Victorian society had strict written and unwritten laws about what was permissible in terms of personal relationships. Anglican patriarchal church values governed behaviour between the classes and enforced codes of conduct on gender related boundaries of private individuals. Society subscribed to the traditional family of man, woman and children in the context of marriage. Homosexuality amongst men was punishable by prison. Government and religion preached Christian morality, yet the number of prostitutes had never been greater. This dissertation explores the problems of a pro-homosexual and anti-establishment Victorian author writing about human relationships forbidden by society. It exposes the consequences suffered by Oscar Wilde due to his investigative insights into the `Other' in the context of individual rights of preference in regard to sexual orientation, as expressed in selected texts, and his resolution of conflict, in De Profundis. / English Studies / MA (English)

I examine Wilde’s Hellenism in terms of the specific texts, editions and institutions through which he encountered ancient Greece. The late-nineteenth-century professionalisation of classical scholarship and the rise of the new science of archaeology from the 1870s onwards endangered the status of antiquity as a textual source of ideal fictions rather than a material object of positivist study. The major theme of my thesis is Wilde’s relationship with archaeology and his efforts to preserve Greece as an imaginative resource and a model for right conduct. From his childhood Wilde had accompanied his father Sir William Wilde on digs around Ireland. Sir William’s ethnological interests led him to posit a common racial origin for Celts and Greeks; thus, for Wilde, to read a Greek text was to intuit native affinity. Chapters 1–3 trace his education, his travels in Greece, his involvement with the founding of the Hellenic Society, and his defence of the archaeologically accurate stage spectaculars of the 1880s, arguing that in his close association with supporters of archaeology such as J.P. Mahaffy and George Macmillan Wilde exemplifies the new kind of Hellenist opposed by Benjamin Jowett and R.C. Jebb. Chapter 4 makes a case for Wilde’s final repudiation of archaeology and his return to the textual remains of Greek antiquity, present as an intertexual resource in his mature works. Thus I examine the role of Aristotle’s Ethics in ‘The Soul of Man Under Socialism’ and of Platonism in the critical dialogues, The Picture of Dorian Gray and ‘The Portrait of Mr W.H.’ I present The Importance of Being Earnest as a self-conscious exercise in the New Comedy of Menander, concluding that Wilde ultimately returned to the anachronistic eclecticism of the Renaissance attitude to ancient texts.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-25T20:20:40Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Helena de Lima Corvini.pdf: 402435 bytes, checksum: c27b65909c893b98758526a82026bf2a (MD5) Previous issue date: 2012-05-23 / Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico / This present dissertation intends to accompany Oscar Wilde's steps through late Victorian London, the booming center of an already decadent Empire. At this time being, positivist and imperialist discourses explain the reality. Both the medical science and the law fight over the theme of homosexuality. In a time when the symbolic authority to name homosexual desire is being questioned, Wilde is brave enough to state the precedence of the artist in naming the world. His life and works cause exalted reactions. His excentricities outrage London's high-society, of which Wilde becomes the arbiter of elegance, despite being a complete outsider: Irish and homosexual. He lives Aestheticism and dandism to the fullest, he lives a purposedly gay lifestyle and excites the fear of exerting some sort of "corruption" or "influence" over young men of the British society. His writing, through the use of paradoxes and symbolic invertions, shows the underpinnings of the aparently neutral text of normative reality. In his judgment, he is turned into the scapegoat of a severely repressed and puritan society. His works have founded the camp sensibility and a decidedly homosexual aesthetics / A presente dissertação busca acompanhar os passos de Oscar Wilde pela Londres da era vitoriana tardia, o centro pujante de um Império já em decadência. Nesse momento, o status quo produz um discurso positivista e imperialista sobre o mundo. A homossexualidade é disputada pelos discursos da ciência médica e da jurisprudência. Numa época em que a autoridade simbólica para nomear o desejo homoerótico se encontra questionada, Wilde tem a ousadia de afirmar a primazia do artista em nomear o mundo. Com sua vida e sua obra, Wilde provoca reações exaltadas. Suas excentricidades chocam a alta sociedade londrina, da qual se torna o árbitro da elegância, apesar de sua posição de outsider: irlandês e homossexual. Vivendo plenamente os ideários do Esteticismo e do dandismo, tem um estilo de vida acintosamente gay e suscita o medo da "corrupção" e da "influência" sobre os homens jovens por parte da sociedade inglesa. As masculinidades estão sendo elaboradas nesse momento e há o medo de que os homens jovens deixem de ser viris cavalheiros para se tornarem afeminados dândis. Em seus escritos, por meio de paradoxos e inversões simbólicas, Wilde também mostra a costura por baixo do texto aparentemente neutro da realidade normativa. Em seu julgamento, é transformado em bode expiatório de uma sociedade severamente reprimida e puritana. Suas obras permanecem hoje como fundadoras da sensibilidade camp e de uma estética decididamente homossexual

