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Article: Oscar Wilde.
- Article from:
- The New Leader
- Article date:
- April 18, 1988
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1988 American Labor Conference on International Affairs. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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The Paradox of Oscar Wilde
Fortunate in His Biographer Oscar Wilde By Richard Ellmann Knopf. 680 pp. $24.95.
Reviewed by George Woodcock
OSCAR WILDE loved poets and was willing to admit critics into the ranks of great artists, but he never trusted biograhers. "It is always Judas who writes the biography," he once said. And ultimately he had much reason to feel that way: Following his notorious and appalling punishment for acts that in civilized countries are no longer crimes, he saw his life misrepresented as much by friends who wished to distance themselves from him as by enemies gloating over his downfall.
After Wilde's death in ...