An Electronic Journal for the Exchange of Information
on Current Research, Publications and Productions
concerning
Oscar Wilde
and His Circles
Vol. II No. 5
May 2002
Go to Table of Contents of this
issue
The Oscar Wilde Statue by
Danny Osborne,
Notice of the eleventh (April) issue of THE OSCHOLARS was transmitted to 603
readers. Since then, the number of those
registered as readers of the journal has risen to 640. Nearly 250
universities or university colleges (from John's,
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Plans continue for 'Staging Wilde', the first OSCHOLARS colloquium
on Oscar Wilde, which will take place in Senate House, The Conference Pack is being
kindly sponsored by
Numbers are limited to one hundred. As the Colloquium is being widely promoted, we urge early booking. Speakers will be
Chairs include Don Mead
(Editor of The Wildean) and Eibhear Walshe ( The final programme will be published in the June issue of THE OSCHOLARS and on the Conference website at |
As always, suggestions for improvements, additions and above all corrections, to THE OSCHOLARS are very welcome. This month sees the introduction of a new section SHAVINGS, in which the connections both personal and literary between Wildeand George Bernard Shaw will be explored.
The continued, welcome and somewhat unexpected, expansion in readership
places upon THE
OSCHOLARS
the obligation to increase its range and coverage. Over the next months, we will be identifying
those areas and subjects in which we feel the need to strengthen our
outreach. We are very pleased that Angela
Kingston of the
In order to reduce the length of THE OSCHOLARS, and thus decrease the loadingtime for readers with older computers, not all the sections will be accessible in future by scrolling down, but in appendices reached through clicking via the entry in the Table of Contents instead. This is a natural progression from our long ago switching from our original e-mail attachment form to the current webpage.
As a trial, this applies this month to two sections 'Being Talked About: Calls for Papers', and 'And I? May I Say Nothing?' Reactions to this are welcome.
We hope readers will use the new correspondence section discussion forum. This is viâ a link from our home page to a yahoo
group. It will only be accessible to
readers of THE
OSCHOLARS, who will be able to inaugurate their own discussions and
controversies where these are germane to the purposes of THE OSCHOLARS. We will also use it to announce news that
arrives after our copydate, and we also hope it will serve in particular to
keep student readers in touch with one another.
It can also be accessed from within THE OSCHOLARS where you see this sign 
.
By clicking on any Green
Carnation displayed thus 
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you can go directly to the Table of Contents; 
returns you to THE OSCHOLARS homepage ; 
returns you to our hubpage.
Nothing in THE OSCHOLARS© is copyright to the Journal (although it may be to individual writers) unless indicated by ©,and the usual etiquette of attribution will doubtless be observed. Please feel free to download it, 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.
As usual, names emboldened in the text are those of subscribers to THE OSCHOLARS, who may be contacted through oscholars@gmail.com. Underlined text in blue can be clicked for navigation through the document or to other addresses.
The Romanian translation of 'There is only one thing worse than being
talked about' has been kindly supplied by Irina Iristratescu of the
The technical assistance of Dr John Phelps of
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Editor: D.C. Rose 1 rue Gutenberg 75015 |
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Assistant Editor for Angela Kingston Department of English |
Assistent Redacteur voor
Vlaanderen en Assistant Editor for Eva Thienpont Vakgroep Engelse Literatuur Universiteit Gent Rozier 44 9000 België [Please only contact by e-mail in the firstinstance] |
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Click on any entry for direct
access |
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1. Cyril Wilde |
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3. Film |
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5. Naming Names |
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III. THE CRITIC AS CRITIC |
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VII. 'MAD, SCARLET MUSIC' |
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1. Australia |
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2. England |
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3. Estonia |
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4. France |
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2. Exhibitions |
5. Germany |
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6. Japan |
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4. Conferences |
7. Russia |
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8. Sicily |
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IX. THE OTHER OSCAR |
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d. RLS 2002 |
X. SHAVINGS |
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XI. WEB FOOT NOTES |
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XIII. A WILDE MAY |
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XIV. AND I? MAY I SAY NOTHING? v
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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 specify if you wish your e-mail address to be included.
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 addressif possible or relevant.
Notes & Queries: Please keep these reasonably short, and use the section 'And I? May I say nothing?' for longer pieces. Other correspondence of a more ephemeral kind may be best suited to our discussion forum
.
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II NEWS FROM SUBSCRIBERS
1. Publications and Papers
Tommy P. Christensen (University of Copenhagen) is giving a paper 'Oscar Wilde and the Scandinavian Nobility' at Nordic Irish Studies Network's Conference (N.I.S.N.) 15thto 17th May at the University of Bergen, Norway.
Information on the conference: Ruben.Moi@eng.uib.no
Anne Margaret Daniel (Princeton University) is giving a paper on 'The Testimonial "Truth" of Oscar Wilde' for the American Irish Historical Society, New York (991 5th Avenue @ 80 Street), 2nd May. Dr Daniel has kindly allowed us to reprint the abstract:
In April and May, 1895, Oscar Wilde participated in three trials -- first as a plaintiff, and in the last two as a defendant -- that destroyed his literary and public career and still define his reputation, and sexuality, today. Wilde's trials have been reinterpreted and replayed almost compulsively in the past few years. It is not of Wilde's birth, or some great success, but of what he and many others have referred to as his 'downfall', the eradication of Oscar Wilde by reputation and in name, that the English and American cultures have, rather paradoxically, marked in centenary celebrations. During the 1990s, popular and critically acclaimed plays from The Judas Kiss to Gross Indecency to The Invention of Love, as well as the film Wilde, have focused on Wilde under the law.
Dr. Anne Margaret Daniel, lecturer at Princeton University, will present this evening's talk about Wilde's own trial testimony - as the most elaboratework of fiction, and grandest theatrical performance, in which he ever engaged -- and Wilde's absolute inability to lie successfully in the witness box. Try though he did to save himself in court, Wilde's lies decay inexorably into the truth every time. Dr. Daniel has instructed at the Yeats International Summer School in Sligo, and she has written and researched on Yeats, Wilde, Kipling, Woolf, Fitzgerald, and Auden.
Le mille e una maschera di Oscar Wilde ('The Thousand and One Masks of Oscar Wilde') by Giovanna Franci and Rosella Mangaroni, will be published in May by the new publishing house of the University of Bologna, the Bononia University Press, BUP.
Oscar Wilde, from one century to another, from one millennium to another, has endured a series of literary vicissitudes and iconographies that have left him forged, plagiarized, and misunderstood. Such misunderstanding, on the other hand, was one of Oscar's own aspirations.
The Thousand and One Masks of Oscar Wilde does not wish to be the umpteenth critical work, nor simply a biography, since both genres already fill up library shelves. This work, aside from rendering homage to the incomparable Dandy, seeks to demonstrate how artifice and deception, typically Wildesque, have produced and reproduced in time other falsities and inventions more authentic than the real; or to use a term that Wilde would have liked, other masks.
The authors present, as if in a sort of gallery, parodies and caricatures inspired by Wilde and his works. Beginning with the contemporaries to the present, the Wildesque rewrites (by Hichens and Holloway, Eagleton and Osborne, Ackroyd and Stoppard . . . are numerous and constitute other masks of the most famous Dandy of the fin-de-siècle. The volume is with thirty-some illustrations, photographs and caricatures, some previously unpublished.
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Index Introduction: The Wilde Effect The invention of Oscar Wilde in the age of Wilde . . . Teleny or the Reverse of the Medal Robert H. Hichens: The Green Carnation Detective Stories and other Adventures Walter Satterthwait: Wilde West Russel Brown: Sherlock Holmes and the Mysterious Friend of Oscar Wilde The Homosexual Icon C. Robert Holloway, The Unauthorized Letters of Oscar Wilde Neil Bartlett: Who Was That Man? Masked Biographies --life in the form of romance Desmond Hall: I Give You Oscar Wilde. – biographical Novel Peter Ackroyd: The Last Testament of Oscar Wilde |
--life on stage Lester Cohen: Oscar Wilde. A Play John Gay: Diversions and Delights Terry Eagleton: Saint Oscar Thomas Kilroy: The Secret Fall of Constance Wilde --from the page to the screen and back tothe page Stefan Rudnicki: Wilde Borrowing, borrowing… always on the stage John Osborne: The Picture of Dorian Gray. A Moral Entertainment Alan Bennett: A Woman of No Importance Tom Stoppard: Travesties and The Inventionof Love Notes Texts Illustrations |
Nicholas Frankel (National Humanities Center, North Carolina) will be giving a paper entitled '"On Lying as A Way of Knowing": A Portrait of A Portrait of Mr. W. H' at the conference on Fakes and Forgeries at Durham University 8th-10th July.
John Gardiner's TheVictorians: An Age in Retrospect will be published by Hambledon andLondon on 23rd May (ISBN 1 85285 385 9, and its price is £25). The book includes a chapter on the changing reputation of Wilde during the twentieth century. Taking the 1895 trial and its aftermath as a starting-point, Dr Gardiner explores the ways that Wilde's life and work has been used (and abused) by British society over the previous hundred years. For dedicated Wildeans, and for those students approaching the subject, it is hoped that the chapter will provide a lively overview of such themes as Wilde in relation to the gay tradition, Irishness and postmodernism. The chapter also includes brief discussion of film and stage adaptations. It is part of a set of biographical studies (the others being Queen Victoria, Dickens and Gladstone) that in turn form an exploration of how the Victorians have been interpreted since 1901.
John Gardiner is a cultural historian who has taught at Queen Mary, University of London, and contributeda number of reviews to publications like the TLS and BBC History Magazine.
Rainer Kohlmayer (University of Mainz) writes
'In the April edition of your Internet Journal Andreas Hüther of Limerick University was so kind to point out three of my papers on Wilde in his list of German publications on Oscar Wilde (between 1990 and 2002).
Perhaps some readers might be interested in getting the full list of my (ten to fifteen) publications on (and translations of) Oscar Wilde? The full list is available on my homepage: www.rainer-kohlmayer.de
Two or three of the essays are even accessible for instant reading (or copying).’
On Thursday 2nd May at 4 p.m. Carol Mavor will deliver a talk 'Swallowing Childhood: Lartigue, Proust, and Wilde' at the Simon H. Rifkind Room, NAC 6/219, The City College, Convent Avenue at 138th street, New York City. All welcome.
Maureen E. Mulvihill (Princeton Research Forum) has published an extended review of the Wilde in Six Acts Exhibition at the Morgan Library, New York in the Spring Issue of The Irish Literary Supplement entitled Ephebe. We are delighted to say that with the kind permission of the ILS editor Robert Lowery, Dr Mulvihill has given us for publication not merely this article, but an extended and amended version of it. This is will be published in the June edition of THE OSCHOLARS.
Neil Sammells (Bath Spa University, and author of Wilde Style: The Plays and Prose of Oscar Wilde) draws our attention to a special issue of Gothic Studies dedicated to Oscar Wilde, which he is editing. Details under 'Being Talked About'.
A Critical Biography of Lady Jane Wilde, 1821?-1896, Irish Revolutionist, Humanist, Scholar, and Poet by Karen Tipper (Nichols College, Massachusetts) has recently been published by Edwin Mellon Press. Women's Studies No. 34. 644pp. ISBN: 0-7734-7263-0. 'The focus of this study is upon a progressive woman whose broad erudition allowed her to write on a great variety of subjects. Her own life as arevolutionist and writer, and her writings about women will interest thosein women's studies. As an Irish nationalist in a movement that had considerable influence on subsequent nationalist leaders like Arthur Griffith her views in her revolutionary poems and articles are still pertinent.'
Heather White's three books on Wilde subjects are published in Northern Ireland by Principia Press. These are Forgotten Schooldays, on Wilde's time at Portora Royal School, Enniskillen; Wildefire, on the tragic deaths of Emily and Mary Wilde; and A Wilde Family, the background to Oscar.
2. Never speaking disrespectfully: The Oscar Wilde Societies.
The inaugural celebration of the new Oscar Wilde Society of America (OWSOA),
founded by Marilyn Bisch and Joan Navarre,was
held in Minneapolis and Saint Paul, Minnesota, on 16th March.
The Society is currently planningthe first volume of the its newsletter. Under the guidance of editor-in-chief Lionel Johnson, 'Impressions' will include news of the American society'sevents as well as current scholarship on Oscar in America. Also includedwill be regular columns for research inquiries and announcement of Wilde-relatedevents. Suggestions and submissions are most welcome and may be sent bypost to Marilyn Bisch, OWSOA, Departmentof Humanities, Indiana State University, Terre Haute, IN 47809 USA or by email to mbisch@indstate.edu. Anyone interested in the American society may also make contact via the web page http://www.indstate.edu/humanities/owsoa.htm
[We greatly welcome this new contribution to Wilde scholarship and look forward to carrying Tables of Contents. For a publication of the Society see'Some Sell and Others Buy' -- Editor]
The other officers of the Society are
Joan Navarre, Vice President; e-mail jnavarre@hotmail.com
Richard Freed,Treasurer; English Department; Case Annex 488; Eastern Kentucky University; Richmond, Kentucky 40475. e-mail Richard.Freed@eku.edu
John B Thomas III, Secretary; Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center; The University of Texasat Austin
The Oscar Wilde Society announces the current Intentions (No. 19 - April 2002).
This notes, among many other books, Trevor Fisher's new Oscar and Bosie, and Gyles Brandreth's Brief Encounters - Meetings with Remarkable People where a chapter on Oscar Wilde includes an account of Brandreth, aged 17, interviewing John Badley, aged 101, who was headmaster at Bedales when Cyril Wilde was a pupil there. It also mentions three new books by Heather White — Forgotten Schooldays (Oscar at Portora), Wildefire (Oscar'shalf-sisters) and A Wilde Family.
There are useful reminders about books recently reissued in paperback, and an update on O.U.P.'s plans for publication of the future volumes of The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde.
Forthcoming events for members are detailed,including the Society's Annual Lunch at Magdalen College, with accounts of recent occasions, including the Society's visit to No. 1 Merrion Square and other Wilde locations in Dublin and Cork, a talk by Davis Coakley, and a meeting with the Oscar Wilde Society for the Suppression of Virtue.
The Society's visit to Reading Gaol, including the C.3.3. cell, is described: this was heavily oversubscribed, but another visit is planned for 2003.
For further information about The Oscar Wilde Society and the regular monthly listing of Tables of Contents from earlier numbers of The Wildean, click here.
Project Oscar Wilde
Project Oscar Wilde, the Northern Ireland Wilde group, announce their Oscar Wilde Weekend Festival. The first major literary event of its kind in this area of Ireland, it will be staged over the weekend of Friday 31st May to Sunday 2nd June in the County Fermanagh town of Enniskillen.
This opens with a dinner on Friday 31st May at which Senator David Norris will talk on'The Green Carnation and the Queer Nation—Oscar Wilde Reclaimed'. On Saturday morning there will be a tour of Portora Royal School, followed by a lecture by Professor Davis Coakley (TrinityCollege, Dublin) on 'The Irish Forbears of Oscar Wilde' and Heather White (Chairperson of Project Oscar Wilde) on Wilde's schooldays.
On Saturday afternoon the actor Michael James Ford will enact The Happy Prince at the Cole Monument, with local schoolchildren, in a version that he has played in Dublin, Cairo and Helsinki. This will be followed by Glynis Casson's one-woman show 'Oscar and the Sphinx' at Castlecoole (4.00p.m.). At 7.00 in the Ardhowen Theatre there will be a buffet supper followed by 'Wilde', a dramatisation by the Wilde Goose Company of Dundalk.
On Sunday morning, Michael James Ford and Glynis Casson will read excerpts from Wilde at Portora Royal School.
Many more details are in the Festival brochure, obtainable from inform@projectoscarWilde.net.
