| This psychobiographic study assesses the influences of the severe emotional and intellectual conflicts that had their root in Oscar Wilde's childhood. The introduction surveys psychoanalytic studies in English of Oscar Wilde, examines current approaches to psychoanalytic literary criticism and biography, and comments on Wilde scholarship within the last ten years. In the study, I discuss his life and wit in light of the repeated appearance in his work of figures from his childhood, and the unconscious conflicts that prevented his emotional emergence from childhood. These conflicts inspired his most brilliant work as well as his dreadful end.;Chapter Two, "Disease and Inspiration," traces the influence of Wilde's syphilis on one of the important epochs of his creativity. The style and content of The Picture of Dorian Gray result, I believe, from an attempt to deny the horror of his disease, to blot out visions of decay by painting opiated aesthetic scenes.;Chapter Three, "Wilde in his Letters," reveals Wilde's inability to resolve his oedipal conflicts through literary work. Irrationally provoking the Marquis of Queensberry, Wilde was driven to act out his oedipal conflicts. Wilde's daring narcissism during the subsequent trials made the worst hours of his life into the best moments of his self-dramatization.;Chapter Four, "The Dialectics of the The Importance of Being Earnest," demonstrates Wilde's maturity as a writer. Temporarily he achieved the emotional ability to accept his conflicted existence in a new existential manner.;Chapter One, "Anti-Hero and Patriot," explores the consequences of Wilde's parents' ambition that he become an Irish hero, which among other things unluckily drove him to identify overt homosexual behavior with Irish heroism. A mysterious attachment to his younger sister Isola, who died when he was only eleven, colored his best writing as well as the love affairs of his later life.;Chapter Five, "De Profundis: Wilde Dying Beyond his Means," describes Wilde's ultimate failure to resurrect himself as an artist. His pathological narcissism had grown to the point where his Munchausenian attempt to pull himself up by his own bootstraps was no longer possible. |
