Oscar Wilde Course
2025
Oscar Wilde: man of Many parts
Live online Course 2025
Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
Live online course with Alison Hennegan, University of Cambridge.
With his trials, conviction and imprisonment for ‘acts of gross indecency’ in 1895 Wilde became, and has remained, a figure of international myth and legend. The legend can often obscure or undervalue the quality, significance, and astonishing versatility of his writing.
His work encompassed poetry, important critical essays, political theory, short fiction, plays, a novel, a wealth of correspondence, and a form of memoir. The Importance of Being Earnest is often deemed to be one of the world’s very finest comedies.
The Ballad of Reading Gaol, written in prison, is internationally known and revered for its evocation of the horror, terror, and hope of redemption experienced not only by the man awaiting execution for murder but also by all his fellow inmates as the hour of death approaches.
In these four lectures we shall begin to explore some of Wilde’s remarkable diversity as a writer and as a man.
Four sessions, fortnightly, Tuesdays 25 March to 6 May 2025, 6.00-8.00 pm British Summer Time
Lectures
Lecture 1. 25 March 2025. Lady Windermere’s Fan and A Woman of No Importance
Lecture 2. 8 April 2025. The Soul of Man under Socialism and the Fairy Tales
Lecture 3. 22 April 2025. The Importance of Being Earnest
Lecture 4. 6 May 2025. The Ballad of Reading Gaol
Course fees
£210 full price
£190 students and CAMcard holders
Prices include 20% VAT.
Each session lasts from 6.00 pm to 8.00 pm British Time (GMT), live online via Zoom. Please check the time in your time zone.
Recordings
This is a 4-session course, with a live online lecture and seminar each fortnight. The lectures are recorded so that participants can listen again during the course if they wish. The seminars are not recorded.
Zoom link
We will send you a Zoom link by email no later than 24 hours before the course begins. If the link does not arrive, please let us know by email in good time, at least an hour before the session begins, so we can re-send.
Set books
We suggest these editions, but any good editions will be fine.
Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest and Other Plays, ed. Peter Raby (Oxford World’s Classics), for Lectures 1 and 3
Oscar Wilde, The Soul of Man Under Socialism, ed. Linda Dowling (Penguin), for Lecture 2
Oscar Wilde, The Complete Short Fiction, ed. John Sloan (Oxford World’s Classics), for the Fairy Tales, Lecture 2
Oscar Wilde, The Complete Poetry, ed. Isobel Murray (Oxford World’s Classics), for Lecture 4.
Optional further reading
Richard Ellmann, Oscar Wilde (biography, 1988. Currently out of print, but can be found in libraries or second hand)
Michele Mendelssohn, Making Oscar Wilde (2018)
Kerry Powell and Peter Raby, eds., Oscar Wilde in Context (2013)
Peter Raby, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Oscar Wilde (2006)
John Sloan, Oscar Wilde: Authors in Context (Oxford World’s Classics, 2009)
Please support independent booksellers or Hive (which supports small booksellers) when buying books for our courses. Thank you.
Link
Oscar Wilde Society website.
If you cannot attend a course you have booked
Please note that, because places are limited, we cannot usually give refunds if you cannot attend a course. But if you contact us in advance, we might be able to transfer your booking to a different course.