Oscar Wilde

Oscar Wilde, on his tour of America in 1882, made not one but two pilgrimages to Camden, N.J., to see Walt Whitman—whose poetry he claimed to have known “from the cradle.” Afterward, the Good Grey Poet told a reporter that Wilde was “genuine, honest, and manly.” He added, for emphasis, “He is so frank, and outspoken, and manly.” Wilde, in return, compared Whitman to Goethe and Schiller: “There is something so Greek and sane about his poetry; it is so universal, so comprehensive.”

This comical instance of brazen late-19th-century logrolling comes from Michael Robertson’s Worshipping Walt (Princeton, $27.95), which introduces us to a handful of the “hot little prophets” who made a cult of Whitman, and also reminds us of the religious purpose of his poetry—with Leaves of Grass as gospel.  read more »

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Big changes are rumbling through the Berkshires this summer, where the most revered  read more »

"A little bit of this, a little bit of that-it's all very interesting, but you need weeks to go thro  read more »

Whatever they're saying, chances are Oscar Wilde said it first.  read more »

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Oscar Wilde: A Certain Genius , by Barbara Belford.  read more »

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Humiliated, disgraced and impaled for 100 years on the thorn tree of British hypocrisy, Oscar Wilde  read more »

I have a secret, a great and wild secret, and it might hurt someone else very badly if I told my sec  read more »