Major Authors: Oscar Wilde and the '90s
Oscar Wilde anchors this MIT literature course, which reads his plays, criticism, and fiction against the aestheticism of Pater and Ruskin on one side and emerging Modernism on the other. The course traces Wilde's Irish origins and English career, his comedies and their structural irony, and the trials that turned his public failure into a defining moment for twentieth century ideas about performance and identity. Materials include a syllabus, weekly reading assignments drawn from Wilde's major works and contemporary criticism, and discussion questions used in the original MIT seminar, all available through MIT OpenCourseWare at no cost and under a Creative Commons license. The course treats Wilde as a hinge figure between centuries, tracing his influence forward to Beckett and Stoppard through close reading rather than biography alone. No certificate is offered, consistent with OCW's self-study format.