Oscar Wilde and Classical Antiquity

Few authors of the Victorian period were as immersed in classical learning as Oscar Wilde. He studied Classics at Trinity College Dublin and Oxford, winning academic prizes and distinctions at both institutions. His undergraduate notebooks as well as his essays and articles on ancient topics reveal a mind engrossed in problems in classical scholarship and fascinated by the relationship between ancient and modern thought. His first publications were English translations of classical texts. Even after he had ‘left Parnassus for Piccadilly’, antiquity continued to provide Wilde with a critical vocabulary in which he could express himself and his aestheticism, an intellectual framework for understanding the world around him, and a compelling set of narratives to fire his artist’s imagination. Wilde’s debt to Greece and Rome is evident throughout his writings, from the sparkling wit of Society plays like The Importance of Being Earnest to the extraordinary meditation on suffering that is De Profundis. This book unites scholars in Classics and ancient history, English, theatre and performance studies, and the history of ideas to investigate the varied and profound impact that Graeco-Roman antiquity had on Wilde’s life and work. This wide-ranging collection covers all the major genres of Wilde’s literary output; it includes new perspectives on his most celebrated and canonical texts and close analyses of unpublished material. It also encompasses the main aspects of the ancient world that Wilde engaged with, its literature, history, and philosophy.