3. Film
The Importance of being Earnest
Karen Rosenberg supplies the following information:
The New York première is on 13th May at the Paris Theater at 7:30 pm. The Importance opens on 17th May in NY, LA, SF, Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston, Dallas, D.C., Detroit, Atlanta, Houston, Seattle, and Minneapolis with expansio nin the following week (May 24)
Ms Rosenberg's website http://www.spring.net/karenr/mdbro/earnest.html carries much valuable information about the film and many illustrations (one of which we reprint by kind permission) and we recommend it highly.
We expect the film to generate much
lively discussion and we remind readers that our correspondence section is now
accessible by clicking
4. A Wilde Bibliography
Following our German bibliography last month, Irina Istratescu (University of Bucharest) has very kindly supplied the following list of Wilde's translations into Romanian.
1. The Ballad of Reading Gaol (as Balada inchisorii din Reading). Bucuresti (Bucharest): Editura Univers (Univers Publishing House) 1971. Translation N. Porsenna. Illustrator Vasile Kazar.
2. De Profundis (as De Profundis) (with an introduction by A.Gide). Bucuresti: Editura Allfa 1999. Translator: Irina Izverna.
3. Theatre (as Teatru). Bucharest: Editura pentru Literatura universala (The Publishing House for Universal Literature). 1967. Translation Adriana & Andrei Bantas, Crisan Toescu, Alex Alcalay, Sima Zamfir.
4. Intentions (as Intentiuni). Bucharest: Editura Universala (Universal Publishing House) 1972. Translation Miha Radulescu.
5. The Canterville Ghost (as Fantoma din Canterville). Bucuresti: Editura Valahia (Valahia Publishing House) 1991. Translation Diana Deaconescu & Ramona Mitrica.
6. The Happy Prince & otherTales (as Printul fericit si altepovestir). Bucuresti: Editura Tineretului (Tineretului Publishing House) 1960 Translation Ticu Arhip. IllustratorAngi Petrescu
7. The Picture of Dorian Gray, Lord Arthur Savile's Crime (as Portretul lui Dorian Gray. Crima LorduluiSavile). Bucuresti: Editura pentruliteratura (Literature publishing house)1967. It was re-published in 1969, with the front cover by Hary Guttman. The translator's name is not given.
8. The Picture of Dorian Gray (as Portretul lui Dorian Gray). Iasi: Editura Polirom (Polirom publishinghouse) 2001. Translation Magda Teodorescu.
9. The Picture of Dorian Gray (as Portetul lui Dorian Gray). Bucuresti: Editura Hera (Hera Publishing house) 1992. Translation Dumitru Mazilu.
10. The Picture of Mr. W.H. (as Portretul Domnu lui W.H.) Bucuresti: Editura Compania (Compania Publishing House)2002.
11. The Decay of Lying (as Decaderea Minciunii). Iasi: Editura Polirom (Polirom publ house) 2001. Translation Magda Teodorescu.
12. Pages from Oscar Wilde (as Pagini din
Oscar Wilde). Bucuresti: Cartea Romaneasca (Cartea
Romaneasca Publishing House) 1937. Translation Alexandru Teodor Stamatiad.
13. Parables (as Parabole). Bucuresti: Institutul de Arte Grafice (Graphic Arts Institute) 1916. Translation N. Davidescu.
14. Poems in Prose (as Poemein proza). Bucuresti: H. Stenberg (H. Stenberg publishing house) 1919. Translation Alexandru Teodor Stamatiad.
Dimitrie Anghel : Oscar Wilde: A Sketch from Life. English version from the Romanian by Joseph Ishill. USA: Open Vistas 1925; reprinted Berkeley Heights, New Jersey. Oriole Press 1961.
A film of The Happy Prince (as 'Printul fericit') was made by Aurel Milheles in 1968.
5. Work in Progress
Jane Desmarais (Goldsmiths College, University of London) is writing A Cultural History of Decadence for Polity Press, and is working on two co-edited anthologies: one entitled A Decadence Reader (co-edited with Chris Baldick), and the other, a collection of essays on The Artist’s Model, withMartin Postle and William Vaughan, for Manchester University Press. She also continues to work on a second edition of the Annotated Secondary Bibliography of Aubrey Beardsley, (first edited by Nicholas Salerno), for ELT Press.
Joseph
Donohue (University of
Massachusetts-Amherst) writes 'I'm now working steadily on one play at a time
for the Oxford English Texts Wilde, from earliest to latest. My earliest (Joel Kaplan is doing the
other "earliest," Vera) is The Duchess of Padua. My very helpful graduate research assistant
and I are settling down to actual collation, having assembled the inordinately
large group of texts that stand behind the copy text.'
Virginie Fichot (University College, Dublin) writes 'I'm an Erasmus student in the French department of UCD, and I'm writting a thesis about The Happy Prince and A House of Pomegranates. I didn't find a lot of critics about this subject, then I would like to know how I could manage to find statistics about children publications, editions about these stories in the 19th century, also in the 20th.' virginiefichot@voila.fr
6. Summer School
The LITES 2000 Stage & Television Summer School will take place from Monday 15th July to Friday 26th July 2002 in Galway City, Republic of Ireland, during the annual Galway Arts Festival.
The LITES 2000 Summer School, which is suitable for all levels of experience, emphasizes the practical aspects of stage and screen presentation. Classes and workshops include movement, voiceproduction, improvisation, scene study, acting, rehearsal and performance. The aim is to ensure that the actor's performance remains centered and intact, while playing to a live audience, or coping with cameras, lights, sound, etc. This is not a talking-shop, but a practical training course for those wishing to 'get out there and do it'. Whether appearing at the Royal National Theatre, acting in television soap, providing a management presentation, or simply answering the telephone this course will improve technique, enhance acting skills, build confidence and improve self-esteem. The minimum age for attendance is eighteen, however there is no upper age limit.
All staff members are professional actors, directors, broadcasters etc., with extensive performance and training experience. Guest speakers from the world of theatre, TV and film; provide insights on various aspect of the profession. A range of short lectures covers British/ Irish theatre; the contribution of Irish dramatists; acting in the modern world; screen technique; voice-over, etc. The student body is drawn from countries worldwide, with participants ranging from professional actors and university professors to drama students, teachers and office personnel, as well as those with little or no previous presentation experience.
While the objective is to broaden participant'srange of ability, the social aspect of the event must not be forgotten. Participants are free each evening to enjoy all that Galway has to offer. The city is a hive of activity during the festival. Theatres, restaurants, pubs, clubs, and every street corner a venue for performance, music andsong. It's the perfect setting for students to let their hair down andenjoy life. It can also be the perfect backdrop to just relax and talk about fears, hopes, aims and ambitions with fellow students and membersof the teaching staff.
The Director, Gerard Reidy, writes 'For further information check out our website www.lites2000.com or contact me directly. Should any reader mention THE OSCHOLARS we will be delighted to offerthem a 10% discount.'
LITES 2000,
Stage & Television Summer School,
113 Broadhurst Gardens,
London NW6 3BJ
England
Tel: 00
- 44 - (0) 20 7624 5661
E-mail: Principal@lites2000.com
Website: www.lites2000.com
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III. THE CRITIC AS CRITIC
We hope to carry at least one review in each issue.
1. The Dwarf in Brunswick
Horst Schroeder
Zemlinsky's Der Zwerg (The
Dwarf)at the Staatstheater Braunschweig 'All Wild(e) things go by three,'
the directors of the Staatstheater Braunschweig must have thought, for with
Zemlinsky's 'tragic fairy tale for music in one act' Der Zwerg, which is
based on 'The Birthday of the Infanta' and which had its première on 28th
March, the name of Wilde has now appeared for the third time on the programme
during the current season. (The other
two occasions were Henning Paar's impressive ballet For Each Man Kills the
Thing He Loves, which dramatised certain scenes from the life of Oscar Wilde, and
an evening reading called In Memoriam C.3.3 at which Wilde's Nightingale
and the Rose, The Artist, and The Ballad of Reading Gaol were
delivered in German translation.)
Zemlinsky's work in general and
his opera Der Zwerg in particular are certainly not household words to
the ordinary theatre-goer any more. This
is probably due to some extent to Zemlinsky's music itself, which is difficult
to define ('somewhere between Mahler and Schoenberg'); and partly it seems to
have to do with Zemlinsky's lack of push and his insufficient ability to market
his goods when there was a time for it.
Thus he wrote to Alma Mahler in 1930: 'In the last analysis, you are
always yourself to blame for your misfortunes.
At least you are unguiltily guilty.
I certainly lack that certain something which you must have -- and today
more than ever before -- in order really to succeed. In such a crowd it is not enough to have
elbows, you must also know how to use them.' Not surprisingly, when the Nazis
came to power and banned all Jewish art, driving Zemlinsky into exile, he and
his music soon slipped into oblivion.
And when he died on 15 March 1942 near New York, hardly anybody in the
world of music took notice.
This situation outlasted the end
of National Socialism, for when a new beginning could be made in 1945, the
avant garde regarded Zemlinsky's music as too traditional to stimulate a
revival. And yet no less a
representative of the new music (and incidentally Zemlinsky's brother-in-law)
than Arnold Schoenberg reaffirmed in 1949 that he had always been convinced,
and still was, that Zemlinsky was a great composer, and he prophesied that
Zemlinsky's time would come, perhaps sooner than some people expected.
Zemlinsky's time did come
indeed, though not until the early 1970s.
And Der Zwerg, which had first been performed in 1922 in Cologne
conducted by Otto Klemperer and which had been Zemlinsky'smost-often performed
opera, had even to wait for almost another ten years before in 1981 the
Staatsoper Hamburg put it on stage again in a widely applauded production, at
the same time changing its title - with the agreement of Zemlinsky's widow - to
Der Geburtstag der Infantin (The Birthday of the Infanta). This was the title as Zemlinsky had
originally conceived it, but which he had abandoned when he noticed that Franz
Schreker was working on a ballet by that name.
The Braunschweig production then
has to be seen as part of a broader movement to help Zemlinsky come into his
own at last. For this effort alone the
production deserves praise. But this is
its least merit. First and foremost the
production deserves praise because in every respect it is of the highest
quality and can stand up to any criticism.
To begin with the mise-en-scène: the opera opens with the
preparations, as silly as they are ceremonious, for the Infanta's birthday
party – which preparations the audience watches as if through a huge oval
spy-hole which gives the whole setting an air of something unreal. Into this artificial world the Dwarf breaks
from back stage, immediately occupies the centre stage, and when the drama
reaches its climax, making the action spill over onto the front stage. The courtiers are all dressed in the
phantastic costumes of the Spanish court of the 16th and 17th century -- with
the dress (and hairstyle) of the Infanta modelled on Velasquez's famous
painting, one of Wilde's sources of inspiration -, while the Dwarf is
appropriately enough dressed in rags.
There is a delightful tiny doll - a nod in thedirection of The Tales
of Hoffmann - with a huge key at its back whichis occasionally wound up
whereupon the doll starts tripping in a bee-line across the stage. Broad humour is provided by the rabble that
suddenly pops up from under the podium to snatch their piece of birthday cake. And a fine elegance is achieved by putting
the courtly dances offstage and projecting the dancers as dark silhouettes on a
semi--transparent backcloth. (For the Wildëan, this device has the additional
thrill of evoking 'The Harlot's House': 'Like strange mechanical grotesques, /
Making fantastic arabesques, / The shadows raced across the blind ...').
As superb and ingenious the
setting and directing, so impeccable the musical presentation, both
instrumental as well as vocal. Jonas Alber
conducts with a firm hand and casts admirably into clear relief the various
distinctive musical tones. All singers
are ideally fitted to their parts, above all the four major characters:
Laurence Gien with his full well-ringing bass as Major-Domo; Eva-Christine
Reimer with her warm timbre as the compassionate Ghita; Birgitta Rydholm with a
clear soprano of great dramatic power as the cold-hearted Infanta; and of
course Norbert Schmittberg as Dwarf, whose lyrical tenor (aria of the blood
orange) is deeply moving and whose heart-rending expression of his soul's agony
leaves the audience speechless.
My congratulations and my
respect!
When in 1981 the Staatstheater
Hamburg brought out the first postwar production of Der Zwerg (Der
Geburtstag der Infantin), they did so in a double bill with another one-act
opera, again by Zemlinsky, and again based on Wilde: The Florentine Tragedy
(first performance 1917). Thinking
perhaps that this was making too great demands on the audience, the
Braunschweig theatre management decided to couple Zemlinsky's sombre music
drama Der Zwerg withPuccini's one-act opéra bouffe Gianni Schicchi,
thus providing comic relief. Puccini's
farce, too, is a masterly production.
But this is another story.
v Horst Schroeder teaches at the Universität Braunschweig.
|
Donna Clara, Infanta of Spain |
Birgitta Rydholm |
|
Ghita, her favourite maid |
Eva-Christine Reimer |
|
Don Estoban, Major—Domo |
Laurence Gien |
|
The Dwarf |
Norbert Schmittberg |
|
First Maid |
Marina Welge |
|
Second Maid |
Sabine Brandt |
|
Third Maid |
Daina Vingelyte |
|
First Girl |
Doris Langara |
|
Second Girl |
Karen Antje Vogel |
|
Playmates |
Ladies' Chorus of the Staatstheater |
|
A Doll |
Shari-Sophie Birkhahn |
|
Conductor |
Jonas Alber |
|
Producer |
Uwe Schwarz |
|
Stage Design and Costumes |
Dorit Lievenbrück |
|
Chorus |
Georg Menskes |
|
Literary and Artistic Adviser |
Cordula Engelbert |
2. Earnest in Oregon
John Duncan
Last term I encouraged my students to attend a production of The Importance of Being Earnest at a local community college. Although it was a community college production, I knew that the director did good work, and I anticipated that the production would be perhaps pedestrian in its interpretation but would nonetheless be a passable version of a great play. After all, Wilde's script is almost impossible to do without being funny. It would even be funny as reader's theater.
I could not have been more wrong. When I entered the theater I was greeted with a set that consisted of a half dozen trifold screens painted with wild flourishes of plants trailing up them or of wallpaper with a painting framed and centered on the screen, all simply black on white. The floor was divided down the middle with two grids of white squares meeting at an odd angle in the center on a black floor. It was all very two-dimensional and cartoonish.
When the actors entered, they carried this same flourish and cartoonish nature in their acting. They addressed the audience directly. They tossed muffins into the crowd. Algernon came down and sat on the lap of a woman in the front row. All of their movements were large and exaggerated and reminded me of Gene Wilder at his silliest. It took me a while to realize what they were oing. They were doing the play in a 'music hall version,' rather like the English music hall entertainment that we can still see in very early films. Frankly, I found it intriguing.
The humor was much broader than we usually expect from this great classic, but it was refreshing to see the play done in such an original way. The director also seemed to have gauged his audience very well. The community college is in a mostly bluecollar town, filled with the families of loggers and more ex-loggers, whose lives are far removed from the upper class characters in Wilde'sscript. But the music hall entertainers were very familiar to them. One couple had even brought a baby to the play, normally an unforgiveable social error in the 'this is theater, my dear sir' crowd in the city. But in this case, the cast merely included the baby in their banter. At one point the baby began to cry, and Algernon turned to Gwendolyn and said, 'Is that a baby I hear.' And she replied, 'How wonderfully perceptive you are.'
Much of the linguistic humor of the play waslost in the broad strokes and all of the winking and nudging andcavorting that dominated the stage, but perhaps much of it would have been lost anyway. And much was also gained, in the audience's identification with the form that they were invited to take part in. The music hall style, after all, evolved into vaudeville, and from there into the television skit comedy of the 50's and 60's, and to modern audiences through television shows like Saturday Night Live and through the more presentational forms of modern theater. The interpretation of The Importance of Being Earnest that was presented at out local community college might have struck some in the audience as reminiscent of Christopher Durang, Caryl Churchill, or Tom Stoppard.
