THE OSCHOLARS
BIBLIOGRAPHIES
September/December 2006
In September 2003 we published the first Arabic Wilde bibliography click here, compiled by Christopher Nassaar. We here give a bibliography of Professor Nassaar’s own writings on Wilde and the period, kindly provided by himself.
List of Publications (All Refereed)
CRITICAL STUDIES
Into the Demon Universe: A Literary Exploration of Oscar Wilde (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1974).
A radical revaluation and interpretation of all of Wilde's literature, this book has proved very successful and influential. Chapters or parts of chapters from it are constantly being reprinted in critical anthologies.
EDITED BOOKS
* Other Victorian Authors and Major Victorian Debates (Lanham: University Press of America, 2001).
The first part focuses on Victorian poets and prose writers who are minor or who exist in a twilight area between major and minor, while the second part concerns itself with the main issues of controversy during the Victorian period, such as the clash between religion and evolutionary theory, the reactions to industrialism, and the argument concerning the position of women in society. Whenever possible, these issues are presented through major literature or through leading thinkers like Darwin and Marx. Fully annotated, with introductions and headnotes.
* The Victorians: A Major Authors Anthology (Lanham: University Press of America, 2000).
The anthology aims at presenting a generous selection from works of the leading Victorian poets and prose writers, allowing teachers and students to explore those writers in depth. It also aims at redefining the major Victorian non-novelists to include both Pater and Wilde. Fully annotated, with an introduction and headnotes.
* The English Literary Decadence: An Anthology (Lanham: University Press of America, 1999).
This anthology gives a generous selection of the prose and poetry of the Decadent movement of the 1890s and also seeks to broaden the definition of this movement to include Conrad's Heart of Darkness and other works of a similar Dark-Romantic nature. Contains a critical introduction and headnotes.
STUDY GUIDES
* York Notes: George Bernard Shaw: Candida (London: Longman, 1984). In collaboration with S.B. Bushrui.
A guide and commentary on Shaw's play.
* York Notes: Oscar Wilde: The Importance of Being Earnest (London: Longman, 1980). New edition 1987; reprinted almost annually.
A guide and commentary on Wilde's famous play, this book has sold over 50,000 copies.
ARTICLES
1. ‘Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest’, in The Explicator vol. 60, no. 2 (Winter 2002), 78-80.
Shows how the theme of child abuse is picked up by Wilde from his earlier works and parodied.
2. ‘Wilde's Salome and the Victorian Religious Landscape’, in The Wildean 20 (January 2002), 2-13.
Argues that Salome moves on two levels all the time, one ancient and the other Victorian.
3. ‘Pater in Wilde's The Happy Prince and Other Tales and A House of Pomegranates,’ in The Explicator, vol. 60, no. 3 (Spring 2002), 142-45.
Traces the influence of Pater on Wilde's fairy tales.
4. ‘The Problem of the Jewish Manager in The Picture of Dorian Gray’, in The Wildean 22 (January 2003), 29-36.
5. ‘The Farquhar and Arbuthnot Connections in Wilde's A Woman of No Importance’, in Notes and Queries (Oxford). Summer 2001. Pages 158-162.
This essay reinforces the argument that Wilde's play has a profound subversive meaning by tracing its roots to the plays of Farquhar and to the eighteenth-century satirist John Arbuthnot.
6. ‘Mythic Demonic Creatures in Wilde's Salome’, in The Explicator. In collaboration with Nataly Shaheen. Fall 2001.
The article shows Wilde’s use of siren, vampire and werewolf imagery in order to reinforce the aura of evil surrounding Salome.
7. ‘Pater's The Renaissance and Wilde's Salome’, in The Explicator, Vol. 59 (Winter 2001), 80-82.
Fully explores the influence of Pater's book on Wilde's play.
8. ‘Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest and Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead’, in The Explicator, Vol. 58 (Winter 2000), 91-92.
Traces the influence of Wilde's play on that of Stoppard.
9. ‘The Weight of the Portrait in Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray’, in The Explicator, Vol. 57 (Summer 1999), 216-217.
Studies and interprets the shifting weight of the portrait in Wilde's novel.
10. ‘Exploring the Demonic Subconscious: Rossetti’s Proserpina’, in ANQ: A Quarterly Journal, Vol. 12, no. 2 (Spring 1999), 23-26. Sees the poem as an exploration of the subconscious mind and a response to Arnold’s The Buried Life.
11. ‘Wilde's Salome’, in The Explicator, Vol. 58 (Winter 1999), 89-90.
Explores the use of fan imagery in the play.
12. ‘Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray and Salome (II)’, in The Explicator, Vol. 57 (Fall 1998), 33-36.
Traces the hitherto unrecognized influence of Sade on these two works.
13. ‘Wilde's Lady Windermere's Fan and Shaw's Mrs Warren's Profession, in The Explicator, Vol. 56 (Spring 1998), 137-138.
Argues that Wilde's play is a chief influence on Shaw's.
14. ‘Wilde's La Sainte Courtisane’, in The Explicator, Vol. 56 (Fall 1997), 28-30.
An important essay that shows how this work is a bridge between Salome and The Importance of Being Earnest.
15. ‘The Silent Priest: Rossetti's “A Last Confession” Revisited’, in The Journal of Pre-Raphaelite Studies (New Series 6: Spring 1997), 33-37.
