Making Oscar Wilde

January 22, 2018
Mendelssohn (Henry James), a professor of English at Oxford, peripatetically, and not quite satisfyingly, reexamines Oscar Wilde’s self-mythologization, reinvention, and rise to celebrity, mostly in terms of Wilde’s 1882 speaking tour of the United States. Straining to broaden the focus from Wilde’s own career to a larger cultural context, Mendelssohn emphasizes how the author was caught up in the racial, ethnic, and class anxieties roiling a post–Civil War America full of newly arrived immigrants, many from Wilde’s native Ireland. After describing Wilde’s early life and university career, the book shifts focus to the then-little-known 27-year-old Wilde’s time crisscrossing the U.S. talking about the Aesthetic art movement that he so flamboyantly represented. Though Wilde would paint the tour as a success, in fact he often found himself the subject of mockery and hostile scrutiny. Mendelssohn argues that Wilde nevertheless learned twin lessons in perseverance and showmanship that served him in good stead in writing the plays that would subsequently secure his fame. Mendelssohn’s study never quite settles, as it tries to meld biography with an expansive cultural history filtered through the lens of Wilde’s visit and interactions. Nonetheless, there is much to ponder in Mendelssohn’s analysis, whether one agrees with it or not, and it will hopefully inform future discussions of Wilde.