An overview of scholarly and critical works on Oscar Wilde over the last two decades as well as a... more An overview of scholarly and critical works on Oscar Wilde over the last two decades as well as a discussion of creative adaptations based on the writer's life and work during that period.
Critics generally have viewed D. H. Lawrence’s novel The Lost Girl (1920) as a vexing fictional w... more Critics generally have viewed D. H. Lawrence’s novel The Lost Girl (1920) as a vexing fictional work that, with its resemblance to the fiction of Arnold Bennett and Compton Mackenzie, seems to eschew the modernist experiment that Lawrence had boldly embarked on in his other fiction of the period. Yet the story of Alvina Houghton, the daughter of a struggling Midlands draper and an “odd woman” who seems to reject marriage, only superficially follows the examples set by these writers. Rather, the novel’s heroine, with her ten suitors and her restless need to dominate her lovers, echoes the aspirations of the turn-of-the-century Aestheticist movement and resembles more the heroines of Decadent fiction, with their indomitable, insatiable erotic requirements. Furthermore, in rejecting the social realm that is so crucial to realist fiction of the period, Lawrence rejects the idea that unmarried women face a tragic personal dilemma.
The Nineteenth-Century Child and Consumer Culture, 2016
... As an adult, Joey accidentally glimpses Rita Hayworth as Salome on a television screen, andHa... more ... As an adult, Joey accidentally glimpses Rita Hayworth as Salome on a television screen, andHayworth's screams at the sight of the Baptist's decapitated head echo with those of the young women Joey has murdered. ... New York: Oxford UP, 1986. Duncan, Alastair. Art Nouveau. ...
If there is an author who seems to evoke today’s complex and shifting sexual Zeitgeist, animating... more If there is an author who seems to evoke today’s complex and shifting sexual Zeitgeist, animating contemporary fantasies, anxieties, and obsessions, it is surely Oscar Wilde. As I write this in New York City, Wilde the erotic dissident and decadent artist (the two roles, as we shall see, are today entangled) is everywhere in evidence: recently a new production of Strauss’s Salome; ran at the New York City Opera, the set for which — a court of Herod dominated by a huge, glittering staircase — borrowed winkingly from the Billy Wilder Hollywood movie Sunset Boulevard. On Broadway, a musical version of the film A Man of No Importance, adapted to the stage by the playwright Terrence McNally, depicted as its protagonist a Wilde-obsessed homosexual bus-driver. A new production of The Importance of Being Earnest at the Jean Cocteau Repertory Company closed several months ago, only to be followed by another production by the Aquila Theater Company set in contemporary times that recently opened on off-Broadway. A “reading” of Salome; has migrated from Brooklyn to Broadway, starring Al Pacino, Aiden Quinn, Diane Wiest, and Jennifer Jason Leigh (a role then assumed by Marisa Tomei), with Pacino recapitulating his Broadway role of Herod from the 1980s.
... be angry and cry fie on me if I did."37 After Bronte's death, however, Thackeray pu... more ... be angry and cry fie on me if I did."37 After Bronte's death, however, Thackeray published the fragment "Emma," Bronte's last ... compellingly strong-willed heroines in Victorian fiction could never forgive his independent-minded colleague for having created in Jane Eyre a fictional ...
After Queer Studies: Literature, Theory, and Sexuality in the 21st Century (Eds. Bradway/McCallum, 2018
I read for the first time the (almost) complete account of Oscar's trials...It's very int... more I read for the first time the (almost) complete account of Oscar's trials...It's very interesting and depressing. One of the surprising features is that he very nearly got off. If he had, what would have happened, I wonder? I fancy the history of English culture might have been quite different, if a juryman's stupidity had chanced to take another turn. (Lytton Strachey, Letter to Dora Carrington)
"Salome's Lost Childhood," in “The Nineteenth-Century Child and Consumer Culture, ed. Dennis Deni... more "Salome's Lost Childhood," in “The Nineteenth-Century Child and Consumer Culture, ed. Dennis Denisoff (Ashgate, 2008).
From St. Sebastian: The Uses of Decadence. Exhibition Catalogue for A Splendid Readiness for Deat... more From St. Sebastian: The Uses of Decadence. Exhibition Catalogue for A Splendid Readiness for Death: St. Sebastian in Art. Kunsthalle Wien Museum (Vienna), 2004.
A Good Woman on Five Thousand Pounds: Jane Eyre, Vanity Fair, and Literary Rivalry
Author(s): Ric... more A Good Woman on Five Thousand Pounds: Jane Eyre, Vanity Fair, and Literary Rivalry Author(s): Richard A. Kaye Source: Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900, Vol. 35, No. 4, Nineteenth Century (Autumn, 1995), pp. 723-739 Published by: Rice University Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/450762
An overview of scholarly and critical works on Oscar Wilde over the last two decades as well as a... more An overview of scholarly and critical works on Oscar Wilde over the last two decades as well as a discussion of creative adaptations based on the writer's life and work during that period.