A new interpretation that sees this famous poem as a thoroughly Catholic work.
16. ‘On Originality and Influence: Oscar Wilde's Technique’, in The Eighteen-Nineties Society Journal, no. 24 (1997), 37-47.
A major article that shows how Wilde always rooted his literature in earlier literature, but responded to earlier works and reshaped them.
17. ‘Andersen's The Ugly Duckling and Wilde's The Birthday of the Infanta’, in The Explicator, Vol. 55 (Winter 1997), 83-85.
Shows the influence of Andersen's tale on Wilde's.
18. ‘Dowson's Cynara’, in The Explicator, Vol. 54 (Spring 1996), 168-170.
Argues that the poem is about the lessening with age of the intensity of experience, not about lost innocence.
19. ‘Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray and Lady Windermere's Fan’, in The Explicator, Vol. 54 (Fall 1995), 20-24.
Argues that Wilde's play repeats the major themes of his novel using a different genre.
20. ‘Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray and Salome’, in The Explicator, Vol. 53 (Summer 1995), 217-220.
Shows the presence of Jack the Ripper in these two works.
21. ‘Wilde's The Ballad of Reading Gaol’, in The Explicator, Vol. 53 (Spring 1995), 158-161.
Traces the influence of Dante's Inferno on Wilde's ballad.
22. ‘Saint Paul, Wordsworth, and Rossetti's “World's Worth”, in The Journal of Pre-Raphaelite Studies (New Series IV: Spring 1995), 85-90.
A major article that shows how Rossetti’s poem is a reply to Wordsworth and a dramatization of the Biblical assertion that the body is the temple of the Lord.
23. Andersen's The Shadow and Wilde's The Fisherman and His Soul: A Case of Influence’, in Nineteenth-Century Literature, Vol. 50 (September 1995), 217-224.
Shows how Wilde responded to and reworked Andersen's tale. An important article, it reveals a hitherto unnoticed influence on Wilde.
24. ‘In Heaven or Hell? A New Reading of D.G. Rossetti's “The Blessed Damozel”’, in The Journal of Pre-Raphaelite Studies (New Series II: 2 Fall 1993), 1-4.
A new interpretation that sees the damozel as ironically damned for yielding to her sensual nature.
25. ‘Flesh Versus Spirit: D.G. Rossetti's “The Portrait”’, in The Journal of Pre-Raphaelite Studies, Vol. 6 (November 1985), 92-95.
Sees the poem as a clash between flesh and spirit within a Catholic framework.
26. ‘Rossetti's “The Card-Dealer”: A Devotional Poem’, in The Journal of Pre-Raphaelite Studies, Vol. 5 (November 1984), 88-92.
Echoes from the Book of Job reveal that Rossetti's poem is thoroughly Christian.
27. ‘D.G. Rossetti's “The Choice” Sonnets: A Reading’, in The Journal of Pre-Raphaelite Studies, Vol. 4 (November 1983), 56-58.
Argues that Rossetti is being ironic and is really saying that we have no choice in life.
28. ‘“The House of Life” and the Well Imagery in D.G. Rossetti’s Willowwood Sonnets’, in The Journal of Pre-Raphaelite Studies, Vol. 2 (May 1982), 97-99.
Shows that, as in Homer, the well connects our world with the underworld or Hades.
29. ‘Intellectual Content in Rossetti's Poetry: A New Reading of “Sister Helen”’, in The Journal of Pre-Raphaelite Studies, Vol. 2 (May 1982), 92-97.
Argues that the dying nobleman is the narrator and that the entire poem is a reflection of his guilt feelings.
30. ‘Lenore Versus Pallas Athene: A New Reading of “The Raven”’, in The Library Chronicle, Vol. XLV (1981), 129-142. In Collaboration with Mary Hallab. Shows that the goddess of wisdom Athene is the other woman in Poe's famous poem.
31. ‘The Narrator of D.G. Rossetti's “Troy Town”’, in The Pre-Raphaelite Review, Vol. III (May 1980), 102-105.
Argues that the hidden narrator of the poem is the Trojan prince Paris, whose guilt feelings lead him to distort the well-known story of the fall of Troy.
32. ‘Walter Pater's The Renaissance and Marius the Epicurean: A Study in Counterpoint’, in The Pre-Raphaelite Review, Vol. III (November 1979), 78-85.
Argues that in Marius Pater inverted the major ideas of The Renaissance.
33. ‘Rossetti's “Astarte Syriaca”: A Neglected Sonnet’, in The Pre-Raphaelite Review, Vol. II (November 1978), 63-65.
Offers a new interpretation of the sonnet that stresses the demonic aspects of the goddess Astarte.
33. ‘Vision of Evil: The Influence of Wilde's Salome on Heart of Darkness and A Full Moon in March’, in The Victorian Newsletter, no. 53 (Spring 1978), 23-27.
Traces the influence of Wilde's Salome on two major literary works. Part of this article was reprinted in the introduction to my anthology, The English Literary Decadence.
NOVELS
Earnest Revisited: A Novel
A novelization, recreation and major expansion of Wilde's famous play. West Sussex: Woodfield, 2005.
REVIEWS
A review-essay of Charles Bernheimer's Decadent Subjects. In The Journal of Pre-Raphaelite Studies, Fall 2005.
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