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Part of
Late Modern English: Novel encounters
Edited by Merja Kytö and Erik Smitterberg
[Studies in Language Companion Series 214] 2020
► pp. 315–331

Being Wilde

Social representation of the public image of Oscar Wilde

| Tampere University
| Tampere University
This article focuses on the news reporting on Oscar Wilde during the 1895 trials in which he was accused of sodomy and gross indecency. We discuss the positive and negative labelling associated with Wilde during and after the trials. Our data are drawn from the British Library Newspapers, consisting of over 1,500 articles from a variety of both rural and metropolitan British newspapers. Our results demonstrate that during the course of the trials, the reference to Wilde shows not only variation, but also change: his public persona changes from a well-known author to an accused criminal.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Social representation and labelling
  • 3.The trials of Oscar Wilde
  • 4.Data and methods
    • 4.1Length of news items
    • 4.2Content of news items
  • 5.The representation of Oscar Wilde
    • 5.1Previous studies on Wilde in the press home and abroad
    • 5.2Labelling in the British press
  • 6.Concluding remarks
  • Notes
  • References
  • Appendix
Published online: 18 March 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/slcs.214.14nev
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