,000-£3,000, it fetched £2,115.00.
[Information accessed from http://www.christies.com/lotfinder/search/advancedsearch.asp]
Ebay is an online auction house where many Wilde items are offered, from second-hand paperbacks to playbills to limited editions. A sampling from July included:
|
Item |
Top bid |
NB=Nobids, FTRR=Failedtoreachreserve,S=sold |
|
The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1st edition |
US $660.00 (approx. £471.56 |
FTRR |
|
Another copy |
US $650.00 (approx. £464.42) |
S |
|
The Writings of Oscar Wilde. New York: GabrielWells 1925 12 vols |
|
NB |
|
Vanity Fair Print - Oscar Wilde 1884 |
US $366.99 (approx. £262.21) |
FTRR |
|
Salome, drawings by Aubrey Beardsley. Boston:John W. Luce &
Company 1906 |
US $153.50 (approx. £109.67) |
S |
|
Deux Contes by Oscar Wilde. Paris: F.L.Schmied1926.One out of 150 copies,
hand-signed by F.L. Schmied |
US $51.01 (approx. £36.45) |
FTRR |
We have set up this link which should take you straight to ebay’s Wilde pages:
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VIII. A WILDE AUGUST
August birthdays of those whose lives intersected with Wilde at one point or another include those of Ernest Dowsonon the 2nd (1867), Travers Humphreys on the 4th (1867), Ambroise Thomas and Guy de Maupassant on the 5th (1811, 1850), Alfred Tennyson and Elizabeth Robins on the 6th (1809, 1862), Walter Crane and Emma Calvé on the 15th (1844, 1858), Gyp de Martel and Jules Laforgue on the 18th (1849,1860), Augustin Daly on the 20th (1838), Aubrey Beardsley on the 21st (1872),John Payne on the 23rd (1842), Max Beerbohm on the 24th (1872), Bret Harte on the 25th (1836), Maurice Maeterlinck on the 29th (1862) and Théophile Gautier on the 31st (1811).
Death this month came to the 9th Marquess of Queensberry on the 1st (1920), Joseph Conrad on the 3rd (1924), Hans Christian Andersen on the 4th (1875), Phil May on the 5th (1903), Sir Alfred Wills J. on the 9th (1912), Massenet on the 12th (1912), Millais on the 13th (1896), Florent Schmitt on the 17th (1958), Jules Laforgue on the 20th (1887), Frank Harris on the 27th (1931), Ada Leverson on the 30th (1933) and Baudelaire on the 31st (1867).
The 28th was the wedding day of Horace Lloyd and Adelaide (Adele) Atkinson, the parents of Constance Wilde (1855). Adrian Hope and Laura Troubridge, eventual guardians of the young Wildes, were married on the 2nd (1888). Whistler and Beatrix Godwin were married on the 11th in the same year.
Here is a Wilde Chronology for the month (additions and corrections welcome, of course). I have omitted the American lecture tour.
08 1876 Wilde at Moytura with Frank Miles.
08 1867 Wilde spends three weeks in Paris.
08 1874 J.E.C. Bodley meets Wilde in Dublin during Horse Show Week.
08 1877 Wilde goes to Clonfin House, Granard to shoot.
08 1879 Wilde visits the Sickert family in Dieppe.
08 1880 Wilde moves with Frank Miles to Keats House, Tite Street, Chelsea.
08 1882 Bankruptcy of David Bogue.
08 1889 Ricketts & Shannon publish The Dial and send a complimentary copy toWilde.
08 1892 Wilde writes A Woman of No Importance at Grove Farm, Felbrigg, near Cromer, Norfolk [to September].
08 1894 Wilde begins writing The Importance of being Earnest at Worthing, and is joined by Lord Alfred Douglas.
08 1894 Wilde writes the scenario for Mr & Mrs Daventry at Worthing.
08 1898 Lord Alfred Douglas leaves Nogent-sur-Marne for Trouville, joining his mother; then to Aix-les-Bains viâ Paris.
08 1898 Wilde at Chennevières-sur-Marne.
08 1899 Wilde moves back to the Hôtel d'Alsace.
01 08 1864 The Wildes visit Bray [to 12th August].
02 08 1883 Wilde sails for New York on board RMS Britannia.
02 08 1904 Vyvyan Wilde goes to Dr Kümmer's crammer at Ouchy, Lausanne.
03 08 1893 Contract signed for the publication of 'The Portrait of Mr W.H.'.
03 08 1881 Mr Gladstone encounters Wilde at the studio of Burne-Jones.
06 08 1885 The Labouchère Amendment (Clause XI of the Criminal Law Amendment Act, sometimes referred to as Clause 2 through the mistaken identification of the Arabic numeral ll with the Roman II).
06 08 1907 Vyvyan Wilde meets Robbie Ross for the first time.
07 08 1894 Wilde lunches at the Café Royal with Lord Alfred Douglas and Max Beerbohm.
08 08 1892 Edward Carson takes his seat in the House of Commons.
09? 08 1900 Wilde and Lord Alfred Douglas dine at the Grand Café.
11 08 1883 Wilde arrives in New York.
12 08 1894 Alfred Taylor arrested in the police raid on 46 Fitzroy Street.
16 08 1893 Wilde at last night of A Woman of No Importance.
19 08 1906 James Joyce finishes reading The Picture of Dorian Gray.
20 08 1883 Wilde at production of Vera (Union Square Theatre, New York).
23 08 1991 Foundation of the first Irish Oscar Wilde Society.
25 08 1880 Publication of Wilde's sonnet 'Ave Imperatrix' in The World.
26 08 1895 Sherard visits Wilde in Wandsworth.
