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Durham E-Theses The century guild hobby horse and Oscar Wilde: a study of British little magazines, 1884-1897 Tildesley, Matthew Brinton How to cite: Tildesley, Matthew Brinton (2007) The century guild hobby horse and Oscar Wilde: a study of British little magazines, 1884-1897, Durham theses, Durham University. Available at Durham E-Theses Online: http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/2449/ Use policy The full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that: • a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in Durham E-Theses • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders. Please consult the full Durham E-Theses policy for further details. Academic Support Oce, Durham University, University Oce, Old Elvet, Durham DH1 3HP e-mail: [email protected] Tel: +44 0191 334 6107 http://etheses.dur.ac.uk 2 The Century Guild Hobby Horse and Oscar Wilde: A Study of British Little Magazines, 1884-1897. Matthew Brinton Tildesley. The copyright of this thesis rests with the author or the university to which it was submitted. No quotation from it, or information derived from it may be published without the prior written consent of the author or university, and any information derived from it should be acknowledged. A thesis submitted for the degree of PhD to the Department of English Studies Durham University 2007 . ... 2 APR 2008 2 Abstract. This thesis is a detailed examination of subversive aesthetic and decadent British periodicals from 1884 untill897. Viewed as cultural documents, the magazines The Century Guild Hobby Horse, The Dial, The Yellow Book and The Savoy are explored with particular reference to their positioning of the artist in relation to society. Major secondary sources are the works of Oscar Wilde and Walter Pater's The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry. The Hobby Horse is viewed as being the origin of a particular discourse on the importance of the artist for society at large, and its editorial bias is examined as being a product of certain Hellenic elements in Oxford of the 1860s and 1870s. Wilde's The Picture ofDorian Gray features heavily in the first section. The book is initially used as a touchstone for exploring the issues of the Socratic master-pupil relationships, clandestine and subversive sexuality, the duality of subversive literary texts, and the transition from aestheticism into decadence, after which Wilde's only novel is shown to have been inspired in part by specific writings within the Hobby Horse itself. The second section examines the importance of Catholicism to a renaissance of the Hellenic within artistic communities of the 1880s and '90s, and the third and final section explores the legacy of these elements of the Hobby Horse in the later magazine~ The Dial, The Yellow Book and The Savoy. Specific attention is paid to the perceived relationship between Oscar Wilde and the Yellow Book in the final chapters, where the erroneous nature of the supposed links between Wilde and the Yellow Book is exposed, and Wilde's true connection with the little-known Century Guild Hobby Horse is revealed. 3 Contents. Abstract. ......................................................................................................................................... 2 Contents .......................................................................................................................................... 3 List of Illustrations ......................................................................................................................... 4 Acknowledgements ........................................................................................................................ 5 Citations and Abbreviations ........................................................................................................... 7 Introduction .................................................................................................................................... 8 1. The Sketches of Dorian Gray: Oscar Wilde and The Century Guild Hobby Horse, from Aestheticism to Decadence ...................................................................................... 14 1.1 Selwyn Image and Oscar Wilde ............................................................................................. 15 1.2 Art for Art's Sake, Sensation for Sensation's: Aestheticism, Decadence and The Century Guild Hobby Horse . ..................................................................................................................... 37 1.3 Socrates at Oxford and the Portrait of the Adored: Hellenism and Homosexuality in the Hobby Horse . ............................................................................................................................... 56 1.4 "A Bundle of Letters": The Unwritten Word and the Implied Reader in Late Victorian Literature ...................................................................................................................................... 77 1.5 The Sketches of Dorian Gray: Oscar Wilde and The Century Guild Hobby Horse ................ 95 1.6 Selwyn Image and Oscar Wilde Revisited ........................................................................... 114 2. From Ancient Rome to the Nouveau Renaissance: Catholicism and Hellenism in the Hobby Horse .............................................................................................................. 120 2.1 The Heretical Hobby Horse .................................................................................................. 121 2.2 Posing as a Romanist: The Disingenuous Mr Image ............................................................ 134 2.3 Arthur Galton: A Christian Turned Turk, and Back Again .................................................. 150 2.4 Herbert Home: Cavalier and Connoisseur ............................................................................ 169 2.5 Catholicism, Hellenism and the Nouveau Renaissance ........................................................ 195 3. The Legacy of The Century Guild Hobby Horse ....................................................... 210 3.1 The Art Nouveau Magazine and The Dial.. .......................................................................... 211 3.2 The Bodley Head and the Little Magazines .......................................................................... 251 3.3 The Death of a Periodical: The Hobby Horse at The Bodley Head ...................................... 263 3.4 The Yellow Book- the Real Chameleon ............................................................................... 279 3.5 The Savoy- A Homecoming ................................................................................................ 304 3.6 The Century Guild, Oscar Wilde and the Yellow Problem. ................................................. 319 Bibliography ............................................................................................................................... 345 4 List of Illustrations. Figure 1- Sandys' Danae in the Brazen Chamber and a woodcut from The Hypnerotomachia, 1499. (Courtesy of Birmingham Central Library.) ................................................................................. 50 Figure 2- Shannon's Umbilicus Tuus Crater Tornatilis .... (Courtesy of Birmingham Central Library.)51 Figure 3 - Beardsley's cover design for Dowson's Verses ( 1896). (Taken from Beardsley, The Spirit of Beardsley: A Celebration ofHis Art and Style [1998], 195.) ..................................................... 213 Figure 4- Mackmurdo's Century Guild device and Beardsley's original cover design for Wilde's Salome (1893). (Taken from William Morris Gallery, Catalogue ofA. H. Mackmurdo and the Century Guild Collection [1967], title page, and La Bedoyere, Art Nouveau [2005], 31, respectively.) .............................................................................................................................. 215 Figure 5- Charles Ricketts' The Great Worm (c. 1889) and Gustave Moreau's La Salome Tatouee (1876). (Courtesy of Durham University and taken from http://laminute.canalblog.com/images/Salome.jpg respectively.) .............................................. 232 Figure 6- Charles Shannon's Return of the Prodigal (c. 1889; courtesy of Durham University Library) ....................................................................................................................................... 239 Figure 7- "My Hair is Filled with the Drops of the Night" by Charles Ricketts (c. 1892; courtesy of Durham University Library) ....................................................................................................... 240 Figure 8- Charles Shannon, A Glimpse ofHeaven and The Queen ofSheba (c. 1889; courtesy of Durham University Library) ....................................................................................................... 241 Figure 9- Charles Ricketts, initial piece to "Maurice de Guerin" (c. 1892; courtesy of Durham University Library) ..................................................................................................................... 242 Figure 10- Front covers to volumes VIII and IX of the Yellow Book (1896; courtesy of Durham University Library.) ...................................................................................................................