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-26T14:53:38Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Helena de Lima Corvini.pdf: 402435 bytes, checksum: c27b65909c893b98758526a82026bf2a (MD5) Previous issue date: 2012-05-23 / Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico / This present dissertation intends to accompany Oscar Wilde's steps through late Victorian London, the booming center of an already decadent Empire. At this time being, positivist and imperialist discourses explain the reality. Both the medical science and the law fight over the theme of homosexuality. In a time when the symbolic authority to name homosexual desire is being questioned, Wilde is brave enough to state the precedence of the artist in naming the world. His life and works cause exalted reactions. His excentricities outrage London's high-society, of which Wilde becomes the arbiter of elegance, despite being a complete outsider: Irish and homosexual. He lives Aestheticism and dandism to the fullest, he lives a purposedly gay lifestyle and excites the fear of exerting some sort of "corruption" or "influence" over young men of the British society. His writing, through the use of paradoxes and symbolic invertions, shows the underpinnings of the aparently neutral text of normative reality. In his judgment, he is turned into the scapegoat of a severely repressed and puritan society. His works have founded the camp sensibility and a decidedly homosexual aesthetics / A presente dissertação busca acompanhar os passos de Oscar Wilde pela Londres da era vitoriana tardia, o centro pujante de um Império já em decadência. Nesse momento, o status quo produz um discurso positivista e imperialista sobre o mundo. A homossexualidade é disputada pelos discursos da ciência médica e da jurisprudência. Numa época em que a autoridade simbólica para nomear o desejo homoerótico se encontra questionada, Wilde tem a ousadia de afirmar a primazia do artista em nomear o mundo. Com sua vida e sua obra, Wilde provoca reações exaltadas. Suas excentricidades chocam a alta sociedade londrina, da qual se torna o árbitro da elegância, apesar de sua posição de outsider: irlandês e homossexual. Vivendo plenamente os ideários do Esteticismo e do dandismo, tem um estilo de vida acintosamente gay e suscita o medo da "corrupção" e da "influência" sobre os homens jovens por parte da sociedade inglesa. As masculinidades estão sendo elaboradas nesse momento e há o medo de que os homens jovens deixem de ser viris cavalheiros para se tornarem afeminados dândis. Em seus escritos, por meio de paradoxos e inversões simbólicas, Wilde também mostra a costura por baixo do texto aparentemente neutro da realidade normativa. Em seu julgamento, é transformado em bode expiatório de uma sociedade severamente reprimida e puritana. Suas obras permanecem hoje como fundadoras da sensibilidade camp e de uma estética decididamente homossexual

“The Transgressive Stage: The Culture of Public Entertainment in Late Victorian Toronto,” argues that public entertainment was one of the most important sites for the negotiation of identities in late Victorian Toronto. From the vantage point of the twenty-first century, where theatre is strictly highbrow, it is difficult to appreciate the centrality of public entertainment to everyday life in the nineteenth century. Simply put, the Victorian imagination was populated by melodrama and minstrelsy, Shakespeare and circuses. Studying the responses to these entertainments, greatly expands our understanding of Victorian culture. The central argument of this dissertation is that public entertainment spilled over the threshold of the playhouse and circus tent to influence the wider world. In so doing, it radically altered the urban streetscape, interacted with political ideology, promoted trends in consumption, as well as exposed audiences to new intellectual currents about art and beauty. Specifically, this study examines the moral panic surrounding indecent theatrical advertisements; the use by political playwrights of tropes from public entertainment as a vehicle for political satire; the role of the stage in providing an outlet for Toronto’s racial curiosity; the centrality of commercial amusements in defining the boundaries of gender; and, finally, the importance of the theatre—particularly through the Aesthetic Movement—in attempts to control the city’s working class. When Torontonians took in a play, they were also exposing themselves to one of the most significant transnational forces of the nineteenth century. British and American shows, which made up the bulk of what was on offer in the city, brought with them British and American perspectives. The latest plays from London and New York made their way to the city within months, and sometimes weeks, of their first production. These entertainments introduced audiences to the latest thoughts, fashion, slang and trends. They also confronted playgoers with issues that might, on the surface seem foreign and irrelevant. Nevertheless, they quickly adapted to the environment north of the border. Public entertainment in Toronto came to embody a hybridized culture with a promiscuous co-mingling of high and low and of British and American influences.