As I was driving home from the theater, ponderingthe production as only an academic would force himself to, I wondered if Wilde would have liked this interpretation. I think he would. It was, after all, very whimsical and slyly unpretentious. Perhaps it wasn't 'what is done' but then, Wilde was not Lady Bracknell, nor was meant to be. He loved what is fresh and alive and unafraid to beitself, and for all of those qualities, I think he would have been pleased.
v John Duncan teaches Theater Appreciation at Portland State University
3. Salomé in Giessen
Tine Engelbert
Opera by Antoine Mariotte. Lyrics by Oscar Wilde.
One-time performance in a series "Oper am Klavier" in the Stadttheater Giessen in Germany on Sunday 14th April 2002, first performance in Germany.
"This work cries out for music", is what Richard Strauss said after having seen the performance of Oscar Wilde's Salomé in Berlin. Strauss was not the first to want to adapt this success de scandale drawing on the tale of the stepdaughter of Herod. The French composer, Antoine Mariotte, had adapted the original work of Wilde as a musical composition even before his colleague. There was, however, a disagreement concerning the author's rights and Strauss was luckier. The French Salomé, although being composed before the German, was performed three years after the première of the German Salomé in Dresden, on the 30th October 1905 in Lyon.
Antoine Mariotte is not well known. There is hardly one historical reference about this French composer and his work is seldom performed. All the more reason to congratulate the Stadttheater Giessen for their initiative to perform his Salomé adaptation.
Mariotte was born on the 22nd December 1875 in Avignon. Around the beginning of the 20th century he was renowned as a director, composer and pedagogue in Paris. He followed the lectures of Vincent d'Indy at the Schola Cantorum and was a teacher of direction, pian oand composition in Lyon and Orleans. While Mariotte was the director o fthe Opéra-Comique in Paris (1936-?1939), he had a personal interest inmusical compositions based on literature and transcriptions of exotic opera subjects. This personal interest was of major importance for his own creations ,for example 'Esther, princesse d'Israel' a transcription of a drama by André Dumas and 'Gargantua, scènes rabelaisiennes'. Antoine Mariotte died in Paris on his birthday in 1944.
Salomé is the first opera by Mariotte. He wanted to use Salomé quite literally, word for word, for his musical composition. It was his way of promoting opera based onliterature. But because 'copying the work of Wilde', he got no rights to perform the opera at first. Richard Strauss however did not use the original French text by Wilde as a basis for his libretto, but a German translationby Hedwig Lachmann.
Mariotte's forgotten masterpiece of the musical 'Jugendstil' is full of refined oriental sounds, intriguing rhythms and to crescendo swelling melodies.
Mariotte used every dramatic musical effect for which the French opera round the year 1900 was known. The choirs, the oriental colouring next to the intimate lyrics transform the creation into a 'musical painting'. Mariotte's style is somewhere between the representative style of the 'Grand Opera' and the refined psychology of the lyrical tragedy. Massenet, Berlioz and Debussy were definitely the musical examples for Mariotte, besides Richard Wagner, whose Tristan was most influential in Paris round the year 1900.
On the 14th April the Stadttheater Giessen performed the Salomé of Mariotte in a shortened version.Six vocalists and, at the piano, Stefan Malzew,who arranged the composition, performed the most important scenes of theopera in a concert version. Dr Freidhelm Häring introduced the opera, and linked in a charming way the individual pieces, reconstructing the story and procuring information of the work of Oscar Wilde, his literary examples, the Salomé iconography and the biblical history. The cast, the young group of vocalists, brought an outstanding performance. The soprano, Larysa Molnárová (Salomé) and the bass-baritone Andrew Costello (Iokanaan) are names to remember, but also the other performers, Marie-Helen Joel (Hérodias), Cristian Tschelebiew (Hérode), Mikael Babajanyan (1st soldier) and Jeroen Bik (the young Syrian), did very well. The small performance from the choir of the Stadttheater was nicely done. All the lyrics were in French, exactly as in the original work fromWilde.
'Brilliant', is the least we can say about this performance of the Stadttheater Giessen. It certainly made us wish for the performance of the full version of Mariotte's Salomé.
v Tine Englebert (Rijksuniversiteit Gent) is researching the musical settings of Wilde.
4. Salomé in London
This event was so unusual that we are printing two reviews, the first by Joan Navarre,the second by Donald Mead.
1. Joan Navarre
On 28 March at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art Professor Kimie Imura Lawlor presented 'Salomé: Iconographic Changes of Images in East and West: Exhibition, Lecture & Performances", a muti-faceted event celebrating the pull and power of Salomé.
The exhibition presented a kaleidoscope of images: paintings, reliefs and stained glass from various cathedrals; photographs of Salome paintings (Moreau, Klimt, Beardsley, etc.); original oil paintings (including one created for the event by Amano Yoshitaka); first editions and rare prints of Salomé; photographs of Japanese productions, including Mishima's Salomé; costumes, programmes and posters from 1913 to the present.
The lecture, presented by Professor Lawlor in English and translated into Japanese by her son, addressed how one symbol (Salomé) has changed through out the last six centuries in Europe and Japan. The lecture complemented the exhibit, Salomé placing special emphasis on Oscar Wilde's play. Wilde viewed Salomé as a mirror, reflecting those who look.
The performances consisted of two dramatic productions: comic theatre and sacred dance. The theatrical performance was Kyogen Salomé. Kyogen is an ancient comic form. It uses stylized gesture and speech. This was produced and directed by Izumi Motoya (20th Master of Izumi Soke), Izumi Junko, and Izumi Shoko. Kyogen Salomé offered a fresh interpretation of Wilde's Salomé. Wilde's play is defined as 'A Tragedy in One Act.' However, there is comedy in this tragedy. Alla Nazimova recognized this, calling her silent film of Salomé a 'pantomime.' Suggestive of Nazimova's rendition, Kyogen Salomé offered highly stylized movements and dialogue full of comic inversion.
Kyogen Salomé was followed by Reika Kou. Hailed as an ambassador of Egyptian dance, Reika Kou danced a sacred Salomé solo. Using a rose, veils, and gestures she named the three colours central to Wilde's play: white, red, and black. The dance began with an invocation to the Moon Goddess. Salomé danced with a white rose. Then, the rose disappeared. Near the end, after Salomé received the head of John the Baptist, the white rose re-appeared. The audience experienced poetic alchemy. A single dancer with seven veils suggested a mystical union. Salomé placed red veils on a bare stage floor, around the head of St. John the Baptist. The veils formed a large circle, and blossomed into a full red moon. At the same time, a black orb (the head of John the Baptist, with black hair facing the audience) appeared to float in a pool of blood.
Salomé sprinkled white petals whileshe danced on and under and around the full red moon. And then therewas silence.
The stage faded to black.
The entire evening - a celebration dedicated to Salomé, indebted to Wilde, and adorned by a full moon- was unforgettable.
v Joan Navarre, Vice-President of The Oscar Wilde Society of America, is working on a biography of Edward Heron-Allen.
2. Donald Mead
The combined event of lecture, exhibitionand performances, Salomé —Iconographic Changes of Images in Eastand West, on 28th March at the Jerwood Vanburgh Theatre, Royal Academyof Dramatic Art, began with a reception in the RADA foyer where there was a fascinating exhibition of editions of Wilde's Salomé, including those illustrated by Beardsley, Alastair and André Derain,and early illustrated publications in Japanese, together with photographs, costumes, programmes and posters of stage performances of Saloméin Japan from 1913 until the present.
Kimie Imura Lawlor's lecture Salomé in East and West was introduced and given a running translation into English by her son, who said that one of his duties as a young man was to assist her Salomé researches by reporting back to her after his visits to galleries and museums. He became adept at spotting severed heads! Kimie is a member of the Oscar Wilde Society and one of the founders of the Oscar Wilde Society of Japan.
She traced the history of performances of Salomé in Japan. It was first acted in Tokyo by Matui Sumako in 1913 and became very popular. The dance of the seven veils was received as an erotic performance; Salomé’s demand that Jokanaan be beheaded was merely sadistic, and her kissing the dead mouth was seen as exquisitely grotesque. Japanese people, being mostly Buddhists, did not see her as a Biblical figure. Salomé, like an erotic Oriental belly-dancer, stripped her gossamer veils one by one to emerge as a fearful demon lover, realizing her gratuitous and brutal desire to possess the decapitated organof oral passion.
The first true presentation of Wilde's play in Japan was the production by Mishima Yukio in 1960 in a new translationby a scholar-poet, Hinatsu Kohnosuke. This had an elegance combining Oriental mysticism and Western beauty. As Mishima wrote: 'Salomé is like a spoiled child — but the child seeking possession of the butterfly involuntarily tears it apart' and 'Beauty equals eroticism equals death equals the Absolute'.
The performance which followed was of Salomé as a Kyogen drama. Normally this is a comic form for short folk plays about the everyday experiences of simple personalities, but here it interpreted a tragic subject. Highly stylised in both action and speech in the unbroken tradition of over 650 years of the Izumi family school of Kyogen, MotoyaIzumi (Herod) Shoko Izumi (Herodias) and Junko Izumi (Salomé) impressively conveyed the drama of the play with a powerful economy of gesture.
Then Kou Reika,in an hour-long solo dance, presented the story of Wilde’s Salomé in seven scenes. The opening ‘Prayer to the Moon Goddess’ was followed by the 'Joy of Salomé' — an exotic and erotic dance of the seven veils in Egyptian belly-dancing mode. The succeeding dances expressed strongerpassions, suffering and madness, and finally, with quite breath-taking dramatic effect, 'Death and Revival' with Salomé and the head of Jokanaan in mystic union. It was an extraordinary and moving achievement, both in concept and performance.
The whole evening showed us unfamiliar aspects of Salomé, and reminded us of Wilde’s remark that his play was likea mirror reflecting those who look into it.
v Donald Mead is Editor of The Wildean. This review is reprinted by kind permission from Intentions, the Newsletter of the Oscar Wilde Society.
5. Book review
Walter W. Nelson: The Creative 1890s: Essays on W.E. Henley, Arthur Symons, Oscar Wilde, and William Butler Yeats, Lund, 2001.
Jane Desmarais
The Creative 1890s is a bibliographical surveyof the work of four 'pioneers and innovators' of the 1890s. It opens with a descriptive trawl through the poetry and criticism of the anti-decadent, W.E. Henley, championed by Arthur Symons as original and modern in an article for the Fortnightly Review in 1892. Nelson's essay begins with a dissection of Henley's collection of poems, Hospital (1873-5), which was based on his own experiences as a patient at the Old Infirmary in Edinburgh. Nelson lingers appropriately over the important poems, 'Envoy' and 'London Voluntaries', and follows this with a survey of critical responses to Henley's work by critics, including James Thomson, Arthur Symons, Oscar Wilde, W.B.Yeats, and Henley's biographer, John Connell.
The second essay in Nelson's volume offers 'New Observations on Arthur Symons and Oscar Wilde and the English 1890s'. Drawing on the defining theatricality of the 1890s, but hardly 'new', the observation is made that Symons was the leading poet of music-halls, and London night-life. The contents of Silhouettes (1892) and London Nights (1895) are described in detail, with particular attention to Symons' debt to France and the poets, Baudelaire, Verlaine and Rimbaud. This is followed by a survey of critical works. The observations on Wilde are important additions to the Wilde industry, and they include a critique of Ellmann's biography of 1987 by the German critic, Horst Schroeder, and a report of two hitherto unnoticed articles published in the Swedish journal, Tidskriftför hemmet, tillegnad den svenska qvinnan (A Journal for the home, devoted to Swedish Women) in 1861 that note the presence of Doctor Wilde and his wife at a meeting that year for the Promotion of Social Science in Dublin.
Nelson's third essay provides some interesting cultural-historical insights into Victorian prison imagery and Wilde's Ballad of Reading Gaol. Drawing on the historical studies of Kellow Chesney and Philip Priestley of the Victorian underworld and prison life, Nelson gives a contextualised reading of the poem and demonstrates how Wilde used his experience of prison life and solitary confinement to underpin the poem. Particularly suggestive is Nelson's systematic itemisation of Wilde’s knowledge of and allusions to prison slang (what he called 'technical expressions'). But, none are that revealing. As with the other essays, the most insightful section deals with the critical response to the poem, which includes a review in The Outlook of March 1898, which Nelson suggests betrays W.E.Henley's unmistakable prose. The essay on The Ballad of Reading Gaol concludes with a detailed analysis of Yeats' editing of the poemfor his anthology of English poetry.
The last essay in this short volume is entitled 'The Early Poetry of William Butler Yeats up to The Wind Among the Reeds (1899)'. This contribution follows the pattern of the other essays,with a descriptive summary of the poems followed by a synopsis of the critical reception. While useful to the bibliophile and 1890s specialist, this formulaic approach would deny the book a place on most bedside tables. The Creative 1890s is essentially a work of reference, and one with which many 1890s enthusiasts will enjoy taking issue. One can envisage the loud and lengthy protestations of Yeats scholars over fiddling dates and allusions in Nelson's summary of Yeats early poetry.
Written and published by Nelson, it is difficult at times not to be overwhelmed by the presence of the author, but this is both a good and a bad thing. Bibliographical research is a painstaking, specialist craft, but when completed, is often only as insightful as the index permits. Nelson commands his material, although some of the material is undeserving of such careful scrutinising. There is much that is 'minor' in the poetry of the 1890s. But that is by the by. My main criticism is not of thebibliographical scholarship, but of the intellectual coherence of the volume. It is not obvious why the 1890s are 'creative', as suggested by the title, and it would have been interesting if the notion of creativity could havebeen mobilised as connective tissue between the four essays. However, although there is creative little in this book, there is much to applaud. Lionel Johnson is not the only one (allegedly) to have fallen between stools; W.E. Henley's reputation has needed standing up for a while, and it is refreshing to see respectful attention paid to his work.
One wonders if the minutiae of the 1890s will ever cease to wonder, but clearly, as Nelson shows, there are enough allusions, discrepancies, and multiple re-drafts to keep scholars of the period occupied and amused for another hundred years.
v Jane Desmarais teaches English and Art History at Goldsmiths Collge, University of London, and is the author of The Beardsley Industry: The Critical Reception in Englandand France 1893-1914. Aldershot, Hants: Ashgate Publishing Ltd 1998.
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IV. NEWS FROM ELSEWHERE
1. Entertainment
For The Oscar Wilde Festival Weekend, Enniskillen, County Fermanagh see under news from the Oscar Wilde Societies.
2. Exhibitions
1. Three Women: Early Portraits by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec.
Fogg Art Museum, Harvard, Cambridge, USA. This opened on 6th April and continues to 21st July. 'Three Women: Early Portraits by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec" offers a view of Toulouse-Lautrec's earliest work while encouraging an examination of the artist's innovative approach to portraiture and an investigation of the roles of women in the Paris art world of the 1880s.'
2. The Time of Degas.
This exhibition at the Gemeentemuseum, Den Haag (The Hague), The Netherlands opened on 23rd March 2and runs to 14th July.
Thanks to a highly exceptional loan from the Musée d'Orsay in Paris, this exhibition includes masterpieces of Impressionism. On view are Degas' group portrait of the Bellelli family, the portrait of his grandfather, a ballet rehearsal in the Opéra and a self-portrait. Other works on display include Renoir's The Swing, paintings of Breton peasants by Gauguin, Monet's Women in a Garden and works by Manet, Cézanne, Courbet and Delacroix. This is the first exhibition in Holland ever which is devoted to Degas and his era. A catalogue has been put together by staff members of the Musée d'Orsay and the Gemeente Museum. A number of music, film, dance and literature events, in co-operation with the French embassy in The Hague, are organized during this same period. These activities provide a varied illustration of cultural life in Paris in the final decades of the 19th century.
3. Exposed: The Victorian Nude.
This runs to 2nd June at the Haus der Kunst, Munich, Germany.
