Abstract

Readings of Oscar Wilde have been burdened by an affliction he struggled against all his artistic andintellectual life: cliché. The strongest and earliest clichés or stereotypes were provided by Wilde himself,in the form of the English aristocratic dandies that populate his society comedies. These seemed suitedto light, if engaging, Victorian melodramas designed to appeal to a popular audience. More recently,however, many critics have attended to the subversive edge within his drama. They have recognised themodernist challenge that underlies the veneer of Victorian culture. Katherine Worth has stressed thepsychological or existential aspects of Wildeís drama. The influences of symbolism and aestheticism, ofcourse, very clearly point to his connection with later modernisms [2]. Wilde is increasingly recognised asone of those who undertook, in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, new experiments inlanguage, identity and form