“The Transgressive Stage: The Culture of Public Entertainment in Late Victorian Toronto,” argues that public entertainment was one of the most important sites for the negotiation of identities in late Victorian Toronto. From the vantage point of the twenty-first century, where theatre is strictly highbrow, it is difficult to appreciate the centrality of public entertainment to everyday life in the nineteenth century. Simply put, the Victorian imagination was populated by melodrama and minstrelsy, Shakespeare and circuses. Studying the responses to these entertainments, greatly expands our understanding of Victorian culture. The central argument of this dissertation is that public entertainment spilled over the threshold of the playhouse and circus tent to influence the wider world. In so doing, it radically altered the urban streetscape, interacted with political ideology, promoted trends in consumption, as well as exposed audiences to new intellectual currents about art and beauty. Specifically, this study examines the moral panic surrounding indecent theatrical advertisements; the use by political playwrights of tropes from public entertainment as a vehicle for political satire; the role of the stage in providing an outlet for Toronto’s racial curiosity; the centrality of commercial amusements in defining the boundaries of gender; and, finally, the importance of the theatre—particularly through the Aesthetic Movement—in attempts to control the city’s working class. When Torontonians took in a play, they were also exposing themselves to one of the most significant transnational forces of the nineteenth century. British and American shows, which made up the bulk of what was on offer in the city, brought with them British and American perspectives. The latest plays from London and New York made their way to the city within months, and sometimes weeks, of their first production. These entertainments introduced audiences to the latest thoughts, fashion, slang and trends. They also confronted playgoers with issues that might, on the surface seem foreign and irrelevant. Nevertheless, they quickly adapted to the environment north of the border. Public entertainment in Toronto came to embody a hybridized culture with a promiscuous co-mingling of high and low and of British and American influences.

Victorian society had strict written and unwritten laws about what was permissible in terms of personal relationships. Anglican patriarchal church values governed behaviour between the classes and enforced codes of conduct on gender related boundaries of private individuals. Society subscribed to the traditional family of man, woman and children in the context of marriage. Homosexuality amongst men was punishable by prison. Government and religion preached Christian morality, yet the number of prostitutes had never been greater. This dissertation explores the problems of a pro-homosexual and anti-establishment Victorian author writing about human relationships forbidden by society. It exposes the consequences suffered by Oscar Wilde due to his investigative insights into the `Other' in the context of individual rights of preference in regard to sexual orientation, as expressed in selected texts, and his resolution of conflict, in De Profundis. / English Studies / MA (English)

This work aims to analyze the behavior of some characters in the fairy tales of Irish writer Oscar Fingal O Flahertie Wills Wilde (1854-1900), more specifically the five ones those consists the work The Happy Prince and other stories, from 1888. We intend to verify why art s strength comes from the elements that compound it, whereas ideological units, plurissignificant and multifaceted, are only likely to be analyzed when facing other elements, containing contexts and users of such contexts. In Wilde s fairy tales this aesthetic sense prevails and the characters tend to acquire multiple forms and a lot of meanings. Therefore, if we could consider the literary work as an ideological system it is essential to emphasize the characters who are inserted in that system, as well look into it so that one can delimitate its constituting elements, identifying whether its actions are right products of criticism and reflection about the facts or if they are motivated by instincts inherent to rationality, and proceeding to the analysis of these characters not only concerning themselves but also concerning the other characters, to the space they share, the time offered to them and above all, the diegesis which captures them. Thus, Oscar Wilde becomes a valuable importance author to verify all these concepts, due to the variety of his gallery of literary types and due to his ironic and acute aesthetic sense that will lead to the analysis of the characters constitution and motivation of their possible, unstoppable sometimes, subversive posture. / Este trabalho visa analisar o comportamento de determinadas personagens em alguns contos de fadas do escritor irlandês Oscar Fingal O Flahertie Wills Wilde (1854-1900), mais especificamente os cinco contos que compõem a obra O Príncipe Feliz e outras Histórias, de 1888. Desejamos verificar por que a força da arte advém dos signos que a compõem e tais signos, enquanto unidades ideológicas plurissignificantes e multiformes, somente são passíveis de serem analisados quando estão em face de outros signos, dos contextos que os comportam e dos usuários que se fazem valer deles. Nos contos de fadas wildianos esse senso de estética prevalece, e suas personagens tendem a adquirir formas múltiplas e vários significados. Assim, se consideramos as obras literárias como sistemas ideológicos, faz-se necessário dar relevo às personagens que povoam tais sistemas, olhá-las de maneira a delimitar seus elementos constitutivos, identificar se suas ações são produtos acertados da criticidade e da reflexão frente aos acontecimentos ou se elas são motivadas pela força de instintos subjacentes à racionalidade, proceder à análise dessas personagens não apenas frente a si próprias, mas também frente às demais personagens, ao espaço que elas partilham, ao tempo que lhes é ofertado e sobremaneira à diegese que as acolhe. Nesse sentido, Oscar Wilde passa a ser um autor de valorosa importância para a verificação de todos esses conceitos, devido à sua variada galeria de tipos literários e de um aguçado e irônico senso estético que nos leva a analisar as constituições e motivações das personagens a partir de uma possível, e por vezes irrefreável, postura subversiva. / Mestre em Teoria Literária

