Oscar Wilde and His Circle

FAIN: FS-50279-11

UCLA; Regents of the University of California, Los Angeles (Los Angeles, CA 90024-4201)
Joseph E. Bristow (Project Director: March 2011 to April 2016)

A five-week seminar for sixteen college and university faculty members to explore the life, work, and cultural milieu of Oscar Wilde.

"Oscar Wilde and His Circle" is a five-week summer seminar that allows participants to explore the life and work of Oscar Wilde in relation to the largest archive devoted to this legendary Irish writer in the world. The archive, which is also titled "Oscar Wilde and His Circle", is housed at UCLA's William Andrews Clark Memorial Library. The seminar aims to provide participants with an in-depth understanding of the development of Wilde's often lively career from his time as a gifted undergraduate at Oxford to his post-prison exile in France and Italy. Particular attention will be paid to manuscript and archival sources that throw unique light not only on his literary writings but also such events as his widely publicized year-long lecture tour of Canada and the United States in 1882. Especially significant is the experience participants will acquire in using the resources of a major rare book library when conducting advanced research in the humanities.