4. Love & Death: Art in the
Age of Queen Victoria.
This runs to 12th May at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia.
5. Van Gogh & Gauguin
… is the currentexhibition at the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam.
6. The Kelmscott Press at Bryn
Mawr
William Morris established the Kelmscott Press in the 1880s as a reaction against the poor quality of late 19th century printing, and to set a standard for quality in layout and design, materials and technique. This exhibition will draw upon Bryn Mawr's extensive collection of Kelmscott Press books to explore the history of the KelmscottPress in the context of Victorian England. It will also examine the proceduresand techniques of "building" a Kelmscott Press book, from woodcuts by Edward Burne-Jones and the development of Morris's decorative letters, to the physical layout of the book itself.
The exhibition is mounted in the Class of 1912 Rare Book Room, Mariam Coffin Canaday Library, Bryn Mawr College, Bryn Mawr, PA. and is open 9:00 am to 4:30 pm, Monday through Friday, or by special arrangement. 26th March - 2nd June.
7. William Morris: Creating the
Useful and the Beautiful.
9th April to 22nd September 2002, Huntington Library.
The prolific and influential career of William Morris (1834-1896) is explored in this exhibition based on The Huntington’srecently acquired collection of Morris material. A pre-eminent figure in Victorian England, the multi-faceted designer, printer, and craftsman is seen by many as the father of the Arts and Crafts Movement. Stunning examples of his work in a variety of media will illustrate the design process for each of the crafts produced by his firm Morris & Co., from preliminary drawings to completed stained glass windows, wallpaper, printed fabrics, carpets, tapestries and books.
The Huntington has the finest collection in the United States of the works of William Morris. The collection got itsstart in the early 20th century with Henry Huntington's interest in booksand manuscripts related to Morris and his Kelmscott Press. Subsequent acquisitions included letters, drawings, scrapbooks, and other works. Then, in 1999, The Huntington purchased the Sanford and Helen Berger Collection, the most extensive private collection of Morris materials in the U.S. With that acquisition, The Huntington joined the Victoria and Albert Museum and the William Morris Gallery in England as one of the leading centers in the world for the study of Morris’s work. Huntington Gallery.
3. Talks and Visits.
1. Talks at the Tate.
'Beauty and Ugliness' and 'Glamorous Outcasts - Artists and Bohemia' are the titles of two courses at Tate Britain (the old Tate Gallery, Millbank) being held in May and June. The following are of particular interest:
2nd May: Dominic Willsdon on 'Beauty and Æsthetics'
13th June: Philip Hoare, author of Wilde's Last Stand on 'Oscar Wilde, Dandies and the Fin de Siècle.'
Unfortunately one cannot book for the individual lectures.
2. William Morris events in
London.
The website of the William Morris Society is http://www.morrissociety.org/index.html
Saturday 11th May, 2.15 pm. The William Morris Society's 47th Annual General Meeting.
To be held in the coach-house of Kelmscott House, 26 Upper Mall, Hammersmith, London W6.
Admission is free. Following the AGM, John Purkis, a past Honorary Secretary of the Society, will present ashort talk, the second Penelope Fitzgerald Memorial Address, on the stained glass windows installed in the Queen Elizabeth Grammar School, Blackburn.
Saturday 18th May, 2.15 p.m. Gardens of the Arts & Crafts Movement
William Morris's influence on the design of gardens of the Arts & Crafts Movement will be described in an illustrated talk by Jane Balfour. Reference will be made to the gardens at Kelmscott Manor, Rodmarten and Owlpen Manor, amongst others. Jane Balfour lectures on garden history at Reading University and for the Workers' Educational Association.
3. Victor Hugo Celebrations in
London.
The Institut Français celebrates the bicentenary of the birth of Victor Hugo
'Opening round table organised incollaboration with the TLS: Hugo between Britain and France Thursday 2nd May, 7.00 p.m. with Graham Robb, author of THE biography in English of Victor Hugo; and Jean-Marc Hovasse, who has embarked on a project on a scale with his subject: a 200 chapter biography of the great poet / novelist / playwright /politician/ visionary.
They will be joined by three equally impressive translators -- John Sturrock (Les Misérables),Tim Adès (L'art d'être grand-père) and Harry Guest (collected poems) to form a panel chaired by AdrianTahourdin from the Times Literary Supplement and discuss Victor Hugo's relationship with Britain as well as his exile between France and the UK in Jersey and Guernsey. Readings of some of Hugo's texts will illustrate the talk. In English with some French.'
Institut Français, 17 Queensberry Place, South Kensington.
Free admission to the talks.
4. Victorian Society events for May.
Pleasecheck with the Society for availability of places. E-mail: admin@victorian-society.org.uk The Victorian Society, 1 Priory Gardens,Bedford Park, London W4 1TT, England. Telephone 020 8994 1019 Facsimile 020 87475899. Website: http://www.victorian-society.org.uk/events.html
(If you write and would like a reply, pleaseinclude a stamped, addressed envelope.)
Wednesday 1st May 6.30 p.m. A private view of the new De Morgan Centre, Wandsworth
An introductory talk and a tour of the new home of the De Morgan Foundation collection, the former West Hill Reference Library, Wandsworth. See William De Morgan's remarkable Islamic-inspired lustre ceramics, and the Pre-Raphaelite paintings of his wife Evelyn De Morgan. 30 places. £6+SAE.
Friday 3rd May 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. The art of chivalry: Victorian art and the Middle Ages -- study day
Interest in the Middle Ages and a passion for Arthurian myth seemed to invade every area of Victorian culture. This study day, jointly organised with Tate Britain, examines the developmentof this phenomenon in painting, architecture, art criticism, interiorsand the decorative arts throughout the nineteenth century. Topics includethe influence of antiquarianism, the ideas of Ruskin and Carlyle, Pugin, Burges and William Morris. Speakers include Chris Brooks, Rosemary Hill, Robert Hewison, Matthew Williams, Joanna Banham and Christine Riding. To book, call Tate ticketing, 020 7887 8888.
Saturday 11th May 10 a.m.-- 6 p.m. Waddesdon and other Rothschild houses
Led by Michael Hall. Buckinghamshire has some of the greatest Victorian country houses, thankslargely to the Rothschilds, who colonised the county to form a power basefor their political advancement. We begin at Waddesdon Manor, created by Baron Ferdinand Rothschild in 1874-82, and the most complete surviving example in Europe of a great Rothschild house, collection and garden. After lunch there, we tour other Rothschild houses, estate buildings and villages in the area. £28 for National Trust members (you must bring your membership card), £38 non-NT members, including coach, morning coffee and lunch. Coach departs Aylesbury station 10.05 a,m. (Marylebone train 8.57),returning approx 6 pm.
Tuesday 14th May 6.30 p.m. St Mary Magdalene, Paddington
Visit led by Paul Joyce to G.E. Street's magnificent church of 1868-73, rising dramatically from the south bank of the Grand Junction Canal in Paddington, with Ninian Comper's chapel of St Sepulchre in the crypt. Meet at the church, Rowington Close, W2. £6 pay on the day.
Saturday 18th May 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Building the world city: the life of Edwardian London — study day
Held jointly with the Museum of London this is a sequel to the very popular 'Faces of Victorian London' day. It gives an over view of the major Edwardian developments that shaped London andits culture. We will examine key themes of architecture, social debates, art, literature, technology and politics including suffragettes, the gardensuburb as well as looking at popular entertainment at the music hall andcinema. Speakers include David Peters Corbett and Chris Willis. To book, phone the Museum of London Box Office: 0207814 5777.
Tuesday 21st May 12 noon to 7 p.m. SAVE Book Fair.
SAVE Britain's Heritage have invited forty conservation organisations to set up stalls at a book fair intended to raise awareness of their activities among a wider audience. At The Gallery, 77 Cowcross Street, Farringdon, London EC1. Tube: Farringdon. Free entry.
Tuesday 21st May 6.30 p.m. Regent's Park walk.
A walk around Regent's Park led by Roger Cline, looking at the architectural development of the Victorian period. Meet Great Portland Street Tube station. £6 pay on the day.
Saturday 25th May 12 noon-3.45 p.m. Holy Rood, Watford
Led by Peter Howell, this is one of two events marking the centenary of J.F. Bentley's death. Holy Rood (1889-1900) is one of the most beautiful of all late gothic revivalchurches. St John's (1891-3), by E.E. White, has a screen etc by Comper. £6 + SAE for ticket and map or meet at the church (Market Street, a 15 minute walk from Watford station).
4. Conferences.
1.
Shopping for Modernities: Selling and buying goods for the home
1870-1939.
Kingston University, Dorich House Annual Conference No. 4, Faculty of Art, Design and Music. Friday 10th May/Saturday 11th May. Keynote address: Professor Rachel Bowlby.
Increasing interest in the subject of shopping for goods with which to create the domestic interior and through which a modern identity was created provides the starting point for this conference. The papers will address the themes of shopping and class formation, shopping and gender, shop display, the development of the department store, retail interiors and the expansion of the local high street in Europe and the USA.
For bookings and accommodation details please contact: Short course Unit, Faculty of Art Design & Music, Kingston University, Knights Park, Kingston upon Thames, Surrey KT1 2QJ, Tel: +44(0) 20 85472000 ext. 4066. E-mail: Katie@kingston.ac.uk.
For information about the programme E-mail: b.martin@kingston.ac.uk.
This year's conference will be held in the Lawley Lecture Theatre on the Kingston Hill campus, 5 minutes walk from Dorich House. Dorich House will be open for delegates to visit from 10a.m. - 1 p.m. on Friday morning (free admission but booking required for numbers).
Brenda Martin, Curator, Dorich House, Kingston University. Kingston Vale, London SW1 53RN. Tel: +44 (0)20 8547 7515. E-mail: b.martin@kingston.ac.uk.
2. Irish
Studies in Bergen
The third biannual NISN (Nordic Irish Studies Network) conference in Bergen 15-16 (17) May 2002. NISN 2002 will be hosted by the University of Bergen, Norway, with the possible support of other academic institutions and take place at Rica Travel Hotel. The conference takes place on 15th—16th May and all guests are encouraged to enjoy the felicitous celebrations of the Norwegian National Day on 17th May.
Guest Speakers:
Edna Longley (Queen's University, Belfast)
Michael Longley, Whitbread Poetry Prize Winner.
Paul Muldoon (Princeton University).
3. The
Victorian Material Object
A Conference sponsored by the Victorian Committee of the Ph.D. Program in English, The Graduate Center, CUNY; The Simon H. Rifkind Center for the Humanities and the Arts at The City College, CUNY, and The Victorian Studies Bulletin.
Thursday 2nd May at 4.00 p.m. Carol Mavor will deliver a talk 'Swallowing Childhood: Lartigue, Proust, and Wilde' at the Simon H. Rifkind Room NAC 6/219, The City College, Convent Avenue at 138th Street, New York City. All welcome.
Friday 3rd May. The Graduate Center, City University of New York, Elebash Recital Hall, first floor/
8.45 to 9.15 Coffee
Welcome: Joan Richardson, Executive Officer, Ph.D. Program in English.
MODERATOR: George Levine (Rutgers University)
SPEAKERS: John Plotz (Johns Hopkins University): ‘The Social Life of Victorian Things: Commodities, Particulars and the Novel.’
Ivan Kreilkamp (Indiana University): ‘Petted Things: Victorian Animal Objects’
DISCUSSION
BREAK
Talia Schaffer (Queens College, CUNY): ‘Imitative Arts: The Victorian Domestic Handicraft and theRealist Novel.’
Elaine Freedgood (New York University): Curtains and Hieroglyphics.
DISCUSSION
2.00 p.m. to 5.00 p.m.
MODERATOR Herbert Sussman (The New School University).
SPEAKERS
Carol Mavor (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill): ‘Queen Victoria's Big Penny: The Boyish Labor of J.M. Barrie.’
Alan Rauch (Georgia Institute of Technology): Rain--Steam Intellect--and Speed: Intersectionof Culture, Technology and Knowledge Production.
DISCUSSION
BREAK
Richard Maxwell (Valparaiso University): Nineteenth-Century Panoramas and the Lure of Circular Thinking.
James Buzard (Massachusetts Institute of Technology): Spin Control.
DISCUSSION
5.00 p.m. Reception on the 4th Floor in the English Program Common Space.
4. Sources of Radicalism
A major conference on the history of radical political, industrial, social and cultural movements.
This will take place in Manchester on 11th May. There will be a wide range of topics discussed including Anti-fascism,the Irish in Britain, Women Trade Union League, the 1945 Pan African Congress in Manchester, the General Strike of 1926, 1970s radical press, contemporary trade unionism, politics and the internet, punk and disco music and Palestine.
The full programme can be found at www.leftdirect.co.uk/sources.htm.
Advance booking is recommended as placesare now going fast. Entrance costs £7.00. To book a place please contact Anne Morrow at the International Centrefor Labour Studies. Telephone 0161-275-4794 or email anne.morrow@man.ac.uk.
v We shall try and discover whether the The Soul of Man under Socialism is mentioned.
5. Robert
Louis Stevenson.
Richard Dury (University of Bergamo) writes 'The programme for the RLS2002 conference at Gargnano (Lake Garda, 26th to 29th August 2002) 'Robert Louis Stevenson, Writer of Boundaries', can be seen at http://www.unibg.it/rls/garda_prog.htm.
The conference page is at http://www.unibg.it/rls/garda.htm.
This conference includes papers by Linda Dryden(Napier University, Edinburgh) on 'City of Dreadful Night: Stevenson’s London' and Stephen Arata (Universityof Virginia) on 'Art and Pleasure, Literature and Reading'.
6. Études littéraires françaises.
Olivier Bogros writes
J'ai le plaisir de vous inviter
àassister au 2ème colloque international des Études littéraires françaises valorisées
par les NTIC (litérature, internet et bibliothèque) qui se déroulera le 27 et
le 28 mai 2002dans l'auditorium de la médiathèque André Malraux de Lisieux.
Le programme et les résumés des
communications sont accessibles à l'url suivante :http://www.bmlisieux.com/colloque/colloque.htm
L'entrée est libre dans la limite
des places disponibles (70), il est recommandé de s'inscrire:
Renseignements et inscriptions :
Médiathèque municipale - Olivier Bogros -
Place de la République - 14100
Lisieux. tél.: 02.31.62.88.87. fax: 02.31.62.59.76. Courriel: 100346.471@compuserve.com.
Web http://www.bmlisieux.com/ or http://www.miscellanees.com/
5. Papers and Publications
Following our inquiry into Wilde in Catalan, Jordi Larios (University of Wales, Cardiff) writes 'I have translated into Catalan the following titles by Wilde: ThePicture of Dorian Gray, De Profundis and The Crime of Lord Arthur Savile. All of them were published by Quaderns Crema, in Barcelona.'
The long awaited volumes IV & V of the Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing were published on 22nd April by Cork University Press. Antoinette Quinn writes on Lady Wilde. Gerardine Meany (University College, Dublin), the editor of the section in which this appears, writes that this 'I think achieves a new context for an understanding of Speranza's influence.'
A new anthology Victorian Literature 1830-1900 ,edited by Dorothy Mermin (Cornell) and Herber tF. Tucker (University of Virginia), includes three poems by Wilde, the Dorian Gray Preface, The Decay of Lying entire, Earnest entire, & a selection from De Profundis. It is published by in Boston by Heinle & Heinle /Thomson Learning ISBN 0155071777/
Professor Tucker writes 'There is full annotation originally done (a real chore with Decay, as you may imagine). Extensive headnote. Bibliography.
As to his circle. Different peopledraw with different compasses, so I'm reduced to some guesswork here. A good sampling from Pater, Michael Field, Housman, Mary Coleridge, Amy Levy, early Yeats, a bit of Beerbohm. We print the Labouchere Amendment and a generous sampling from J.A. Symonds' memoirs, and from Arthur Symons' Decadent Movement and Symbolist Movement. This is, if we do say so ourselves, a major new anthology of poetry and prose that reflects the most important recent developments in scholarship and canon-reshaping.'
