The blackmailer and the sodomite
Oscar Wilde on trial
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4367547 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Joseph Bristow (University of California, Los Angeles, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2016 |
| Volume | 17 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 41-62 |
| Publication date | 2016-04-01 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Feminist Theory (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1464-7001 • E-ISSN: 1741-2773 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1177/1464700115620860 |
| OpenAlex | W2314952888 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 3 |
On 25 May 1895, Oscar Wilde went to jail after three humiliating trials - the first was Wilde's failed suit against the Marquess of Queensberry who libelled him for 'posing as a sodomite'; and the subsequent two involved the Crown's prosecution of Wilde for committing acts of gross indecency with other men. This article revisits the trials by looking at sources that paint a rather different picture from the influential one that Ed Cohen and Alan Sinfield established in the 1990s. First, it shows that the prosecution persuaded the jury that it was far worse for Wilde to have committed sodomy on two young blackmailers (who also engaged in male prostitution) than the kinds of extortion of which, as they freely admitted, they were culpable. Secondly, the discussion suggests that it is unreasonable to claim that the trials defined the modern identity of the male homosexual
Aesthetics · Art · Criminology · Extortion · Homosexuality · Jury · Political science · Psychoanalysis · Sociology · Sodomy · Decadence, Literature, and Society · Feminism, Gender, and Sexuality Studies · Historical Studies on Reproduction, Gender, Health, and Societal Changes · History · Law · Psychology
| Citations per year | 0.2 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2021 - 2021 (1) |
| Highly cited | No |