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The Wilde century: Oscar Wilde, effeminacy and the queer moment

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posted on 2023-06-08, 00:47 authored by Alan Sinfield
For 15 years in Victorian England, Oscar Wilde was able to carry on like the famous camp queen of our imaginings - effete, leisured, aesthetic, amoral, decadent, dandified. This work explores how Wilde was seen before the trials that ended his career and made him the most famous queer man since Socrates. In particular, it examines the concept of effeminacy and asks how Wilde's effeminacy was perceived. In examining these points, Sinfield ranges over issues of identity, subculture, race, style, masculinity, homophobia, genetics and gender-bending. He broaches the thesis that the Wilde trials bring into focus a particular image of the queer man which has extended into the 20th century, and that our stereotypical notion of male homosexuality derives from Wilde and our ideas about him. Sinfield assesses the strategic options for lesbian and gay subcultures today. This provocative book aspires to set the agenda for a gay cultural politics - a hundred years after the Wilde trials, on the threshold of the 21st century.

History

Publication status

  • Published

Publisher

Continuum International Publishing

Page range

216 pp

Pages

224.0

ISBN

9780304329052

Series

Cassell lesbian and gay studies

Department affiliated with

  • English Publications

Full text available

  • No

Peer reviewed?

  • Yes

Legacy Posted Date

2012-02-06

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