Setting the Record Queer: Rethinking Oscar Wilde's »The Picture of Dorian Gray« and Virginia Woolf's »Mrs. Dalloway«

by Dirk Schulz

»To define is to limit«, Lord Henry states, and Mrs. Dalloway »would not say of anyone [...] that they were this or that«. Why then are the respective novels mostly read - and in recent adaptations rewritten - in denial of their genuinely ambiguous designs?
Bringing the two literary classics together for the first time, their shared concerns regarding textual and sexual identities are revealed. Challenging an established critical record commonly related to Oscar Wilde's and Virginia Woolf's own mythologised biographies, this study underscores the value of constantly rethinking labels by liberating the texts from the limiting grip of categorical readings.

Genres: Nonfiction

274 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2011

About the author

Dirk Schulz is a German artist and comic book illustrator.

Reviews

[Luca Scarrott · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a really fascinating exploration of queer theory within these texts. With not necessary claiming each text to be homosexual but exploring what queer means as outside of heteronormative which I think is really interesting. Would 100% recommend :)