Mahaffy and Wilde

This chapter explores the relationship between Wilde and his Trinity College Classics tutor, John Pentland Mahaffy. This complex relationship played a vital part in the formation of Wilde’s distinctive version of Hellenism. It was a troubled relationship. Wilde and Mahaffy disagreed about politics, sexuality, religion, the course of Greek history, and the role and function of classical education. Examining these points of disagreement brings into clear relief a number of important contours in Wilde’s attitudes to the Greeks. Mahaffy, through his life and writing, provoked Wilde into defining precisely what the Greeks meant to Wilde, how they might be studied, and their value to contemporary society.