Frank Harris's biography of Wilde has now been published on-line by Project Gutenberg at http://www.oddbooks.co.uk/harris/1whlc10.txt. Unfortunately, beyond the fact that this is the two volume edition, no bibliographcial details are recorded. We thank John Cooper for kindly providing this information.
Those interested in following further the critique of Terry Eagleton (a process that may be dubbed teagling) may do so in Martin McQuillan's 'Irish Eagleton: of Ontological Imperialism and Colonial Mimicry' in the current issue of Irish Studies Review pp.29-38. D. C. Rose's discussion of Eagleton on Wilde, 'Peering from the Conning Tower', was published in The Wildean Issue No.20 January 2002.
SAGE is proud to announce the publication of the first issue of the Journal of Visual Culture. The contents for this issue are listed below. If you require further information about the journal please go to http://www.sagepub.co.uk/journals/Details/j0376.html
Nominations are now invited for the 2002 Design History Society prize for exhibitions, digital artefacts etc. The award of £2000 will be made at the 2002 DHS conference at the University of Aberystwyth, 3rd-5th September.
The award is open to nominations published or exhibited in the last two years disseminating new research, new methodologies or the innovative application of existing approaches to a new subject.
The inaugural award was made last year to Tanya Harrod for The Crafts in Britain in the Twentieth Century published in 1999 by Yale University Press.
Nominate the outcome that you consider to be most worthy of the DHS Scholarship Prize 2002 by contacting the DHS secretary, Ruth Facey rfacey@waitrose.com with details of your nomination (including ISBN/ ISSN if possible) and your reason for nominating.
Grace Lees-Maffei, Design History Society Event Award Co-ordinator. http://www.designhistorysociety.org
6. Another Victorian House in Danger
SAVE TYNTESFIELD FOR THE NATION
One of the finest Victorian Country houses, containing original furnishings and a magnificent art collection, is due to go under the hammer. Unless Tyntesfield, near Bristol, and its contents are bought for the Nation, this remarkable house will disappear from public view and its contents will be dispersed through a house sale.
This situation has arisen through the passing, in December 2001, of Lord Wraxall, whose will divides his estate between 19 heirs. Not one can afford to buy all of the others out and so keep the estate, house and contents intact. The executors of the will have a duty to sell for the best price.
Secretary of SAVE Britain's Heritage, Adam Wilkinson said 'This is a once in a generation chance - the last great High Victorian estate to be purchased by the National Trust for the Nation was Cragside in 1977. Likewise, this building must be saved for the nation.Not only does it represent a most remarkable ensemble of high Victoriandesign, but also a superb chance to look at the social history of the country house and see how it functioned behind the 'green baize door'.
SAVE's new report, 'The Tyntesfield Emergency' is the first ever appraisal by historians of the value of Tyntesfield, its furniture, collections and landscape.
The present Tyntesfield dates principally from 1863-66 for the Gibbs family, a wealthy mercantile family. The roots of their wealth lay in the huge quantities of guano they imported from Latin America, providing Victorian England with its most effective fertiliser.
Their new house at Tyntesfield strongly reflects their religious persuasions - it is imbued with High Church gothic, which gives it not only a romantic pinnacled skyline, but also the largest private chapel attached to a country house in England, designed by Bloomfield and built in the 1880s.
The house was filled with the latest in Gothic furniture by Crace, all of which survives, and in the case of the sofas and easy chairs, the original fabric covers survive. The furniture was added to with pieces by James Plucknett, and locally by Laverton's of Bristol. The house was adorned with a superb collection of art, much of which reflects the family's Spanish trading links. Unlike many great collections which have been thinned down over the years, this collection has been steadily to added up to the present day.
Mark Girouard,author of The Victorian Country House (1971) said 'I find it distressing to see how many of what was even a small group of [Victorian country] houses retaining their original furnishing have lost them: Mentmore, Horsted and Blackmoor stripped between 1971 and 1979; Ken Hill, Bishopscourt, BankHall, Stokesay, Milton Ernest, Whitbourne, Elveden and Thoresby all sold up since then. Every conceivable effort should be made to stop Tyntesfield joining this melancholy list.'
Marcus Binney, President of SAVE, said 'Tyntesfield offers the opportunity to take conservation over a new threshold. The whole process of revelation and discovery demands a fresh approach, not only more wide ranging, but more transparent than in the past. Saving Tyntesfield for the nation must not mean putting the house under wraps while expert conservators carefully pickle it. The wider public should be involved in making a first record, using for example, school children's own impressions of this magical place.'
'The Tyntesfield Emergency' is available from SAVE Britain's Heritage, 70 Cowcross Street, London EC1M 6EJ, priced £4.50. Tel. 020 7253 3500, Fax 020 7253 3400. For more information, see www.savebritainsheritage.org.
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V. BEING TALKED ABOUT: CALLS FOR PAPERS
« Cel mai rau lucrueste nusa fii barfit, ci
sa nu te barfeasca nimeni »
This section now has its own page. To reach it, please click here.
We hope these Calls may attract Wildëans.
Any specific papers on Wilde willbe noted in future issues of THE OSCHOLARS.
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VI. NOTES AND QUERIES
1. Cyril Wilde
John Cooper writes'I tried on another forum some years ago, with little success, to excite interest in this picture. Now that we have academia together, does anyone know if this picture of Cyril Wilde has been published before andwhere does the original reside?' johncooper@comcast.net
We may add, is this the only evidence of the Wildes' keeping a dog? or should we suppose the dog was a photographer's prop?
2. The Birthday of the Infanta
Megan Jones writes 'I am doing a research paper for my theatre IB course at my school. I am requesting any information you might have to offer on the performances or production of The Birthday of the Infanta. I would really appreciate any information you are willing to give me.' mistiva97@hotmail.com
3. The Importance of being Earnest
Eva Thienpont (University of Ghent) writes 'Has any significant work been done on the comparisonbetween the three- and four-act texts of Earnest? I would like to write an article on it (especially on the difference in gender treatment) whichis virtually ready in my head, but to be on the safe side I'd like to know whether much work on it has been done or not.'
4. The Nightingale and The Rose
Barbara Peacock writes 'As you may remember I am the film-maker trying to make "The Nightingaleand The Rose", a film inspired by Oscar Wilde's prose. Is there anyone who is an Oscar Wilde fan that might be able to lead the way to funding for this project? We'd really love to make this film.' Details ofthe film, which we featured in the December issue of THE OSCHOLARS, may be found at www.thenightingale.com
5. Naming Names
Following our note on the Ukrainian Oscar Wilde: the surname Wilde is found in Scandinavia too, according to Tommy P. Christensen (University of Copenhagen) who is investigating the relationship between the Wildes and the Scandinavian nobility. He would appreciate any findings relating the Irish Wildes to Scandinavian Wildes: Tommy.P.Christensen@jur.ku.dk
6. Oscar in Popular Culture
John Cooper writes:
US cable channel Showtime has a great cartoon show called Queerduck ('I'm as gay as a goose!') and one of the characters is Oscar Wildcat. Of course he's Oscar and he wears a red jacket. He doesn't do much except hang around with his friends Bi Polar Bear and Openly Gator and sip martinis because QD is the star. Lists his favourite food as martini with three olives.
7. Wilde as Unpopular Culture
From Anne M. Brady and Brian Cleeve: A Biographical Directory of Irish Writers. Dublin: The Lilliput Press 1985 pp. 247-8.
On Wilde: 'Wilde had acquired London fame as a personality based on bizarre conduct, and witty conversation designed to shock the intellect rather than the feelings. His only claim to literary recognition was The Picture of Dorian Gray, in whose hero some fashionable hostesses, with nervous fascination, saw Wilde himself, and a brilliant collection of critical essays, Intentions.’
On Salome: 'The play has a hothouse beauty of language but no great dramatic value'.
On Lady Windermere's Fan: 'On the surface a commonplace comedy [...] rescued from mediocrity by brilliance of dialogue. Into this, as into A Woman of No Importance, 1893, An Ideal Husband and The Importance of being Earnest, both 1895, Wilde poured all his usually ill-disciplined genius; genius which London accepted as peculiarly Irish.[...] Some shafts were merely clever; others were also true.'
On The Ballad: 'Some critics profess to find it a true masterpiece. Others consider it mawkish doggerel, filled with self-pity'.
On De Profundis: 'Once again critics of a particular stamp have found it moving and spiritual in the extreme. Others find it sickens them, and there seems little doubt that Wilde's reputation must rest on his four great comedies'.
8. Back numbers of THE OSCHOLARS
Andrea Linnenbröker asks if any one can copy to her the e-mails in which were announced THE OSCHOLARS Vol.1 No.1 onwards. Please contact her at englischer-laden@t-online.de.
9. Picked from the Platter
We were very pleased to receive this request:
I am writing to ask if you would allow us to provide users of our web sites with a link to your own site.
The particular web sites we intend to link from are Literature Online and Literature Online for Schools, although we may extend this to other appropriate sites as we develop them.
Literature Online was first launched in 1996, bringing together Chadwyck-Healey’s full-text databases in English and American Literature, previously only available individually on CD-ROM. The latest version includes more literary texts, more extensive coverage of 20th-century literature, and access to the full text of literary journals. It is now available in hundreds of libraries and academic institutionsworldwide.
Literature Online for Schools is a new website, launched in June 2000. It is designed to support the teaching and study of English literature at A Level, AS Level and for the International Baccalaureate. It offers students and teachers access to a largearchive of primary and secondary materials geared to the texts, authors and topics set by the exam boards in the UK, and for the Language A1 programme of the International Baccalaureate diploma.
John Gregory
Senior Editor
Proquest Information & Learning
(formerly Chadwyck-Healey Ltd)
Patricia Sharkey writes 'Your site has been added to Searc's Web Guide under 19th century writers'. We are at time of writing the only journal thatcan be linked from this Irish site (http://www.searcs-web.com/writers19.html) which also has links to Speranza's poems and the Philadelphia, 1890, edition of the The Picture of Dorian Gray, and are happy to recommend it.
Genders is a peer-reviewed academic journal publishing essays about gender and sexuality in relation to social,political, artistic, and economic concerns. We are most grateful for the link to THE OSCHOLARS that they have put on the website http://www.genders.org
Bookview Ireland, the e-mailed Irish monthly literary newslette redited by Pauline Ferrie, continues to carry recommendations of THE OSCHOLARS.T his is obtainable from Ms Ferrie ferrie@EMIGRANT.IE. The current issue is no.81.
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VII. 'MAD, SCARLET MUSIC'
Our piece about musical settings of TheBallad of Reading Gaol, brought the information from John H. Bartlett (to whom our thanks) that there is a cantata settingof some stanzas from the Ballad by the late and much lamented Donald Swann of Flanders & Swann fame. These form part of 'The Poetic Image (1991), A Victorian Song Cycle. Eleven settings by Donald Swann with Images by Alison Smith. This also includes a setting of 'The Harlot's House'.
The Donald Swann website http://www.donaldswann.co.uk/index.html adds 'Donald developed a deep love for Victorian poets in his last yearsand, with a new musical voice, began to set the poems of Tennyson, Christina Rossetti, John Clare and Oscar Wilde which he performed with soprano Lucinda Broadbridge. He also teemed up with art historian Alison Smith, who was to become his second wife, to produce a illustrated volume of these songs THE POETIC IMAGE'. Our attempt to make further inquiry from Leon Berger, Archivist of the Donald Swann Estate, at leonberger@donaldswann.co.uk unfortunately failed when the e-mail bounced.
And here is more on Salome:
George Steiner has written 'The poetic work is a libretto in search of a composer. The musical values and proceedings are already explicit in the language' (The Retreat from the Word 1961, reprinted in Language and Silence 1967 p.49). Presumably Steiner meant to suggest dissatisfaction with Strauss. Here is what Arthur Rubinstein wrote about the genesis of the opera:
'There was an actress, Gertrud Eysoldt, whom I shall never forget. She was the perfect Salome in Oscar Wilde's play, which had to be given at a private performance forinvited guests, because it was banned by the censors for its religious implications. I was present at that magnificent occasion, and so was Richard Strauss, who, immediately, decided to write an opera based on this work without changing a word of its text.'. Rubinstein identifies the director as Max Reinhardt. (Arthur Rubinstein: My Young Years. London: Jonathan Cape 1973 pp.60, 162).
Are we right in thinking that Rubinstein's is the only suggestion that this performance was a private one?
We should also like to know more about the music for Salome by Granville Bantock, written for a production at the Court Theatre, London 12th April 1918, and about the piece by Maurice Béjart called 'Comme la princesse Salomé est beau [sic] ce soir' with a date of 1972.
We take this from Judit Frigyesi: Bela Bartok & Turn-of-the-Century Budapest. Berkeley: University of California Press 1998 p.161
Zoltan Kodaly to Emma Gruber 5th January 1907: 'Yesterday: Salome. Interesting, interesting (at least it not soover-orchestrated, a bit more fine, often boring, empty. Sometimes it is annoying that [it is composed of] cleverly calculated "baby effects" without having one great effect. Afterwards I do not feel anything:it is quite the same whether I am coming home from the pub or Salome'.
Finally, we were delighted to receive this note about her setting of The Nightingale and the Rose from the composer Elena Firsova.
THE NIGHTINGALE AND THE ROSE op. 46, 1990-91
Chamber opera in one act
Libretto by the composer after Oscar Wilde and Christina Rossetti
(E)2S,2A,2T,2B1(picc).1.1.1 - 1.1.1.0 - 3perc (tgl, indian jingles, pagodajingles, BD, bamboo pipes, maracas, whip, susp.cym, Chinese gong, Javanese gong, tam-t, xyl,glsp, vib, bells), harp,cello, strings (1/1/1/1/1)
Duration: 90'.
Publishing rights: Boosey & Hawkes, London- Sikorski, Hamburg for: D, CH, E, GR, IL, IS, NL, P, SKAND, TR
First performance: 8 July 1994 Almeida Theatre, London
Almeida Opera – David Parry (conductor).
Composer's note:
This was the last composition written in Russiain 1991 just before I came to England. The text is woven from Oscar Wilde's classic short story and four poems of Christina Rossetti creating a libretto of haunting beauty and Pre-Rahaelite melancholy. The three soloists in the opera are The Nightingale (soprano), The Student (tenor) and The Girl (mezzo-soprano). Also there is a chamber choir and orchestra of 17players (1.1.1.1-1.1.1.0-harp, celesta, 3 percussion-1.1.1.1.1).
The opera was staged in July 1994 at the Almeida Opera where it was repeated five times. The score, vocal score and other performance material is available from Boosey & Hawkes, London,and Hans Sikorski, Hamburg.
For more information see on the web:
http://website.lineone.net/~dmitrismirnov or
http://www.smirnov.fsworld.co.uk.
Contact details:
Dmitri Smirnov/ElenaFirsova
30 Chiltern Road
St Albans
Herts AL4 9TB
England
Phone: +44 (0) 1727 861131 Fax: +44 (0) 1727861131
E-mail Address(es):
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VIII. GOING WILDE: PRODUCTIONS DURING MAY 2002
Contributions to this section of THE OSCHOLARS from anywhere in the world will be very welcome indeed. We will do our best to arrange reviews, and volunteers are sought.
1. Australia
The Importance of being Earnest is being staged by Box Hill Senior Secondary College, directed by Sarah and Dean at The Polyglot Theatre, 27a Cromwell Road, South Yarra, 3141 Victoria on the 9th, 10th and 11th May, as part of the Year 12 Theatre Studies course.
2. England
The Importance of Being Earnest is at the Electric Theatre, Guildford, 8th to 11th May, staged by CreactionTheatre Company; and at the Gladstone Theatre, Port Sunlight, Merseyside, 9th to 11th May staged by the Port Sunlight Players.
