Description
Book SynopsisTraces the variety of social pressures that inspired Oscar Wilde's lifelong effort to concoct forms of desire that thrill without menacing us, as well as the alchemies by which he sought to do so. This book assigns Wilde a place of honor in a company of thinkers drawn from the ranks of philosophy, sociology, economics, psychoanalysis, and more.
Trade Review"Tame Passions presents a re-visioning of Wilde's work as a sustained meditation on will and desire. In the process, it also offers an enticing proposal for a revised model of modernity that extends from the late-Victorian era to the present day."--Dennis Denisoff, Victorian Studies
Table of ContentsACKNOWLEDGMENTS vii CHAPTER ONE: Introduction 1 CHAPTER TWO: Oscar Wilde in Japan: Aestheticism, Orientalism, and the Derealization of the Homosexual 41 CHAPTER THREE: Oscar Wilde, Erving Goffman, and the Social Body Beautiful 54 CHAPTER FOUR: The Importance of Being Bored: The Dividends of Ennui in The Picture of Dorian Gray 71 CHAPTER FIVE: The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Anorexia: The Case of Oscar Wilde 90 CHAPTER SIX: Oscar Wilde and the Passion of the Eye 121 Index 161
