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Chapter 1 - The Son of Oscar Wilde

Cosmopolitanism and Textual Kinship

from Part I - Queering Kinship/Kinship as Queer Politics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 September 2022

Kristin Mahoney
Affiliation:
Michigan State University
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Summary

Chapter One argues that Vyvyan Holland forged a textual relationship with his father Oscar Wilde while collaborating with early Wilde scholars in the editing of Wilde’s letters and extended his father’s practice of importing sexually dissident content from abroad while translating works by the French modernist Julien (or Julian) Green. Following Wilde’s trials, his sons were separated from their mother and from one another and shuttled between various boarding schools abroad, an experience Holland described as deeply traumatic and lonely. His existence was devastated by the effects of late-Victorian sexual legislation, which divided him from his family. But, when he came of age, he found community with a network of men who loved Wilde and loved books, locating himself amidst other forms of relationality and affection. This chapter asserts that Holland modeled his own cosmopolitan aesthetic on his father’s, remaining similarly detached from and skeptical of English moral sensibilities, and focuses on how the translation of queer modernist texts allowed him to obliquely continue his father’s queer cosmopolitan project. Holland was able to find his way back to his father through textual acts, acts of cosmopolitan collaboration and translation, and by generating an alternative familial bond with early Wilde scholars.

Type
Chapter
Information
Queer Kinship after Wilde
Transnational Decadence and the Family
, pp. 33 - 56
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

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  • The Son of Oscar Wilde
  • Kristin Mahoney, Michigan State University
  • Book: Queer Kinship after Wilde
  • Online publication: 15 September 2022
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009019682.003
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  • The Son of Oscar Wilde
  • Kristin Mahoney, Michigan State University
  • Book: Queer Kinship after Wilde
  • Online publication: 15 September 2022
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009019682.003
Available formats
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Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • The Son of Oscar Wilde
  • Kristin Mahoney, Michigan State University
  • Book: Queer Kinship after Wilde
  • Online publication: 15 September 2022
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009019682.003
Available formats
×