The Importance of being Earnest is also at the Moser Theatre at Wadham College, Oxford, 21st to the 25th ofMay, staged by the Oxford Oscar Wilde Society.
Lady Windermere's Fan, directed by Sir Peter Hall, continues at the Theatre Royal, Haymarket, London, until 8th June.
Elijah Moshinsky's production of A Woman of No Importance will be at the Richmond Theatre, Richmond, 29th April to 4th May; the Grand Theatre and Opera House, Leeds, 6th to 11th May; the Grand Theatre, Wolverhampton, 20th to 25th May; and the New Theatre, Cardiff, 27th May to 1st June.
A Wilde Affair is a confection of 'Oscar Wilde's dark and dreamlike fairy stories into a colourful tapestry of words, dance and music. These hilarious and tragic tales of greedy princessesand lovesick writers, exploding fireworks and talking birds, are givenan original re-telling for the stage. Staged by the Suffolk Youth Theatre, director Michael Platt with music by Pat Whymark at the New Wolsey Theatre, Ipswich, Suffolk, 8th to 11thMay.
Patience is being staged by Trinity Methodist Drama, at the Civic Theatre, Chelmsford, Essex, 7th to 11th May.
3. Estonia
Salome opens in Tallinn at the Estonian National Opera on 22nd May. Sung in German, Estonian surtitles.
|
Salome |
Ieva Kepe |
|
Herod |
Ivo Kuusk |
|
Herodias |
Riina Airenne |
|
Jokanaan |
Jassi Zahharov |
|
Music Director and Conductor |
Paul Mägi |
|
Stage Directors |
Françoise Terrone and Philippe Godefroid |
|
Set Designer |
Philippe Godefroid |
|
Costume Designer |
Françoise Terrone |
|
Lighting Designers |
Françoise Terrone and Philippe Godefroid |
4.
France
Le portrait de Dorian Gray continues Au Bec Fin, 6 rue Thérèse Paris
5e, directed by Diane Delmont with Séverine Chabrier, Gonzague De Lamotte, Eric
Jansen, Ivan Lambert, and Sarah Lambert.
5. Germany
Salome is being produced at the Frankfort Opera on the 1st and 11th May.
|
Salome |
Nina Warren |
|
Herod |
[not announced at timeof going to press] |
|
Herodias |
June Card |
|
Jokanaan |
Claudio Otelli |
|
Narraboth |
Michael König |
|
Page |
Nidia Palacios |
|
Conductor |
Paolo Carignani |
|
Set Designer |
Jens Kilian |
|
Costume Designer |
Ilse Welter |
|
Producer |
Christof Nel |
6. Japan
The August Everding production of Salome opens in Tokyo at the Opera House, in German with Japanese surtitles, presented alternately with Tosca during the performance period from 1st to 11th May, played by the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra.
|
Salome |
Janice Baird |
|
Herod |
Wolfgang Schmidt |
|
Herodias |
Koyama Yumi |
|
Jokanaan |
Aoto Satoru |
|
Narraboth |
Mizuguchi Satoshi |
|
Page |
Moriyama Kyoko |
|
Conductor |
Kodama Hiroshi |
|
Set Designer |
Jörg Zimmermann |
|
Costume Designer |
Jörg Zimmermann |
|
Artistic Director |
Igarashi Kiyoshi |
|
Choreographer |
Ishii Kiyoko |
|
Stage Manager |
Osawa Hiroshi |
|
Assistant Conductor |
Joya Masahiro / MoriguchiShinji / Oshima Yoshiaki |
|
Assistant Stage Director |
Maekawa Kuniko |
7. Russia
The Kirov Opera (Mariinsky Theatre, St Petersburg) production of Strauss' Salome, is again performed on 14th May.
8. Sicily
Salome opens in Messina at the Teatro Vittorio Emanuele on 30th May.
9. The United States
The Importance of being Earnest directed by Jim Wallace will be at the Theatre in the Round in Minneapolis, opening on 31st May.
Vera Wilde at the Empty Space Theatre, Seattle, which opened on 24th April, runs until 18th May. Book, music and lyrics by Chris Jeffries, directed by Allison Narver, choreography by Wade Madsen.
'Vera Wilde chronicles two parallelstories of politics and passion and offers a startling reflection on our own, current political climate. In 1878, Vera Zasulich, a young activistin Russia, was moved to a political act of revenge following the brutalbeating of an incarcerated fellow comrade. Zasulich went to the local prisonand shot Dmitri Trepov, the Governor General of St. Petersburg. Zasulichwas arrested and charged with attempted murder. The resulting trial was an international cause célèbre. Soon after, Oscar Wildewrote his first play, Vera, or The Nihilists, about her. Banned in England because of its political content, Wilde brought Vera to the United States, where it flopped. But Oscar never forgot Vera or his first play and years later, when Wilde's own trial for gross indecency became a cause célèbre, Vera followed the events with rapt attention. Although the two never met, they both claimed to have been greatly influenced by the other.'
Moisés Kaufmann's Gross Indecency will be at Theatreworks, New Milford, Connecticut on the 3rd, 4th, 10th, 11th, 12th, 17th and 18th May.
The New York Gilbert and Sullivan Players are staging Patience at Symphony Space, 95th Street and Broadway, 9th to 19th May.
|
Colonel Caverley |
Duane Mcdevitt |
|
Major Murgatroyd |
Eddie Peterson |
|
Lieutenant |
Michael Scott Harris |
|
Reginald Bunthorne |
Larry Raiken |
|
Archibald Grosvenor |
Mark Womack |
|
Lady Angela |
Kate Geissinger/MaarinaVikse |
|
Lady Saphir |
Susan Case |
|
Lady Ella |
Jenny Millsap/LaurenWenegrat |
|
Lady Jane |
Melissa Parks |
|
Patience |
Michele McConnell |
--and for the record:
Neil Bartlett's play In Extremis was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on Thursday 18th April at 14.15 London Time.
"On the night of 24thMarch 1895, Oscar Wilde sent an urgent message to the society palm reader Mrs Robinson, and later that night visited her in her London flat. Wilde had a momentous decision to make - about his trial and whetherto flee the country."
Corin Redgrave (Wilde) and Sheila Hancock (Mrs Robinson) recreated their roles from the Royal National Theatre productionin this radio premiere directed by Ned Chaillet.
We continue to discuss with the BBC the possibility of getting advance notice of such programmes and their repeats.
David Iggulden of the Ruislip Dramatic Society has written to point out that their productionof The Importance of being Earnest mentioned in the April issueof THE OSCHOLARS was the rarely played four act version.
The Importance was also staged at the Teatro Quirino in Rome 2nd to 14th April as L'Importanze di chiamarsi Ernesto. (This is of course one of several Italian translations of the title). We regret that the entrance to the theatre's website is blocked, so we cannot provide details, and owe the information to Simon Reynolds (Goldsmiths College, University of London), who chanced to walk past the theatre at the time.
Horst Schneider has provided the titles of the productions in Braunschwig mentioned in his review of Der Zwerg (above).
1. For Each Man Kills the Thing He Loves: produced by Henning Paar, Director of the Braunschweig Staatstheater ballet. Music: Frédéric Chopin. Stage Design and Costumes: Isabell Kork. Première: 25th October 2001.
2. In Memoriam C.3.3.: 8th February 2002. The three texts were delivered by Andreas Bissmeier. Direction Kathrin Bissmeier.
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IX. THE OTHER OSCAR
We continue our biography drawn from immaculate sources of the other Oscar Wilde.
John Cooper has kindly drawn our attention to World Wilde Club, which lives at http://www.geocities.com/Paris/9115/swildea.htm. This contains a drawing of Wilde by Diane Irving and a number of familiar photographs, but the letterpress is so extraordinary that by copy and paste we reproduce it unchanged, so that it appears here as it appears on line. It reads as if it has been translated from a French translation of an Italian original, perhaps by Babelfish.
Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills WILDE (only SKAR, from now on) was born in Dublin a lot of time ago, exactly October the 16th 1854. So, he was Libra.
Father: Sir William, famous oculist and amateur archaeologist. Mother: Jane Francesca Elgee, poetess and Irish patriot (she signed her articles with the "nom de plum" "Speranza").
In 1879 the Skar's career seemed to be marked out. In fact, after a much more than brilliant schoolcareer (concluded with a Humanistic and Classic degree at Oxford University) he moved to London and shared a flat with the painter Frank Miles. He continues to publish his poems just like he already done since he wasat Oxford, where he distinguished himself like a rising talent thanks toa little poetry collection titled Ravenna. In London published (1881) Poems. Soon that city understood who Skar was: a genial exhibitionist, a man who had decided with all means to keep an high profile to Victorian high society. He secures himself a strange job (1882): to flank with some of his lectures in USA (well paid, of course) the operetta tour by Gilbert and Sullivan, Patience, an amusing satire about aestheticism. On May 29th 1884 got married with Constance Lloyd (with her dowry - she was the single daughter of a lawyer) and settled in Tile Street, London). On May 5th 1885 Cyril was born. The following year Skar met and made friends with Robert Ross, who was student at Cambridge in that period. On 3rd November '86 was born Vyvyan.
As a living he was a literary critic for several magazines. In this period he published two short stories: The Canterville Ghost and Lord Arthur Savile's Crime (1886). In 1887 he edited the woman magazine The Lady's World and he soon gave it another ecumenical name: The Woman's World. He finally entered into the London high society inviting to collaborate its most noble representative ladies. Thus we have reached the fundamental years of life and Skar production: in 1888 appeared The Happy Prince; in '89 at the same time he left The Woman's World and published The Decay of Lying and The portrait of Mr. W. H., respectively on "The NineteenthCentury" and on the "Blackwood's Magazine". On June 1890 the "Lippincott's Monthly Magazine" took the unlucky decision to publish The Picture of Dorian Gray and soon in Skar life started a hard period defending himself from the attacks of immorality that had been launched on him: so, he decided to send several letters to the most important newspapers in which he sustained the absolute necessity of separing Art from morals, in safeguarding its absolute independence. Therefore, he dealt with such iusses in the essay The Critic as Artist, appeared on "The Nineteenth Century". The 1891 is another very important year for two reasons: the first one consists in the acquaintanceof Lord Alfred Douglas (the beloved-hated Bosie, thanks to him Skar will get to know the criminal court shame with the charge of sodomy); the second one is that during that year Skar production is very intensive: The Duchessof Padua appeared on the scenes in New York; it comes out with the additionof six chapters The Picture of Dorian Gray; and moreover are published two collections, one of essays with the title Intentions and the other titled The Lord Savile's Crime and other Stories and finally he wrote a second fairy-tales book, A House of Pomegranates. At the end of the year Skar wrote in Paris Salomé (directly in French) . His fame was over the top!
The two-year period '92-'93 still tells about the Wilde meteor and his success writing between London and Paris. Bosie was the closest to him. In fact, it was Skar who paid for their more then frivolous and pleasant licentious life. Meanwhile, Marquees of Queensbury stopped "all money supplies", as himself wrote to his son Alfred. But it didn't matter, because the Skar earnings were enough for supporting both them and for his family too: Constance knew it very well … Bosie, from his part, translated into English Salomé (Skar therefore was not enthusiast about it … ). At theatre people queued up for applauding A Woman of No Importance, but the English version of Salomé (that should have been played by Sarah Bernardt) was censured by the Lord Chamberlain and the show was put off. So, we have arrived to 1885, year in which Skar's fame and shame reached their top (on February the 14th, St. Valentine, was staged for the first time with a great success The importance of Being Earnest.
The Skar descendent parabola was really very rare in the history of literature and so quick that we could compare itwith the Robespierre one. All started from a visit-card in which Bosie's father accused Skar covertly of being an homosexual. But it was a trap: Skar denounced for defamation his accuser who firstlywas also arrested. It was a scandal! It was not a game by nowand the "birth" would have had its weight. . . In fact, Queensbury had the best of it: he succeeded to pull into tribunalseveral Skar occasional lovers (was them true. . . ?) taht persuaded the jury about Skar's guilty. So, at the second trial Skar was condemned for sodomy to two years of hard labour. Everybody abandoned him, except Robert Ross. His sons changed name, as he did after he came out from the prison in May1897: his new name was Sebastian Melmoth. Then, he travelled until his death (November 30th 1900, Paris) between Italy (Naples, St. Margherita Ligure, Rome) and France (Dieppe, Berneval-sur-Mer, Rouen, Cannes, Le Havre, etc.). He died after a surgical operation to an ear, in the most grey and sad season of the Ville Lumiere.
To be continued (contributions welcome).
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X. SHAVINGS
It has, we think, always been a puzzle to students of the 1890s why there was so little contact between Wilde and George Bernard Shaw, and what we know is largely derived from Michael Holroyd's biography of Shaw and Dan H. Laurence's collection of Shaw's letters. With the collaboration of a number of Shaw scholars,we are now introducing this new section, where small contributions especially will be welcome: possibly enough eventually to produce something at greaterlength.
In this section we shall also try to cover productions of Shaw's pre-1900 plays.
We open with a bibliography, doubtless incomplete. This is NOT intended to be a Shaw bibliography, only a Wilde/Shaw bibliography.
Oscar Wilde / Bernard Shaw: A Florentine Tragedy [as 'Une Tragédie Florentine et fragments dramatiques inédits: La sainte Courtesane ou Le Femme couverte de Bijoux et Le Cardinal d'Avignon']+ Mes Souvenirs d'Oscar Wilde de Bernard Shaw. Paris: C. Georges Brazile 1918.
Earl Delbert Bader: The Self-Reflexive Language: uses of Paradox in Wilde, Shaw and Chesterton. Indiana University Ph.D. thesis 1962.
Karl Beckson: Oscar Wilde's Celebrated Remark on Bernard Shaw. Oxford: Notes and Queries. September 1994
Anne Fogarty: Revisionary Identities: Shaw, Wilde and the Reception of Shakespeare. Paper given at the Esplanade Hotel, Bray, Co Wicklow, 26th October 1997 to theOscar Wilde Autumn School.
Richard M. Gollin: Beerbohm, Wilde, Shaw and "The Good-Natured Critic". New York: Bulletin of the New York Public Library. February 1964.
Frank Harris: Oscar Wilde: His Life & Confessions. Together with Memories of Wilde by Bernard Shaw. London: The author 1918.
Frank Harris: Oscar Wilde: His Life & Confessions, with memories of Oscar Wilde by Bernard Shaw and Criticisms by Robert Ross. New York: The author 1918.
Frank Harris: Oscar Wilde: His Life & Confessions. Together with Memories of Wilde by Bernard Shaw. NewYork: Crown Publishing Co. 1930.
Frank Harris: Oscar Wilde, including My Memories of Oscar Wilde by George Bernard Shaw. New York Carroll: 1997.
Mary Hyde (ed.): Bernard Shaw and Lord Alfred Douglas, A Correspondence. London: John Murray 1982.
John Jordan: Shaw, Wilde, Synge and Yeats: Ideas, Epigrams, Blackberries and Chassis. Dublin: Wolfhound 1985.
Amy E. Koritz: Gendering Bodies, Performing Art: Theatrical Dancing and the Performance Æsthetics of Wilde, Shaw & Yeats. Dissertation Abstracts International. Michigan: Ann Arbor. September 1989.
Josephine D. Lee: Language & Action in the Plays of Wilde, Shaw & Stoppard. Dissertation Abstracts International. Michigan: Ann Arbor. March 1988.
Ann Livermore: Goldoni, Wilde and Shaw: Co-Inventors of Comedy. Revue de la Littérature Comparée 1979.
Martin Loughney: Springs of Irish Wisdom: Shaw, Wilde, Swift, Yeats. Dublin: Infinity Books 1989.
Christopher Suhal Nassaar: Wilde's Lady Windermere's Fan and Shaw's Mrs Warren's Profession. Washington DC: The Explicator 1998.
