The poet as a lover: Oscar Wilde’s The Garden of Eros
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5433/el.2017v20.e30971Keywords:
Oscar Wilde, eroticism of language, love, The Garden of Eros.Abstract
Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) is most celebrated for his work as a fin-de-siècle playwright, however his poems, which cover a wide range of styles, also deserve scholarly attention. For the critic Octavio Paz (1914-1998), poetic expressions are closely related to the art of love. Eroticism is “poetry of the body”, while poetry is “an eroticism of language” (Paz 1996: 2). The Garden of Eros, Wilde’s poem published in 1881, is an example of the erotization of language. By means of the analysis of this poem, based on Paz’s ideas on love, eroticism and poetry, I argue that Wilde is a lover, and, above all, his The Garden of Eros is a declaration of love to the art of poetry.
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References
BRUNEL, Pierre. Companion to Literary Myths, Heroes and Archetypes. London: Routledge, 1996.
MORAN, Maureen. Victorian Literature and Culture. London: Continuum, 2012.
PAZ, Octavio. The Double Flame: Love and Eroticism. New York: Mariner Books, 1996.
SANDERS, Andrew. The Short Oxford History of English Literature. 3rd edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004.
VARTY, Anne. Introduction. Collected Poems of Oscar Wilde. By Oscar Wilde. Ware: Wordsworth Poetry Library, 1994.
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