The Reception of Oscar Wilde in Europe

Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) is now widely recognized not only as one of the most representative figures of the British fin de siecle, but as one of the most influential Anglophone authors of the nineteenth century. In Britain Wilde suffered a long period of comparative neglect following the scandal of his conviction for `gross indecency' in 1895 and it is only recently that his works have been thoroughly reassessed. But while Wilde was subjected to silence in Britain, he became a European phenomenon. His famous dandyism, his witticisms, paradoxes and provocations became the object of imitation and parody. His controversial aesthetic doctrines were a strong influence on Decadent writers and on the development of Symbolist and Modernist cultures.

This collection of essays by leading international scholars and translators traces the cultural impact of Oscar Wilde's work across Europe, from the earliest translations and performances of his works in the 1890s to the present day.

Stefano Evangelista is Fellow and Tutor in English at Trinity College, Oxford, and Lecturer in English at the University of Oxford. His book British Aestheticism and Ancient Greece: Hellenism, Reception, Gods in Exile was published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2009.
Elinor Shaffer FBA, Senior Research Fellow, Institute of Germanic and Romance Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London, has published on Romantic and Victorian literature, is author of `Kubla Khan' and The Fall of Jerusalem: The Mythological School of Biblical Criticism and Secular Literature, edited the annual journal Comparative Criticism, and most recently has contributed to Samuel Butler: Victorian Against the Grain.