Kerry Powell: Wilde, Shaw and Women of the Stage. Paper given at the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, Los Angeles 5th March 1999.
William Ruff: Shaw on Wilde and Morris, A Clarification. Shaw Review. January 1968.
Robert Harborough Sherard: Oscar Wilde 'Drunkard & Swindler': A Reply to George Bernard Shaw, Dr G.J. Renier, Frank Harris etc. Calvi: Vindex Publishing Co. 1933.
Robert Harborough Sherard: Bernard Shaw, Frank Harris & Oscar Wilde. New York 1936.
Robert Harborough Sherard: Bernard Shaw, Frank Harris & Oscar Wilde. London: T. Werner Laurie 1937.
Stanley Weintraub: 'The Hibernian School': Oscar Wilde and Bernard Shaw. SHAW: The Annual of Bernard Shaw Studies. 1993
J. L. Wisenthal: Wilde, Shaw and the Play of Conversation. Modern Drama (U. of Toronto Graduate Centre for Study of Drama) Downsview, Ontario Spring 1994.
Oh, Shaw, Don't Be A Coward, Go Wilde! Ibsen's Watching. Century Center for the Performing Arts. New York, NY 19/21st, 26/7th June 2001.
Richard Dietrich (University of Southern Florida) has kindly provided the following links, and we welcome others.
BERNARD SHAW SOCIETY WEB SITE:
http://chuma.cas.usf.edu/~dietrich/shawsociety.html
UNIVERSITY PRESS OF FLORIDA SHAW SERIES WEBSITE:
http://www.upf.com/se-shaw.html
SHAW BIZNESS WEB SITE:
http://chuma.cas.usf.edu/~dietrich/shawbizness.html
INTERNATIONAL SHAW SOCIETY WEB SITE:
http://chuma.cas.usf.edu/~dietrich/international_shaw_society/index.html
THE SHAW FESTIVAL
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XI. WEB FOOT NOTES
Like space itself, cyberspace is filling up with derelicts. We note http://English.cla.umn.edu/Courseweb/1017/OscarWilde/home 'maintained by Norman Owens' but not updated for several years. Attempts to contact the site receive this reply:'The purpose of this message is to advise you that the mailbox to which your e-mail was delivered has not been recently accessed by the owner. You may wish to consider an alternate means of contacting this person.'
http://members.tripod.com/~darkindia/index2.htm takes one to Ritratto di Oscar Wilde, an Italian website visited since 23rd March 1998 74,671 times. There is a biography, a bibliography of works published in English during Wilde's lifetime, a numberof aphorisms in Italian translation, a short list of familiar links, and although a page listing critical works is flagged as under construction, the site has not been updated since 14th August 1998. Its guest book may form a starting point for Italian Wildeans to keep in touch. It ismaintained by Samantha Colombo. A letter to Sig.ra Colombo sancolom@tin.it has brought no response.
A rather odd juxtaposition is that of Oscar Wilde and Stefan Zweig at http://oscarwilde.stefanzweig.org which is a page where one may gain access to quotations from Wilde in English and in French translation by typing a keyword into a search engine. The connexion with Stefan Zweig is not explained and there is nothing else, though what there is, is useful enough.
More academic is http://www.usc.edu/isd/archives/clgh/index.html, the website of the Committee on Lesbian and Gay History (CLGH), an affiliated society of the American Historical Association, maintained by Dr Marc Stein of York University, Canada. This site, with useful pages concerned with dissertations and other publications, is being developed.
http://www.collectorspost.com/GoldenAge.htm (The Golden Age of Theatre) is for collectors of Edwardian theatre postcards, which are illustrated. This includes a stunning picture of Irene Vanbrugh, the first Gwendolen Fairfax.
Finally, for those interested in Victoriana, we again recommend http://www.victorianlinks.com/index.shtml. This now has a daughter page, http://www.victorianlinks.com/elegancies, which is changed regularly: 'each issue will contain recipes, ideas for interior design, hints, and illustrated arts & crafts projects.'
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XII. SOME SELL AND OTHERS BUY
We remind readers of the Wilde material listed in the April issue of THE OSCHOLARS, offered by R.A. Gekoski Ltd, Pied Bull Yard, 15A Bloomsbury Square, London WC1A 2LP. Telephone 0207 404 6676. Fax 0207 404 6595. E-mail: gekoski@dircon.co.uk.
Readers of THE OSCHOLARS may also be interested in the availability of a fine-press broadside of Wilde's 1888 essay The Beauties of Bookbinding. Produced by the Ampersand Club of the Twin Cities in commemoration of the 16th March 2002 OWSOA inaugural celebration at St. Paul, Minnesota, a very limited number of both Standard and Deluxe copies are available for purchase from the Ampersand Club. It is a beautiful work of art, designed and produced by Dennis Rudd and Wilber Schilling and printed at Indulgence Press, Minneapolis. Inquiries may be sent via Marilyn Bisch, OWSOA, Department of Humanities, Indiana State University, Terre Haute, IN 47809 USA or by email to mbisch@indstate.edu.
The Wildean
An unusual opportunity to buy a long run of sixteen issues of The Wildean at a bargain price. A set comprising Nos. 5-20 (July 1994 to January 2002) is available, in mint condition. (Notes about the principal articles in many of these issues have appeared in THE OSCHOLARS).
The cover prices total £66.50, and the set is offered at £35.00 plus postage. Please e-mail Catherine Cooke at gil28@dial.pipex.com or ring her day time number: 020 7641 1206.
The following items were offered for sale by Sotheby's in London on the 20th July 1989.
148. WILDE (OSCAR): THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY, First Edition, large paper Copy, signed by the Author, number41 of 250 copies, half-title, extremities of some margins discoloured, original parchment-backed boards, somewhat worn and faded, joints cracked,spine chipped at head and tail, top edges gilt, others uncut [Mason 329], London, New York and Melbourne 1892
£1,400 - £1,500
['somewhat worn and faded, joints cracked, spine chipped at head and tail': your Editor has some sympathywith this description]
150. WILDE (OSCAR): Autograph five-line quotation from his poem 'Ave Imperatrix'. Written and signed on his American tour, comprising lines 25-29 of the poem, on the verso of headed letter paper of the Windsor Hotel, Denver, 1 page, oblong large 8vo, light discolouring at edges, small tears in margins where formerly mounted [1882]; together with a separate slip of paper signed by Wilde and dated 'April 11 [1882] Denver'.
£600-£800
151. WILDE (OSCAR): Autograph manuscript of his poem 'Le Jardin', here entitled 'In the Garden', a fair copy written on an album leaf (numbered 39), signed and dated, 1 page, folio, January 1891. [This is reproduced in facsimile]
£1,500-£2,000
[Item 149 was a Samuel Warren, listed outof alphabetical order].
Books in print mentioned in THE OSCHOLARS can be ordered from:
John Wyse Jackson at John Sandoe (Books) Ltd, 10 Blacklands Terrace, London SW3 2SR 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.
Oscar Wilde Buchhandlung und Versand at Alte Gasse 51, 60313 Frankfurt Tel.: 069/28 12 60 Fax: 069/297 75 42. Contact Harald. Internet: http://www.oscar-wilde.de; e-mail: shop@oscar-wilde.de.
Dorian Bookstore, 802 Elm at Madison, Youngstown, Ohio 44505-2843. Contact Jack Peterson. Internet: http://alt.youngstown.org/dorian.html; e-mail: dorianbooks@cboss.com.
The Oscar Wilde Book Shop, 15 Christopher Street, New York, NY 10014. E-mail: wildebooks@aol.com.
Ebay is an online auction house where many Wilde items are offered, from second-hand paperbacks to playbillsto limited editions. We have set up this link --------> which should take you straight to ebay's Wilde pages:
Among the interesting items currently or recently offered are
The Selfish Giant, 1980, The Archive Press, Issaquah, Washington. LIMITED to only 135 copies, this being Number 29. Exceptionally published with hand-marbled endpapers by Christina Russell and Don Guyot. The publication of the Oscar Wilde classic was a special edition exhibiting the products and skills of bookworkers in the Pacific Northwest. The booklet is in excellent, as published condition in grey presentation envelope and with the original promotional piece on the edition laid in. Offered with a fair and modest reserve.
Die
Erzählungen und Märchen. Mit zahlreichen Illustrationen von Heinrich Vogeler-Worpswede. 216 Seiten. Leipzig, Insel-Verlag, 1921.
Illustrierter
Original Pappband (leicht bestoßen und etwas gebräunt, innen Seitenränder
gebräunt und Nameauf Titelblatt). -
Versand (-Gebühren zahlt Käufer, Ebay-Gebühren Verkäufer) versichert als Paket.
Epigrams and Aphorisms. John W. Luce, Boston. 1905. Quarto. Good/Fine.
A handsome quarto volume, strongly bound, with covers in waxboard. Printed on rich, heavy rag. Free endpapers are 20wt+. Inscriptions by two previous owners: ink has sunken heavily into dense rag, doing little to detract from the aesthetic beauty of the book. Occasional Art Nouveau embellishments. Even darkening to spine, rubbing to front board.
Descriptions are those of the booksellers,
and without any reason for disbelief, nonetheless THE OSCHOLARS cannot vouch for
their accuracy.
XIII. A WILDE MAY
Here are the birth and death dates of some ofthose whose lives intersected that of Wilde (and some whose lives perhaps surprisingly did not).
|
01 |
05 |
1874 |
Birth of Romaine Goddard (Romaine Brooks). |
|
03 |
05 |
1844 |
Birth of Richard D’Oyly Carte. |
|
04 |
05 |
1858 |
Birth of Frank Benson. |
|
06 |
05 |
1856 |
Birth of Sigmund Freud. |
|
07 |
05 |
1840 |
Birth of Piotr Tchaikovski. |
|
07 |
05 |
1865 |
Birth of A.E.W. Mason. |
|
09 |
05 |
1840 |
Birth of Blanche d’Antigny. |
|
09 |
05 |
1860 |
Birth of J.M. Barrie. |
|
11 |
05 |
1823 |
Birth of Alfred Stevens. |
|
11 |
05 |
1824 |
Birth of Jean Léon Gérôme. |
|
11 |
05 |
1873 |
Birth of Chaliapin. |
|
12 |
05 |
1828 |
Birth of Dante Gabriel Rossetti. |
|
12 |
05 |
1842 |
Birth of Massenet. |
|
12 |
05 |
1845 |
Birth of Gabriel Fauré. |
|
12 |
05 |
1867 |
Birth of Frank Brangwyn. |
|
15 |
05 |
1859 |
Birth of Pierre Curie. |
|
16 |
05 |
1845 |
Birth of Elie Metchnikoff. |
|
17 |
05 |
1866 |
Birth of Erik Satie. |
|
19 |
05 |
1865 |
Birth of Reginald Lister. |
|
20 |
05 |
1856 |
Birth of Henri--Edmond Cross. |
|
21 |
05 |
1855 |
Birth of Émile Verhaeren. |
|
21 |
05 |
1874 |
Birth of W. Somerset Maugham. |
|
22 |
05 |
1813 |
Birth of Richard Wagner. |
|
22 |
05 |
1841 |
Birth of Catulle Mendès. |
|
22 |
05 |
1844 |
Birth of Mary Cassatt. |
|
22 |
05 |
1859 |
Birth of Arthur Conan Doyle. |
|
24 |
05 |
1853 |
Birth of Alphonse Bertillon. |
|
24 |
05 |
1855 |
Birth of Arthur Wing Pinero. |
|
25 |
05 |
1863 |
Birth of Camille Erlanger. |
|
25 |
05 |
1869 |
Birth of Robert Ross. |
|
25 |
05 |
1881 |
Birth of Robert Vansittart. |
|
27 |
05 |
1867 |
Birth of Arnold Bennett. |
|
28 |
05 |
1833 |
Birth of Félix Bracquemond. |
|
29 |
05 |
1868 |
Birth of Baron Frédéric d’Erlanger. |
|
30 |
05 |
1853 |
Birth of Frank O’Meara. |
|
31 |
05 |
1836 |
Birth of Jules Chéret. |
|
31 |
05 |
1860 |
Birth of Walter Sickert. |
Garb of woe will be appropriate on the following days, notably on the 9th.
|
|
05 |
1892 |
Death of James Ripley Osgood. |
|
01 |
05 |
1900 |
Death of Mihaly Munkáczy. |
|
03 |
05 |
1914 |
Death of Ernst von Schuch, first conductorof Salome. |
|
04 |
05 |
1891 |
Traditional date of the death of Holmes and Moriarty in the Reichenbach Falls. |
|
05 |
05 |
1883 |
Death of Eva Gonzalès. |
|
06 |
05 |
1920 |
Death of Hortense Schneider. |
|
06 |
05 |
1949 |
Death of Maurice Maeterlinck. |
|
08 |
05 |
1880 |
Death of Gustave Flaubert. |
|
08 |
05 |
1903 |
Death of Paul Gauguin. |
|
08 |
05 |
1952 |
Death of Elizabeth Robins. |
|
09 |
05 |
1915 |
Death of Cyril Holland, k.i.a. |
|
10 |
05 |
1896 |
Death of Beatrix Whistler. |
|
11 |
05 |
1904 |
Death of Adrian Hope. |
|
13 |
05 |
1907 |
Death of Joris--Karl Huysmans. |
|
14 |
05 |
1906 |
Death of Hercules Brabazon Brabazon. |
|
14 |
05 |
1912 |
Death of Strindberg. |
|
14 |
05 |
1925 |
Death of Sir Henry Rider Haggard. |
|
15 |
05 |
1883 |
Death of Madame Mohl. |
|
15 |
05 |
1930 |
Death of W.J. Locke. |
|
15 |
05 |
1944 |
Death of Sir John Martin-Harvey. |
|
16 |
05 |
1910 |
Death of Henri-Edmond Cross. |
|
16 |
05 |
1928 |
Death of Edmund Gosse. |
|
17 |
05 |
1917 |
Death of Charles Vyner Brooke, Rajah of Sarawak. |
|
19 |
05 |
1898 |
Death of Mr Gladstone. |
|
22 |
05 |
1885 |
Death of Victor Hugo. |
|
22 |
05 |
1945 |
Death of Lloyd Osbourne. |
|
22 |
05 |
1956 |
Death of Max Beerbohm. |
|
22 |
05 |
1972 |
Death of Margaret Rutherford (‘Miss Prism' in the Anthony Asquth film). |
|
23 |
05 |
1936 |
Death of Henri de Régnier. |
|
30 |
05 |
1883 |
Death of Manet. |
|
25 |
05 |
1899 |
Death of Rosa Bonheur. |
|
25 |
05 |
1937 |
Death of Florence Balcombe (Mrs Bram Stoker). |
|
28 |
05 |
1925 |
Death of J.E.C. Bodley. |
|
29 |
05 |
1911 |
Death of Sir W.S. Gilbert. |
Wilde's own calendar for the month (America excepted, being accessible elsewhere) is as follows. Additionsand corrections as always welcome.
