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Negative Eroticism: Lyric Performativity and the Sexual Subject in Oscar Wilde's "The Portrait of Mr. W. H."
- Author(s):
- Dustin Friedman (see profile)
- Date:
- 2013
- Group(s):
- Late-Nineteenth- and Early-Twentieth-Century English Literature, LLC Victorian and Early-20th-Century English, TC Philosophy and Literature, TC Sexuality Studies
- Subject(s):
- English literature, Nineteenth century, Lyric poetry, Criticism, Literature--Theory, etc., Sex, Queer theory, Subjectivity
- Item Type:
- Article
- Tag(s):
- Victorian literature, Lyric theory, Sexuality
- Permanent URL:
- http://dx.doi.org/10.17613/3rp6-8d63
- Abstract:
- This essay explores the radical subjectivism of Oscar Wilde's novella "The Portrait of Mr. W.H." (1889/1921), which celebrates the creative potential of nonessentialist forms of identity and yet cautions against jettisoning humanist notions of selfhood entirely. I contend that Wilde turned to G. W. F. Hegel's performative theory of lyric negativity to advance his homoerotic reading of William Shakespeare's sonnets. This reading expresses the insight Wilde gains from Hegel's theory: namely, that language's limited ability to capture the truth of erotic desire need not undermine the fundamental perdurability of individual subjectivity. In contrast to much recent work in queer theory, Wilde's novella demonstrates the ability of homoerotic desire to ground, rather than undermine, a notion of reflective freedom.
- Metadata:
- xml
- Published as:
- Journal article
- Status:
- Published
- Last Updated:
- 2 years ago
- License:
- All Rights Reserved
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