Critics generally have viewed D. H. Lawrence’s novel The Lost Girl (1920) as a vexing fictional w... more Critics generally have viewed D. H. Lawrence’s novel The Lost Girl (1920) as a vexing fictional work that, with its resemblance to the fiction of Arnold Bennett and Compton Mackenzie, seems to eschew the modernist experiment that Lawrence had boldly embarked on in his other fiction of the period. Yet the story of Alvina Houghton, the daughter of a struggling Midlands draper and an “odd woman” who seems to reject marriage, only superficially follows the examples set by these writers. Rather, the novel’s heroine, with her ten suitors and her restless need to dominate her lovers, echoes the aspirations of the turn-of-the-century Aestheticist movement and resembles more the heroines of Decadent fiction, with their indomitable, insatiable erotic requirements. Furthermore, in rejecting the social realm that is so crucial to realist fiction of the period, Lawrence rejects the idea that unmarried women face a tragic personal dilemma.
The Nineteenth-Century Child and Consumer Culture, 2016
... As an adult, Joey accidentally glimpses Rita Hayworth as Salome on a television screen, andHa... more ... As an adult, Joey accidentally glimpses Rita Hayworth as Salome on a television screen, andHayworth's screams at the sight of the Baptist's decapitated head echo with those of the young women Joey has murdered. ... New York: Oxford UP, 1986. Duncan, Alastair. Art Nouveau. ...
If there is an author who seems to evoke today’s complex and shifting sexual Zeitgeist, animating... more If there is an author who seems to evoke today’s complex and shifting sexual Zeitgeist, animating contemporary fantasies, anxieties, and obsessions, it is surely Oscar Wilde. As I write this in New York City, Wilde the erotic dissident and decadent artist (the two roles, as we shall see, are today entangled) is everywhere in evidence: recently a new production of Strauss’s Salome; ran at the New York City Opera, the set for which — a court of Herod dominated by a huge, glittering staircase — borrowed winkingly from the Billy Wilder Hollywood movie Sunset Boulevard. On Broadway, a musical version of the film A Man of No Importance, adapted to the stage by the playwright Terrence McNally, depicted as its protagonist a Wilde-obsessed homosexual bus-driver. A new production of The Importance of Being Earnest at the Jean Cocteau Repertory Company closed several months ago, only to be followed by another production by the Aquila Theater Company set in contemporary times that recently opened on off-Broadway. A “reading” of Salome; has migrated from Brooklyn to Broadway, starring Al Pacino, Aiden Quinn, Diane Wiest, and Jennifer Jason Leigh (a role then assumed by Marisa Tomei), with Pacino recapitulating his Broadway role of Herod from the 1980s.
... be angry and cry fie on me if I did."37 After Bronte's death, however, Thackeray pu... more ... be angry and cry fie on me if I did."37 After Bronte's death, however, Thackeray published the fragment "Emma," Bronte's last ... compellingly strong-willed heroines in Victorian fiction could never forgive his independent-minded colleague for having created in Jane Eyre a fictional ...
After Queer Studies: Literature, Theory, and Sexuality in the 21st Century (Eds. Bradway/McCallum, 2018
I read for the first time the (almost) complete account of Oscar's trials...It's very int... more I read for the first time the (almost) complete account of Oscar's trials...It's very interesting and depressing. One of the surprising features is that he very nearly got off. If he had, what would have happened, I wonder? I fancy the history of English culture might have been quite different, if a juryman's stupidity had chanced to take another turn. (Lytton Strachey, Letter to Dora Carrington)
"Salome's Lost Childhood," in “The Nineteenth-Century Child and Consumer Culture, ed. Dennis Deni... more "Salome's Lost Childhood," in “The Nineteenth-Century Child and Consumer Culture, ed. Dennis Denisoff (Ashgate, 2008).
From St. Sebastian: The Uses of Decadence. Exhibition Catalogue for A Splendid Readiness for Deat... more From St. Sebastian: The Uses of Decadence. Exhibition Catalogue for A Splendid Readiness for Death: St. Sebastian in Art. Kunsthalle Wien Museum (Vienna), 2004.
A Good Woman on Five Thousand Pounds: Jane Eyre, Vanity Fair, and Literary Rivalry
Author(s): Ric... more A Good Woman on Five Thousand Pounds: Jane Eyre, Vanity Fair, and Literary Rivalry Author(s): Richard A. Kaye Source: Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900, Vol. 35, No. 4, Nineteenth Century (Autumn, 1995), pp. 723-739 Published by: Rice University Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/450762
A review of two recent collections of essays on Dickens that explores how current readings of the... more A review of two recent collections of essays on Dickens that explores how current readings of the Victorian novelist reflect current concerns, causes, and interests as they offer us a writer who is citizenly, thoughtful and progressive in his outlook, replacing an earlier critical and biographical understanding of Dickens as a neurotic, obsessive writer of lurid, sensational effects.
The Masculine Mystique, Review of: Susan Bordo, The Male Body: A New Look at Men in Public and in... more The Masculine Mystique, Review of: Susan Bordo, The Male Body: A New Look at Men in Public and in Private. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1999.
From Postmodern Culture, Volume 11 - Number 1 - September 2000
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Papers by Richard A Kaye
Author(s): Richard A. Kaye
Source: Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900, Vol. 35, No. 4, Nineteenth Century (Autumn,
1995), pp. 723-739
Published by: Rice University
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/450762
Author(s): Richard A. Kaye
Source: Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900, Vol. 35, No. 4, Nineteenth Century (Autumn,
1995), pp. 723-739
Published by: Rice University
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/450762
From Postmodern Culture, Volume 11 - Number 1 - September 2000