Oscar Wilde: A Long and Lovely Suicide

By Melissa Knox

Book Overview

"I was a problem for which there was no solution."--Oscar Wilde, 1897

During his lifetime Oscar Wilde was praised as a brilliant playwright, novelist, and conversationalist and stigmatized as a dangerous seducer of youth. Ironically, he is perhaps best remembered now for the bravery he exhibited in 1895 during his trial in England for homosexual offenses. In the first full-length psychoanalytic biography of Wilde, Melissa Knox explores the link between little-known childhood events and figures in his life and his psychological development to explain both Wilde's creativity and his self-destructive heroism.

Drawing on new information as well as on recent biographies and studies, Knox sketches the important characters in Wilde's formative years: an adoring and demanding mother, a father whose scandalous life degraded the family, and a beloved sister who died when Oscar was eleven. She describes Wilde's first daring efforts as a young man to challenge British mores; his lifelong battle with his fears of the syphilis he reportedly contracted at Oxford; his marriage and two children; his tempestuous and flamboyant love affair with Lord Alfred Douglas, whose father, the marquess of Queensberry, accused Wilde of homosexual practices; Wilde's libel suit against the marquess, subsequent trial, and two-year imprisonment; and his last years in exile, disgrace, and ill health. Uncovering the unconscious motivations beneath Wilde's surface bravado, Knox is able to explain his often puzzling actions. She also offers new interpretations of some of his works, from Salome, which she calls Wilde's most autobiographical work, to The Importance of Being Earnest, in which she sees Wilde artistically embracing his inability to resolve conflicts, to De Profundis, his attempt to salvage himself as a man and an artist.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B000KUM88M
• ISBN13: 9780300068733
• Release Date: September 1996
• Publisher: Yale University Press
• Length: 212 Pages
• Weight: 0.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.9" x 8.9"

Customer Reviews

Original and Provocative

I'm a graduate student studying Wilde, and really appreciated this thoughtful and challenging book. So much of the scholarship on the most interesting issues--gender, sexuality, identity--is original only in its jargonistic neologisms. This book is different: straightforward, solidly researched, beautifully written, and sympathetic to Wilde.

Best book available on Wilde

This is simply the best book on Oscar Wilde that I've ever read. A must read for Wilde scholars and an enjoyable read for Wilde enthusiasts.

Excellent, readable, and scholarly

This psychoanalytic biography of Wilde explores more aspects of his life than many of the better known biographies, even Ellmann's. Well-researched, well-written, fun to read. Wilde's isolation, complicated relationship to his young sister who died and his parents, and terror of syphilis, are all explored in this interesting and enjoyable book