Wilde Between the Sheets: Oscar Wilde, Mail Bondage and De Profundis

by David Walton

Overview

Wilde Between the Sheets: 'scar Wilde, Mail Bondage and De Profundis argues that 'scar Wilde’s narrative strategies reveal a quick-witted, ingenious fighter—an active agent who tested boundaries and recognized the dangers of doing so, adopting essentialist or anti-essentialist strategies according to whatever shifting purpose he is writing with. David Walton challenges the one-dimensional view of Wilde as a tragic victim defeated by the penal system, arguing that Wilde constructed a self by weaving complex networks of time and paradoxical notions of space, along with a network of literary references and other intertexts. Walton goes on to claim that Wilde fashions a self while simultaneously being shaped by those he fashions, creating a critical dialogue which shows that, by constructing Wilde through interpretive acts, he has already been partially fashioned by Wilde himself.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781793614216
Publisher:	Lexington Books
Publication date:	10/14/2020
Pages:	262
Product dimensions:	6.34(w) x 8.96(h) x 1.02(d)

About the Author

David Walton is senior lecturer and coordinator of cultural studies at the University of Murcia.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Preface: The Accidental Book

Chapter One: The Wilde-Angle Lens

Chapter Two: The Exposure of Private Parts:Ontology and the Fashioning of ‘De Profundis’

Chapter Three: Sentencing Wilde; Wilde on Trial: the Gay Science

Chapter Four: Man of Letters: Trials, Politics and ‘Homotextuality’

Chapter Five: Fashioning Wilde in the Space of the Other

Chapter Six: An Author Authored

Chapter Seven: Doing Time: Wilde chronotopes and a Poetics of Space

Chapter Eight: Sentencing a Self in the Future: the Chronotope of Future Time

Chapter Nine: Fashioning Wilde as Intertextual Man

Chapter Ten: From the multiplication of social voices to Christ on the Wilde side

Chapter Eleven: Playtex(i)t: A Dialogue

References

About the Author

Editorial Reviews

In the first book-length study of 'scar Wilde’s De Profundis, David Walton has produced something that should be of serious interest to all students of literary and cultural studies: a wonderfully focused and theoretically rich, textual and historical analysis, that has much to teach us all.

John Storey

This book offers a highly original critical approach to 'scar Wilde’s De Profundis. Characterized by an astonishing depth and detail of analysis, it engages in a thorough reading of the letter, teasing out virtually all interpretive possibilities. I would say that it offers the most comprehensive account possible, but this would negate Walton’s theoretical contention that the textual complexities of the work and its socio-political contexts mean that a final accounting of it is impossible. What I can say is that Wilde scholars should begin, rather than end, here.

Suzanne Ferriss

Reacting against...common wisdom is what makes Wilde between the Sheets must-reading for those interested in The Profundis. Moreover, I believe the book also has a broad appeal for Wilde specialists and readers of Post-Structuralist literary criticism in general.

From the Publisher

Wilde Between the Sheets: 'scar Wilde, Mail Bondage and 'De Profundis' is a unique, ground-breaking and much needed contribution to literary studies that finally places Wilde’s ‘De Profundis’ centre-stage. Situating Wilde in his social, political, legal and cultural contexts, the sheer profundity, detailed research and intellectual imagination behind Walton’s examination of Wilde and ‘De Profundis’ shed new light (not to mention casting playful shadows) on Wilde, his life and writing. The book also presents a multidimensional Rubik’s cube of literary approaches and philosophical concepts; with much theoretical dexterity, the author realigns these to form intricate new patterns of critical thinking, making the book as much about literary criticism as it is about a study of a literary figure and their work. As Walton takes the reader with much wit and insight through each chapter, Wilde Between the Sheets indeed does as it promises: it opens the door to a new space for the literary, historical, material and (con)textual exploration of ‘De Profundis’ and the fascinating fashionings of Wilde.

Esperanza Myake

Reacting against...common wisdom is what makes Wilde between the Sheets must-reading for those interested in The Profundis. Moreover, I believe the book also has a broad appeal for Wilde specialists and readers of Post-Structuralist literary criticism in general.

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