28 08 1897 Or perh. 29th. Wilde gives a children's party at Berneval.
28 08 1898 Lord Ronald Gower and Frank Hird travel from Tours to Paris.
28/9 08 1897 Lord Alfred Douglas in Rouen.
29 08 1897 Lord Alfred Douglas leaves Rouen for Paris.
30 08 1898 Lord Ronald Gower and Frank Hird travel from Paris to Strasbourg, Heidelberg and Dresden.
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IX. THE OSCAR WILDE SOCIETY AND THE WILDEAN
THE OSCHOLARS continues its association with the Oscar Wilde Society and its journal The Wildean. Contacts for both the Society and The Wildean are given below.
The Oscar Wilde Society is a literary society devoted to the congenial appreciation of Oscar Wilde. It is a non-profit making organisation which aims to promote knowledge, appreciation and study of Wilde's life, personality and works. It organises lectures, readings and discussions about Wilde and his works, visits to places in Great Britain and overseas associated with Wilde, an annual lunch in Oxford, and an annual Birthday Dinner at the Cadogan Hotel, London. New members are very welcome. The current annual individual subscription (UK) is £14 and household membership £20.
A newsletter - Intentions -is published about six times a year and gives information on forthcoming events, performances and publications, and reports on Society activities. The Society's journal - The Wildean -is published twice a year and contains features on a variety of subjects relating to Wilde, including articles, reviews, and accounts of Society events. It is a publication of permanent interest (MLA listed and indexed)and copies of all recent back issues are available at cover price, which includes postage in the UK.
THE OSCHOLARS will publish the Table of Contents for each new issue of The Wildean. When there is no new issue, we shall reprint the Tables of Contents from earlier issues until the whole set has been detailed.
Here is the information from the Editor of The Wildean about issue 16 (January 2000).
Corin Redgrave's moving performance as Wilde in De Profundis was seen at the National Theatre last year. As Sheridan Morley commented, his triumph was to make us see the hope as well as the despair.In his article 'Playing with Wilde', Corin Redgrave writes with great insight about getting to know Wilde through the shared experience of performance: ‘Familiarity with De Profundis, in my case, has bred nothing but admiration which increases on every reading.'
As Karl Beckson writes in his Encyclopedia, 'Unlike Wilde's American lecture tour, his British series of lectures [as Geoff Dibb observes in The Wildean] "is probably the least documented activity of his adult life"'.' The Wildean has published a series of articles on the subject, including accounts by Geoff Dibb of Wilde's lectures in West Yorkshire and by Daniel Novak of those given in Ryde, Isle of Wight. In The Wildean 16 Donald Mead gives an illustrated account of Wilde's lecture in The Winter Gardens, Southport on Personal Impressions of America. He reproduces the flyer for the lecture and quotes the vivid descriptions by observant local newspaper reporters of Wilde in Southport, and in Liverpool where he met Lillie Langtry on her return from America.
The issue also includes the entertaining talk given by Sir Donald Sinden at the Oscar Wilde Society's Birthday Dinner at the Cadogan Hotel; an article by Constance Wilde, not previously noted, ‘Pretty Little Houses for Everyone’, which Ernest Mehew discovered in a special 'Our Ladies' Number' of Answers (9 June 1894); and an account by Peter Rowland of the close affinity of E.W. Hornung, the creator of 'Raffles', with Oscar Wilde.
|
Articles |
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|
Playing with Wilde |
Corin Redgrave |
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Diversions and Digressions |
Sir Donald Sinden |
|
Personal Impressions of America: OscarWilde in Southport |
Donald Mead |
|
Constance Wilde's Ideal Home Revealed |
Ernest Mehew |
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Pretty Little Houses for Everyone |
Constance Wilde |
|
The Importance of Being Ernest? |
Peter Rowland |
|
Wilde the Exile: A Life Lived in Letters |
Julia Wood |
|
Reviews |
|
|
Alan Sinfield: Out on Stage: Lesbian and Gay Theatre in the Twentieth Century |
Michael Seeney |
|
Oscar Wilde: During the Trials and the Aftermath. Reviews of Michael S. Foldy: The Trials of Oscar Wilde: Deviance, Morality and Late-Victorian Society and Mark Hitchens:Oscar Wilde's Last Chance: The Dreyfus Connection. |
Anya Clayworth |
|
'Earnest' as a novel. Review of Charles Osborne: The Importance of Being Earnest: a trivial novel for serious people |
Michael Seeney |
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The Kaos Theatre Company The Importanceof Being Earnest |
Michael Seeney |
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The New World’s Classics Dorian Gray –The Picture of Dorian Gray with an introduction by Edmund White |
Donald Mead |
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Salomé at the Riverside Studio Theatre, adapted and directed by Mick Gordon |
Bindon Russell |
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Wilde Inside in Melbourne, directed by Colette Mann |
Caroline Cotton |
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Correspondence |
|
|
The Arrest of Oscar Wilde at the Cadogan Hotel |
Paul Taylor |
The more recent issues of The Wildean are still available at cover price. The Wildean No. 16 (described above) is available at £4.50, and The Wildean Nos. 17 & 18, (described in THE OSCHOLARS Vol. I/2 & I/1 respectively) at £5.00 and £4.50 respectively. These prices include P & P in the UK. Copies are available from Donald Mead — see below.
|
The Oscar Wilde Society may be contacted by writing to the Hon. Secretary, Ms Vanessa Harris, at 100 Peacock Street Gravesend, Kent DA12 1EQ England The Wildean may be contacted by writing to its Editor, Donald Mead, at 63 Lambton Road, London SW20 0LW, England e-mail donmead@wildean.demon.co.uk |
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