Oscar Wilde Archive
Literary Meals & Cocktails for the Summer
Maybe it’s because I’m always hungry, but meals have always been some of the most memorable scenes in books. I drink tea from a porcelain tea cup while reading Oscar Wilde, and crave fried okra or salt pork between readings of Faulkner and Harper Lee.
Round-Up: THE BELL JAR’s New Cinematic Adaptation, a Reading at Oscar Wilde’s Prison, and PEN America’s New Awards
From a new film adaption of The Bell Jar to a massive reading in honor of Oscar Wilde, here are this week's biggest literary stories.
Booze, Books, and Boys: Literary Friendships Throughout History
Oscar Wilde and Bram Stoker Oscar Wilde was the son of Lady Jane, an eclectic socialite who collected artists like trophies. Bram Stoker was a frequent feature in her Saturday night salons, although the two met at a young age and were fast friends through the rest of their
The Words Beneath the Sound: Music Inspired by Literature
As Virginia Woolf famously observed, the best writing often begins with a rhythmical “wave in the mind,” an inner tempo around which syntax and diction are arranged, a guiding beat of artistic intuition that, when struck upon, makes it nearly impossible to set down the wrong word. Other writers
Sincerely Yours
Because I’d just read “The Bridge,” which I only half-understood, rendering it sacrosanct to my wide-eyed freshman mind, I’d taken Hart Crane at his word when he wrote in an essay that “Sincerity is essential to all real poetry.” Rilke said it earlier in his own letter-turned-rule-book for all young
Oscar Wilde and the Stereotype
Each semester, I ask my freshmen writing students what at first seems like an obvious question: “What is a stereotype?” Students tend to love the word. They use it all the time. They talk about challenging stereotypes, resisting stereotypes, and being stereotyped. And yet, I’ve never once had a
Literary Blueprints: The Temptress
If the Byronic Hero is the bad boy of literature, then the Temptress is his female counterpart. The Literary Blueprints series looks at dangerous ladies and their wanton ways. “She looked slick as hell; polished, neat, and with that feminine deadliness that can drive you nuts. They work on