|
|
05 |
1883 |
Sickert a guest of Wilde at the Hôtel Voltaire. |
|
|
05 |
1885 |
The Wildes at a party of Sir Morell Mackenzie. |
|
|
05 |
1886 |
Publication of Wilde's review 'A Fire at Sea (from the French of Ivan Tougenieff)', Macmillan’s Magazine. |
|
|
05 |
1892 |
Wilde meets Richard Le Gallienne in Piccadilly, the day after J.R. Osgood’s death. |
|
|
05 |
1893 |
Wilde in Oxford. |
|
|
05 |
1894 |
Wilde in Florence with Douglas. Meets Mary Costello (Berenson) several times. |
|
|
05 |
1894 |
Vyvyan Wilde goes to Hildersham House School, Broadstairs. |
|
|
05 |
1894 |
Fourteenth meeting of Wilde and Gide, in Florence. |
|
|
05 |
1895 |
The Wildes move to Nervi, near Margaret Brooke, Ranee of Sarawak. |
|
|
05 |
1898 |
Wilde meets and dines with Diaghilev. |
|
|
05 |
1899 |
Wilde moves to the Hôtel Marsollier. |
|
|
05 |
1899 |
Wilde at Marlotte, near Fontainebleau. |
|
|
05 |
1900 |
Wilde spends ten days in Gland. |
|
|
05 |
1907 |
Wilde's 'A Florentine Tragedy' produced at the Théâtre de l’Œuvre. |
|
01 |
05 |
1877 |
Wilde at the official opening of the Grosvenor Gallery. |
|
01 |
05 |
1878 |
Wilde as Prince Rupert at Mrs George Morrell's fancy dress ball, Headington Hall. |
|
02 |
05 |
1881 |
Wilde at first night of 'Othello'. |
|
02 |
05 |
1887 |
Publication of Wilde's 'Injury & Insult' in The Pall Mall Gazette. |
|
04 |
05 |
1895 |
Frank Harris visits Wilde in Holloway. |
|
05 |
05 |
1883 |
Wilde dines with Edmond de Goncourt and Giuseppe de Nittis. |
|
06 |
05 |
1863 |
Lady Wilde writes to Mary Travers. |
|
06 |
05 |
1894 |
Wilde writes to Rothenstein from the Hôtel de Deux Mondes. |
|
07 |
05 |
1879 |
Lady Wilde gives up 1 Merrion Square. |
|
07 |
05 |
1895 |
Wilde released on bail of £5,000. |
|
08 |
05 |
1895 |
Wilde moves into his mother's house where he is visited by R.H. Sherard and Ernest Dowson. |
|
08-19 (between) |
05 |
1895 |
Wilde meets Robert Cunninghame Graham in Rotten Row. |
|
08-19 |
05 |
1895 |
Wilde moves to the Leversons' house in Courtfield Gardens. |
|
09 |
05 |
1885 |
Publication of Wilde's 'Hamlet at the Lyceum' in The Dramatic Review. |
|
10 |
05 |
1891 |
Wilde, Constance Wilde and Edward and and Georgiana Burne-Jones dine with the Ranee of Sarawak. |
|
10 |
05 |
1896 |
Charles Ricketts visits Wilde. |
|
14 |
05 |
1875 |
Wilde on the Cher with Bodley and Goldsmidt. Wilde and Bodley dine at the Mitre. |
|
14 |
05 |
1893 |
Wilde dines in Oxford with Max Beerbohm, Lord Encombe, Lord Basil Blackwood, Lord Kerry, Denis Browne and Lord Alfred Douglas. |
|
15 |
05 |
1877 |
Mr Gladstone writes to Wilde. |
|
15 |
05 |
1895 |
Toulouse-Lautrec's drawing of Wilde appears in the 'Revue Blanche'. |
|
15 |
05 |
1897 |
Charles Ricketts, Robert Ross and More Adey visit Wilde. |
|
17 |
05 |
1881 |
Wilde signs the contract with David Bogue for the publication of his poems. |
|
17 |
05 |
1892 |
Wilde has tea with Elizabeth Robins. |
|
18 |
05 |
1887 |
Wilde begins editorship of 'Woman's World'. |
|
18 |
05 |
1897 |
Wilde transferred to Pentonville. |
|
19 |
05 |
1892 |
First night of Brookfield's satire on Wilde 'The Poet & the Puppets' at the Comedy Theatre. It runs for 40 performances. |
|
19 |
05 |
1897 |
Wilde is released and goes to Stewart Headlam's house, 31 Upper Bedford Place, Bloomsbury, where he is visited by Ada Leverson. |
|
19 |
05 |
1897 |
Wilde sails from Newhaven by the night boat,the 'Tamise'. Publication of Dracula. |
|
20 |
05 |
1892 |
Wilde moves back to his mother's house. |
|
20 |
05 |
1897 |
04.30. Wilde lands at Dieppe and staysat the Hotel Sandwich. |
|
22 |
05 |
1895 |
Wilde's second trial opens before Mr JusticeWills (Sir Alfred Wills). Lord Queensberry and Lord Percy of Hawick bound over to keep the peace. |
|
23 |
05 |
1885 |
Publication of Wilde's 'Henry IV at Oxford' in 'The Dramatic Review'. |
|
24 |
05 |
1890 |
Lady Wilde awarded a civil list pension of £70/-/- a year. |
|
25 |
05 |
1875 |
Wilde raised to Master Mason. |
|
25 |
05 |
1875 |
Wilde and Bodley dine together. Lodge meeting: William Grenfell, Prince Leopold, Wilde, Bodley. |
|
25 |
05 |
1893 |
Wilde and Pierre Louÿs quarrel. |
|
25 |
05 |
1895 |
Wilde sentenced to two years' hard labour and imprisoned at Pentonville. Announcement of a knighthoodfor Henry Irving. |
|
26 |
05 |
1892 |
Wilde speaks at meeting of the Royal General Theatrical Fund. |
|
26 |
05 |
1894 |
Wilde taken by Mary Costello to have tea with Eugene Lee Hamilton and Vernon Lee. |
|
26 |
05 |
1897 |
Wilde moves from Dieppe to the Hôtel de la Plage, Berneval-sur-Mer. |
|
26? |
05 |
1898 |
Wilde goes to the Salon with Lord Alfred Douglas and Maurice Gilbert; then meets Sherard in Campbell's Bar and goes on to dine with the Vicomte d'Humières. |
|
26c. |
05 |
1894 |
Wilde has tea with Walpurga Lady Paget in Florence. |
|
27? |
05 |
1889 |
Wilde at a reception given by the Attorney-General, Sir Charles Russell QC (later Lord Russell of Killowen). |
|
27 |
05 |
1897 |
Wilde is visited by Lugné-Poë. |
|
28 |
05 |
1895 |
Daudet brings to Paris news of Wilde from Sherard. |
|
28 |
05 |
1906 |
Wilde estate declared solvent after all debtorsare paid at 20/- in the £ + 4%. |
|
29 |
05 |
1884 |
WEDDING OF OSCAR WILDE AND CONSTANCE LLOYD at St James', Sussex Gardens, London. |
|
29 |
05 |
1884 |
The Wildes honeymoon at the Hôtel Wagram,rue de Rivoli, and in Dieppe [to 24th June]. |
|
30 |
05 |
1887 |
Publication of Wilde's 'From the Poets' Corner' in 'The Pall Mall Gazette'. |
|
31 |
05 |
1892 |
Society of Authors Annual Dinner, Holborn Restaurant: Wilde present. |
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XIV. AND I? MAY I SAY NOTHING?
This section is chiefly for the Editor's vanity publishing. It is also intended for other pieces too long for the Notes & Queries section but perhaps not quite substantial enough for articles in the print journals. It may serve also as a notice board of early drafts, with comments invited; for ripostes; or for work that has been cut from articles elsewhere by unfeeling and purblind editors; or for revised work.
This month we are printing an essay by the Editor, 'Dieppe as Arcadia' on the background of Dieppe as Wilde's placeof exile, to mark the visit of the Oscar Wilde Society to Dieppe and Berneval over the first weekend of May; a visit in which with three dissertations, eighteen portfolios, and sixty-four exam scripts to mark he has felt reluctantly unable to participate.
This may be found by clicking Dieppe.
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XV. THE OSCAR WILDE SOCIETY AND THE WILDEAN
THE OSCHOLARS is pleased to continue its cousinly association with the Oscar Wilde Society and its journal The Wildean. Contacts for the Society are given below.
The Oscar Wilde Society is a literary society devoted to the congenial appreciation of Oscar Wilde. It is a non profitmaking organisation which aims to promote knowledge, appreciation and study of Wilde's life, personality and works. It organises lectures, readings and discussions, including author’s lunches and dinners, and visits to places in Great Britain and overseas associated with Wilde. A visit to Dieppe and Berneval takes place in May 2002, following visits to Dublin (September 2001) and to Paris (November 2000). There is 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 £18 and household membership £23. The rates for overseas membership are £20 (European postal area) and £25 (Rest of the World).
Members receive both The Wildean and the Society's newsletter - Intentions - which is published about six times a year and gives reports on the Society's activities and information about forthcoming events, performances and publications.
The Editor writes
The Society's print Journal of Oscar Wilde studies - The Wildean - is published twice a year (inJanuary and July) and contains features on a variety of subjects relatingto Wilde, including articles, reviews and correspondence. It is a publication of permanent interest (MLA listed and indexed) and copies of all recent back issues are available. Details from the Editor (see below).
Librarians interested in acquiring sets are invited to contact the Editor for details of contents and prices.
Contributions to future issues of The Wildean are invited. Guidelines for submissions are available from the Editor,and articles, reviews, notes or letters should be sent to him at the address given below.
THE OSCHOLARS publishes the Table of Contents for each new issue of The Wildean. Issue No.20 was published in January 2002 and details were given in the February issue of THE OSCHOLARS. Meanwhile we are printing the Tables of Contents from earlier issues, with a note from the editor about the principal articles,and will continue to do this until the whole set has been detailed.
The Wildean No. 9 was published in July 1996, and it is interesting to compare the accounts of the events that year, at the centenary of Speranza's death, with those in The Wildean 18 when, on 13th October 2000, she was twice commemorated, by a memorial cross at Kensal Green Cemetery and a blue plaque at 87 OakleyStreet. On 3rd February 1996, there were also two commemorations.
In Dublin, at noon, an inscribed panel — In Memoriam Jane Francesca, Lady Wilde — added to the Wilde family tomb at Mount Jerome Cemetery, was unveiled by Merlin Holland. 'Oscar owed her more than has ever been publicly recognised. Her salon and her conversation, her passionate interest in matters Celtic, her flamboyance and her humanity, her generosity of spirit — one could be describing Oscar himself, and yet all these thingswere hers.'
At the same time, at Kensal Green Cemetery, the Oscar Wilde Society honoured Speranza with a moving tribute paid by Gerardine McDermottroe, and laid flowerson her unmarked grave.
Gerardine read a letter from Merlin Holland: 'History has created too many Wilde martyrs: Oscar died in Parisand Constance in Genoa. Jane was not exactly an exile - indeed she finished up in the enemy camp, so to speak - but she cut a sad figure in her last years in Oakley Street and Oscar's trials and imprisonment can have done nothing to make her any happier. After so much recognition at home, to have died in London and to have been buried in a common grave is a terrible indignity for one of her stature. So I am both touched and delighted that you have come to pay your respects to Speranza here today.’'
What is described as an 'informal talk' by Joy Melville, provides an interesting assessment of Speranza as a wife and mother. Her marriage was extremely happy: it was at the core of the family that they all respected each other's work. As a wife she was extraordinary. She was a feminist, and yet every now and then she would say things that would make any feminist absolutely flinch. She once talked about: 'a wife who should be sunlight in the house; never mind the brains, women don't need them.' When she died, Willie wrote to a friend, saying: 'My dear mother was more than a mother to me. She was the best and truest and most loyal friend I had on earth.' Oscar and Willie both felt exactly the same about their mother, and you could not have a stronger, better tribute than those words.
Michael Seeney surveys the principal fictionalised accounts of Wilde's life: 'It is a platitude to say that Wilde created himself, but I hope to show that he did it rather better than those who came after.' He discusses æsthetes in fiction or satire who were to varying degrees modelled on Wilde, and goes on to consider how in the years after Bunthorne, Wildecreated and increasingly believed in his own fiction. In the 1890's there were representations of Wilde in Raffalovitch's A Willing Exile, Brookfield's The Poet and the Puppets, Street's The Autobiography of a Boy and, of course, Robert Hichens' The Green Carnation. Then, after the 'recession in the Wilde fiction industry' that followed the trials, a succession of plays and novels with sympathetic portrayals of Wilde: Leslie and Sewell Stokes' Oscar Wilde, Desmond Hall's I Give you Oscar Wilde, Peter Ackroyd's short but satisfying creation The Last Testament of Oscar Wilde, and Rohase Piercy's The Coward Does it with a Kiss.
In an article by Albi Rosenthal, a letter Stravinsky wrote in 1936 to the Mayor of Buenos Aires is printed and reproduced for the first time. Wilde's Salomé was to be performed in a new translation into Spanish, and Stravinsky urges him not to add music, 'which would be unnecessary [..] and damaging.' Stravinsky had a deep and implacable dislike of the music of Richard Strauss and believed that it only spoilt the impact of Wilde's language. In answer to a question by a student as to what he thought of Richard Strauss as a composer, he replied: 'He was a great conductor - I do not like his major works and I do not like his minor works.'
There are accounts of events arranged by the Society — Mark Burgess's dramatic readings Oscar Wilde: the Last First Night and Into Exile, and Matthew Sturgis's dialogue The Art of Suffering.
The Peter Hall production of An Ideal Husband at the Theatre Royal, Haymarket,with Martin Shaw as Lord Goring, is welcomed,as is Martin Jarvis's recording of Oscar Wilde’s trials in an adaptation by Gyles Brandreth —a remarkable tour de force.
Michael Seeney reviews John Stokes's Oscar Wilde: Myths Miracle and Imitations. 'For those who yearn for more contextual work on Wilde, who bemoan the hijacking of the manand his work by the structuralists, post structuralists, and the whole panoply of modern criticism, this book will convince you that you are not alone. Stokes wears his scholarship lightly, but even so it is wide-ranging and impressive.'
Anya Clayworth observes that Wilde left Ireland to go to Magdalen College and from that point on seems to have become the consummate Englishman. He called himself a 'recalcitrant patriot' and seems, on the surface, largely to have kept out of the ferocious debates which were on-going about Irelandin the late nineteenth century. It is not therefore surprising thatmany people regard Wilde at worst as an English writer, and at bestas an Anglo-Irish writer. She examines the work of a number of scholars who seek to 'reclaim' Wilde as an Irish subject and a proactive Irish writer with reviews of Davis Coakley's Oscar Wilde: The Importance of Being Irish, Richard Pine's The Thief of Reason: Oscar Wilde and Modern Ireland and Declan Kiberd's TLS article 'Wilde and the English Question'.
|
Articles |
||
|
Speranza Remembered. |
Andrew McDonnell |
|
|
A Tribute to Speranza. |
Gerardine McDermottroe |
|
|
Speranza As a Wife and Mother. |
Joy Melville |
|
|
An Oscar Wilde Photograph. |
Anthony Smith |
|
|
The Fictional Career of Oscar Wilde. |
Michael Seeney |
|
|
Igor Stravinsky and Oscar Wilde. |
Albi Rosenthal |
|
|
Reviews |
|
|
|
Mark Burgess: 'Oscar Wilde: The Last First Night' and 'Into Exile'. |
Donald Mead |
|
|
Matthew Sturgis:'The Art of Suffering'. |
Andrew McDonnell |
|
|
An Ideal Husband at the Theatre Royal, Haymarket |
Bindon Russell |
|
|
Martin Jarvis: 'Great Trials: Oscar Wilde'. |
Donald Mead |
|
|
Wilde the Irishman: the reclamation of a 'reluctant patriot'. |
Anya Clayworth |
|
|
John Stokes: Oscar Wilde: Myths Miracles and Imitations. |
Michael Seeney |
|
|
Notices |
Anya Clayworth and JeffFendall |
|
|
Correspondence |
Jeff Fendall, Colin Ashton, Dr Horst Schroeder, and Frances Turner |
|
|
The Oscar Wilde Society may be contacted by writing to the Hon. Secretary, Vanessa Harris 100 Peacock Street, Gravesend, Kent DA12 1EQ, England e-mail: vanessa@salome.co.uk The Wildean may be contacted by writingto its Editor, Donald Mead at 63 Lambton Road, London SW20 0LW, England e-mail donmead@wildean.demon.co.uk |
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