Wilde the writer

Abstract

Oscar Wilde did everything there is to be done with words. He spoke them, his contemporaries tell us, like no one else. He wrote plays in which the dialogue mirrored his own spoken ability and agility, plays that have remained popular and perpetually performed — even during the years of what everyone at the time, including Wilde, referred to as his “downfall” and disgrace. He strung them together in poems, from long historical tributes to art to sonnets, songs, and ballads. He used them for fictions, from short fairy tales and fabliaux to one full-length novel that still dazzles, confounds, and upsets. He crafted criticism, from literary reviews to opinion pieces about art to public letters to social critiques. He edited the work of others, most notably for the publication he renamed The Woman’s World- as he found its former title, The Lady’s World, insulting to the progressive readers he hoped to attract. And he was usually doing all of these varied things with words, in any and all of these genres and modes of expression, simultaneously.

“Quack, quack, quack,” [the Duck] said. “What a curious shape you are! May I ask were you born like that, or is it a result of an accident?”

“It is quite evident that you have always lived in the country,” answered the Rocket, “otherwise you would know who I am. However, I excuse your ignorance. It would be unfair to expect other people to be as remarkable as oneself. You will no doubt be surprised to hear that I can fly up into the sky, and come down as a shower of golden rain.”

Oscar Wilde, The Remarkable Rocket

He makes me tired.

Ambrose Bierce, The San Francisco Wasp, 1882

If the British public will stand this, they can stand anything.

John Addington Symonds on Dorian Gray, 1890