“The Quare in the Square”: Queer Memory, Sensibilities, and Oscar Wilde.

Dunn, Thomas R.

Oscar Wilde is perhaps the most well-known historical homosexual in the public imagination. However, for a new generation of queers less connected to “gay” labels, Wilde appears other and forgettable. To reanimate Wilde's memory for twenty-first-century queers and ensure his legacy going forward, I read the 1997 Oscar Wilde monument in Dublin, Ireland. Through discursive, visual, and material analyses, I argue the monument first complicates Wilde's sexuality, casting doubt on his gay label. Second, the monument reframes Wilde as the practitioner of a proto-queer sensibility. In doing so, the monument marks historical anachronisms and renders Wilde a more resonant figure for contemporary queer audiences.

IRELAND; WILDE, Oscar, 1854-1900; LGBTQ identity; GAY authors; MONUMENTS; COLLECTIVE memory; HISTORICAL errors; IRISH authors

Quarterly Journal of Speech, 2014, Vol 100, Issue 2, p213

0033-5630

Academic Journal

10.1080/00335630.2014.959987