Originally published in English in 1989, from a 1980 German edition,
this book provides a comprehensive study of Oscar Wilde's work. It aims
to gain fresh insight into his literary and critical oeuvre by fully
analysing each of his works on the basis of a textually oriented
interpretation, taking equal account of the biographical and
intellectual contexts. Professor Kohl's starting-point is the thesis
that Wilde's identity - both personal and artistic - can only be
adequately described in terms of a conflict between two opposing forces:
individualism and convention. This conflict colours not only Wilde's use
of Romantic and Victorian images and motifs, but also his modern
portrayal of the individual's alienation from society, the loss of
transcendent values, the sovereignty of subjectivity and autonomous art,
and also his formal experiments with language. This is a penetrating and
highly readable account of Wilde as a 'conformist rebel'.