The figure of Christ in the works of Oscar Wilde

Abstract

In this study I consider, by a process of close textual analysis, attention to larger symbolic registers, and comparative reference to other works of the author and his contemporaries, the thematic and structural function of the figure of Christ in the mature writings of Oscar Wilde. I have avoided references to the life of the author as far as possible in my text, partly because biographical critism, in the specific case of Oscar Wilde, has often interfered with a judicious assessment of his writings--writings that inscribe, as I hope my text demonstrates, a valuable response to certain pressing ethical and aesthetic issues in a complex fin-de-siecle climate of blurred and shifting values.