List of Illustrations
Acknowledgements
Introduction: Oscar Wilde and the Art of Creating a Great
Sensation
The Stage as Meeting Place of the Arts: Charting Theoretical
and Methodological Territory
1 An Artefact of Commodified Culture: Trading Wilde in the
Literary Marketplace
A ‘First- Rate Theatrical Fashion Item’: Wilde En vogue in
Fin-de-Siècle Vienna
More Conformist than Rebel? Wilde in the Context of Late-
Nineteenth- Century Literary Culture
Writing to be Popular: Wilde as a Professional Playwright
Pleasing and Teasing the Audience: Wilde’s Society Comedies
as Artistic Compromise?
2 Curtain Up: Wilde Enters the Viennese Stage
Literary Cosmopolitanism: Wilde and Fin- de- Siècle Viennese
Artistic Networks
Agents of Mediation: Examples of Wilde’s Early Viennese
Popularisation
3 Forging the Construct: Wilde the Playwright in
Early-Twentieth-Century Vienna
“Midway between Fact and Legend”: Converging Images of
Wilde’s Life and Work
Visions of Salome, Visions of Wilde: Biographical Readings of
Wilde’s ‘Symbolist Relic’ on Viennese Stages
Intellectual Elegance – Elegant Intellectuality: The
Early Viennese Reception of Wilde’s Society Comedies
Like a Parody Parodied: The Importance of Being Earnest in
Early- Twentieth- Century Vienna
4 Consolidating the Construct: The Canonisation of Wildean
Drama on Viennese Stages before 1938
A Triumph of ‘Old Theatre’: Wilde’s ‘Phosphorescent Salon
Philosophy’ in the Contexts of Critical Reception and Audience
Success
Viennese Theatre as Actors’ Theatre: Transforming Lady
Bracknell into a ‘Woman of Some Importance’
A ‘Paradoxical Englishman’ in Vienna: Wilde Reception and
National Identity
London Dandy Meets Viennese Bonvivant: The Cultural ‘Other’
in Wilde’s Comedies on Pre- World War II Viennese Stages
5 Modifying vs Preserving the Construct: The Viennese Wilde
Revival after 1945
A Case of ‘Historico- Cultural Reminiscence’: Wildean Drama
and Patterns of Continuity in Postwar Austrian Theatre Practice and
Criticism
Classic or Déclassé: Wildean Comedy in Defence of its
Canonicity
Noblesse, Nostalgia, and Viennese Bonhomie: Wilde’s Comedies
at the Theater in der Josefstadt
6 Remodelling the Construct: Wildean Drama and the Politics of
Disambiguation at the Turn of the Twenty- First Century
‘Comedy Exorcism’ between ‘Punchline Pornography’ and ‘Popmodern
Parody’: Elfriede Jelinek Goes Wilde
A Wild(e) Treatment: The ‘Jelinekisation’ of The Importance
of Being Earnest
Viennese Travesties of Wilde: Gender Deconstruction and
Neoliberal Criticism in Commercial and Fringe Wilde Productions
Conclusion: Literary Reputation(s) and the Promise of
Canonical Survival, or In Pursuit of the ‘Real’ Wilde
Appendix: Viennese Productions of Oscar Wilde’s Works,
1903–2013
Bibliography
Index
Sandra Mayer, Ph.D. (2012), University of Vienna, is a Hertha Firnberg Research Fellow in English Literature at the universities of Vienna and Oxford. Her work is situated at the crossroads of literary and cultural history, authorship studies, and life-writing research.
"This is not only a fascinating and lucid study suitable for those
interested in Wilde’s
plays on the stage and in theatre history more generally, but is
also ideal for those with an
interest in the narratives of appropriation of literature across
times and cultures."
-Forum for Modern Language Studies, Volume 55, Issue 3, July 2019,
Pages 355–356, 17 July 2019.
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