Oscar Wilde and ancient Greece / Iain Ross.

"From his boyhood Oscar Wilde was haunted by the literature and culture of ancient Greece, but until now no full-length study has considered in detail the texts, institutions and landscapes through which he imagined Greece. The archaeology of Celtic Ireland, explored by the young Wilde on excavations with his father, informed both his encounter with the archaeology of Greece and his conviction that Celt and Greek shared a hereditary aesthetic sensibility, while major works such as The Picture of Dorian Gray and The Importance of Being Earnest maintain a dynamic, creative relationship with originary texts such as Aristotle's Ethics, Plato's dialogues and the then lost comedies of Menander. Drawing on unpublished archival material, Oscar Wilde and Ancient Greece offers a new portrait of a writer whose work embodies both the late-nineteenth-century conflict between literary and material antiquity and his own contradictory impulses towards Hellenist form and the formlessness of desire"-- Provided by publisher.

"From his boyhood Oscar Wilde was haunted by the literature and culture of ancient Greece, but until now no full-length study has considered in detail the texts, institutions and landscapes through which he imagined Greece. The archaeology of Celtic Ireland, explored by the young Wilde on excavations with his father, informed both his encounter with the archaeology of Greece and his conviction that Celt and Greek shared a hereditary aesthetic sensibility, while major works such as The Picture of Dorian Gray and The Importance of Being Earnest maintain a dynamic, creative relationship with originary texts such as Aristotle's Ethics, Plato's dialogues and the then lost comedies of Menander"-- Provided by publisher.

Print version record.

Cover; OSCAR WILDE AND ANCIENT GREECE; CAMBRIDGE STUDIES IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY LITERATURE AND CULTURE; Title; Copyright; Dedication; Contents; Illustrations; Acknowledgments; Note on transliteration; Abbreviations; Introduction; A CONTEXT; A METHOD; CHAPTER 1 Paideia; ARCHAEOLOGY AT HOME; PORTORA; TRINITY COLLEGE DUBLIN; Tyrrell and Kottabos; Meineke and the Berkeley Gold Medal for Greek; Mahaffy and Social Life in Greece; OXFORD; Mods; Greats; The commonplace book; ARCHAEOLOGY IN HELLAS; First sightings; Disappointment in Olympia; Arkadia; Argos and Mykenai; Athens; CHAPTER 2 Poiêsis.

MUTHOS OR LOGOS?Context: Symonds and Pater; Rhetoric in the age of style; Mythography in Intentions; THE ENCOUNTER WITH KEATS IN POEMS AND THE SPHINX; 'Charmides'; Ode on an Egyptian Sphinx; 'THE LITERATURE OF ECHOES': TRANSLATING GREEK; Wilde as translator; Orthography; Wilde on translating; CHAPTER 3 Archaiologia; 'THE ANCIENT WORLD WAKES FROM ITS SLEEP': THE DREAM OF A TOTAL RECONSTRUCTION; The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies; History in fiction; Alma Tadema; Archaeology on stage; ARCHAEOLOGY REPUDIATED; STYLE OF A NEW HELLENIST; CHAPTER 4 Philologia; THE BREAK WITH MAHAFFY.

Development and declineHellenism and 'Hellenism'; Belatedness; 'The Critic as Artist'; 'A BOOK NOT TO READ AT ALL': GRANT'S ARISTOTLE'S ETHICS; Sources; Grant's Aristotle; Proairesis; Praxis or poiêsis?; Hexis; Energeia; The Soul of Man; PLATO, 'THAT ARTIST IN THOUGHT'; Grote and Jowett; The theory of forms; Plato's theory of art; Love and recollection; THE DORIAN MODE; ION IN EARNEST: THE NEW COMEDY; HELLENISM REPUDIATED?; Giving the earth-gods their due; The cruelty of Apollo; Jesus Hellenised; APPENDIX A: Trinity College Dublin syllabus.

APPENDIX B: Oxford syllabus, School of Literae HumanioresAPPENDIX C: Wilde's notes on his time in Greece; APPENDIX D: Wilde's exercises in Greek tragic verse composition; APPENDIX E: Wilde's notes on Aristotle's Ethics; APPENDIX F: Wilde's notes on Pre-Socratic and Platonic philosophy; APPENDIX G: Wilde's exercises in Greek comic verse composition; Notes; INTRODUCTION; CHAPTER 1: PAIDEIA; CHAPTER 2: POIÊSIS; CHAPTER 3: ARCHAIOLOGIA; CHAPTER 4: PHILOLOGIA; APPENDIX A; APPENDIX C; Bibliography; PRIMARY SOURCES: MANUSCRIPTS; PRIMARY SOURCES: PRINTED WORKS; SECONDARY SOURCES; Index.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

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