Francia vs Irlanda: Oscar Wilde y la negociación de la identidad dramática

Abstract

Not until the 1990s has Wilde’s nationality been a matter of study for scholars. Applying postcolonial and anthropological theories to their interpretation of Wilde’s life and work, critics such as Coakley (1994), Kiberd (1995) and McCormack (1998) regard the Victorian binomy Englishness / Irishness as the result of the schism between nation and empire. The aim of this study is to transcend the Victorian duality by means of adding an alternative theoretical concept to his national identity: that of Wilde’s cultural identity. Rather than a product of accidentality in birth, Wilde’s cultural identity would be defined as an arbitrary literary construction founded upon the playwright’s personal readings and cultural icons so as to imitate them both in his living fiction and in his work. This new identity would originate in France and in his subjective mystification of Paris, as it is shown in numerous interviews and in Wilde’s philosophy of composition.