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"Play[ing] Narcissus to a photograph": Oscar Wilde and the image of the child
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posted on 2023-06-09, 14:06 authored by Lindsay SmithThis chapter considers the relations between three phenomena: the image of the child in nineteenth-century photography; Oscar Wilde’s interest in the photographic medium; and the presence of photographic metaphors in several of his fairy stories. The main argument is that Wilde’s fairy tales invite their readers to contemplate the child as an image formed by a relatively new technology of vision. Wilde, however, maintained a critical perspective on the narcissistic lure of the photographic image. Part of the discussion explores his important exchanges with the teenager Louis Umfreville Wilkinson, who began a correspondence with Wilde after the writer’s release from jail. Moreover, the schoolboy Wilkinson sent photographs of himself to Wilde. Wilde’s letters to the young Wilkinson reveal a pressing concern with the temptation to “play Narcissus to a photograph,” since the image onto which one projects one’s desires is also an image of oneself.
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Publication status
- Published
Publisher
Palgrave MacmillanExternal DOI
Page range
41-67Pages
245.0Book title
Oscar Wilde and the cultures of childhoodPlace of publication
ChamISBN
9783319604107Series
Palgrave Studies in Nineteenth-Century Writing and CultureDepartment affiliated with
- English Publications
Research groups affiliated with
- Centre for Photography and Visual Culture Publications
Full text available
- No
Peer reviewed?
- Yes
Editors
Joseph BristowLegacy Posted Date
2018-07-09Usage metrics
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