The importance of being a reader: A revision of Oscar Wilde's work

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This book explores Wilde's works from the hypothesis that they call upon the active participation of the reader in the production of meaning. It has a twofold objective: first, it shows that Wilde's emphasis on the creative role of the audience in his critical writings makes him conceive the reader as a co-creator in the construction of meaning. Second, it analyses the strategies which Wilde employs to impel the reader to collaborate in the creation of meaning of his literary works and casts light upon the social criticism derived from these. The examination of Wilde¿s writings reveals how he gradually combined more sophisticated techniques that encouraged the reader's dynamic role with the progressive exploitation of self-advertising strategies for professional purposes. These allowed the ¿commercial¿ Oscar to make his works successful among the Victorian public without betraying the ¿literary¿ Wilde¿s aesthetic principles. The present study re-evaluates Wilde as a critic and as a writer. It demonstrates that, while Wilde the ¿myth¿ was ahead of his time in many ways, Wilde the ¿ARTIST¿ anticipated in his aesthetic theory various themes which occupy contemporary literary theoreticians. Thus, it may contribute to give him the status he rightly deserves in the history of literature.

Cristina Pascual Aransáez has been awarded the Doctor of Philosophy in English Philology, summa cum laude, by the University of La Rioja in 2002. Through her study of Oscar Wilde's dual nature ¿ the ¿commercial¿ and the ¿literary¿ sides of this author ¿ and the analysis of the complex interplay between them, Pascual Aransáez provided fresh insights into Wilde as a writer and as a critic. She has been interviewed on a national radio programme as well as in national newspapers in order to comment on the findings of the present research.