The Importance of Being Different: Disability in Oscar Wilde's Fairy Tales (Peculiar Bodies)

Synopsis

Understanding Oscar Wilde&’s characteristically unique approach to writing difference Over the course of his remarkable career, Oscar Wilde published two volumes of fairy tales: The Happy Prince and Other Tales and A House of Pomegranates. Both collections feature numerous stories with protagonists who may be said to be disability-aligned, owing to their pronounced physical differences. In The Importance of Being Different, Chris Foss explores the way that Wilde&’s stories problematically replicate many of the Victorian era&’s typical responses to disability but also the ways they diverge, offering a more progressive orientation—both through more sympathetic identifications with disability-aligned characters and through a self-conscious foregrounding of the mechanisms of pity and the consumption of pain. The first ever monograph to examine Wilde&’s work through a disability studies lens, this groundbreaking book encompasses all of his fairy tales as well as his writings during and after imprisonment. Even though Wilde unflinchingly represented the extent to which these peculiar bodies suffered rejection by society, he encouraged his readers to embrace them and to advocate for emotional responses that engage love and kindness toward both individual transformation and social change.

Copyright:

2025

Book Details

Book Quality:

Publisher Quality

Book Size:

182 Pages

ISBN-13:

9780813953021

Related ISBNs:

9780813953007

Publisher:

University of Virginia Press

Date of Addition:

04/18/25

Copyrighted By:

the Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia

Adult content:

No

Language:

English

Has Image Descriptions:

No

Categories:

History, Children's Books, Nonfiction, Teens, Disability-Related, Literature and Fiction, Social Studies, Language Arts

Submitted By:

Bookshare Staff

Usage Restrictions:

This is a copyrighted book.