'I love acting - it is so much more real than life,' Oscar Wilde famously wrote. Acting Wilde demonstrates that Wilde's plays, fiction, and critical theory are organised by the idea that all so-called 'reality' is a mode of performance, and that the 'meanings' of life are really the scripted elements of a dramatic spectacle. Wilde's real issue was whether one could become the author of his own script, the creator of the character and role he inhabits. It was a question he struggled to answer from the beginning of his career to the end, whether in his position as the pre-eminent dramatist in English or as the beleaguered defendant on trial for 'gross indecency'. Introducing important evidence from Wilde's career-launching tour of America, the often tortured revisions of his plays, and the recently discovered written record of his first courtroom trial, this book reconstructs Wilde's strategic dramatising of himself.

A revealing insight into Wilde's courtroom trials as they really happened, examining his deep immersion in late Victorian gender wars.
Reviews
'... Powell's book is distinctive for its historicizing approach and its well-informed reliance on pre-publication materials ...' Modern Drama



Book Information
ISBN 9780521283380
Author Kerry Powell
Format Paperback
Page Count 216
Imprint Cambridge University Press
Publisher Cambridge University Press
Weight(grams) 300g
Dimensions(mm) 229mm * 152mm * 12mm