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Oscar Wilde’s Modernist Legacies

William Andrews Clark Memorial Library 2520 Cimarron Street, Los Angeles

Organized by Professors Joseph Bristow, University of California, Los Angeles, and Deaglán Ó Donghaile, Liverpool John Moores University A central figure in the literary and cultural spheres of the late nineteenth century, Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) was also the originator of Irish modernism. Still, literary scholarship has largely sidelined his powerful influence over this movement. Regarded by his contemporaries as an outstanding artist, critic, and public intellectual until his imprisonment in 1895, current research on Wilde tends to confine his leading presence within the late Victorian aesthetic and decadent movements. By highlighting this overlooked aspect of Wilde’s legacy, “Oscar Wilde’s Modernist Legacies” will...