The Ballad of Oscar Wilde Restricted; Files Only

Abstract

Critical literature has tended to divide Oscar Wilde’s life and work by his imprisonment, reinforcing a dualistic narrative in which his aestheticism is seen to have been negated by prison. Furthermore, considerations of Wilde as a poet remain largely tangential in the otherwise diverse and abundant critical discussions surrounding him and his work. My study, The Ballad of Oscar Wilde, places this received narrative into fundamental question. I argue that prison did not divorce Wilde from his prior aestheticism, and poetry allowed him to deepen it. Focusing on the writings derived from his prison cell at Reading—namely, his letter De Profundis and his poem The Ballad of Reading Gaol—as well as the ways in which his influence and remembrance as the poet of Reading extended beyond Reading into the twentieth century, I make a case for the marked and continuing influence that poetry had on Wilde and on the development of his deepened aestheticism as he dealt with the trials of his imprisonment. The chapters proceed chronologically—beginning with his imprisonment in 1895 and then, following his early death in 1900, continue to investigate his border-crossing influence on a range of twentieth-century poets and translators of poetry. Employing close reading, comparative analysis, and historic contextualization, my study presents a comparative poetic history of the fall of Wilde’s life that centers the crucial role of poetry in the seemingly most unlikely of places—the prison walls of Reading and beyond.

Table of Contents

Introduction………………………………………………………..………………….........2 – 33

PART ONE: Poetic Release in Reading Gaol

Chapter One

Wilde’s Eternal Downfall: The Poetics of De Profundis……………………………..35 – 77

Chapter Two

The Rose and the Thorn: Ballad and Canon in The Ballad of Reading Gaol ……78 – 124

PART TWO: Remembrance Beyond Reading

Chapter Three

Ballad by Another Name: Towards a Comparative Translation History                                         

of The Ballad of Reading Gaol……………………………………………………….......127 – 183

Chapter Four

Making Poetry: Oscar Wilde as Influence on Muriel Rukeyser…………….………184 – 233

Bibliography…………………………………………………………………………...........234 – 250

About this Dissertation

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School	Laney Graduate School
Department	Comparative Literature
Degree	Ph.D.
Submission	Dissertation
Language	English
Research Field	Literature, Comparative Literature, English
Parola chiave	Modern Poetry Literary History Aestheticism Comparative Poetics Oscar Wilde
Committee Chair / Thesis Advisor	Angelika Bammer, Emory University
Committee Members	Nathan Suhr-Sytsma, Emory University Deborah Elise White, Emory University

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