No description available.

Avec l’avènement de la sexologie à la fin du XIXe siècle, le discours médico-juridique sur les déviances sexuelles et la psychiatrie s’impose dans les sociétés européennes, devenant ainsi la référence en matière de normalité non seulement sexuelle et identitaire, mais aussi, en parallèle, culturelle et morale. Investiguant le domaine littéraire à la recherche de perversions sexuelles, la discipline médico-légale s’empare des personnages et leurs auteurs, désormais tous analysés et critiqués par ce regard « pathologisant ». Sous cet angle, les dandys décadents Paul-Eric de Fertzen dans Les Hors nature (1897) de Rachilde et Dorian Gray dans Le Portrait de Dorian Gray (1890) d’Oscar Wilde sont deux « cas » médicaux exemplaires de déviance androgyne, « homosexuelle » et dégénérescente, car ils ne performent pas (ou mal) la norme hétéronormative et virile en vigueur à l’époque. À l’aide de la théorie queer envisagée comme processus de « “déterritorialisation” de l’hétérosexualité » (Preciado, 2003), ce mémoire remet en question les présupposés historiographiques du « contrat social » (Wittig, 1992) implicite et décloisonne les personnages (et les auteurs) de leurs multiples diagnostics. En relevant dans les trajectoires narratives des protagonistes les ratés initiatiques qui empêchent leur agrégation à la société, dans une perspective ethnocritique, nous nous intéresserons à ce qui construit une identité à la fin du XIXe siècle. Une question principale guide ce travail : comment ces dandys, en étant monstrueux, anormaux, marginaux, mal initiés, se posent-ils en figures queer et « liminaires » (Scarpa, 2009) au sein du récit? / With the advent of sexology at the end of the 19th century, the medico-legal discourse on sexual deviance and psychiatry impose itself in European societies, thus becoming the reference in matters of not only sexual normality and identity, but also, in parallel, in cultural and moral discourse. Investigating the literary field in search of sexual perversions, the forensic discipline seizes the characters and their authors, now all analyzed and criticized by this “pathologizing” gaze. From this angle, the decadent dandies Paul-Eric de Fertzen in Les Hors nature (1897) by Rachilde and Dorian Gray in The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890) by Oscar Wilde are two exemplary medical “cases” of androgynous, “homosexual” and degenerate deviance, because they do not perform (or poorly) the heteronormative and virile norm in force at the time. Using queer theory seen as a process of “‘deterritorialization’ of heterosexuality” (Preciado, 2003), this thesis questions the historiographical presuppositions of the implicit “social contract” (Wittig, 1992) and decompartmentalizes the characters (and the authors) of their multiple diagnosis. By noting in the narrative trajectories of the protagonists the initiation failures that prevent their aggregation into society, from an ethnocritical perspective, we will be interested in what built an identity at the end of the 19th century. A main question guides this work: how these dandies, by being monstrous, abnormal, marginal, poorly initiated, do they pose as queer and “liminary” figures (Scarpa, 2009) within the narrative?