The thief of reason

Oscar Wilde and modern Ireland

de Richard Pine

This new study of one of Ireland's greatest writers lays particular stress upon his Irish background. Pine is interested in Wilde the outsider. He was an outsider not simply because of his homosexuality but also because of the particular nature of his Irish background. The Wildes were not only Protestants in a country which was growing more aggressively Catholic: they were also Protestant supporters of Irish nationalism. Thus they were in one sense outsiders by religion while in another outsiders within their own religious community. Wilde was profoundly influenced by this ambiguous inheritance and Pine argues that it was this, as much as his homosexuality, which placed him at such an awkward angle to late Victorian society.