James Joyce often expressed a sense of closeness and fascination for Oscar Wilde as both a great artist and an outsider. Interestingly, both authors often conceived their writing intersemiotically, that is through the lens of art forms such as music and painting. Joyce and Wilde’s Irishness coincided with their interest in the oral dimension of folklore, that is in literature as sound and music. Wilde and Joyce seem to invite us to think of literature as a musical performance. In short, in the very act of reading, we literally play Wilde, we play Joyce; the reader becomes, in other words, an echo chamber exceeding the realm of the self, in a vital and never-ending vibration with and through others.
Oscar Wilde, James Joyce and the Language of music
pierpaolo martino
2025-01-01
Abstract
James Joyce often expressed a sense of closeness and fascination for Oscar Wilde as both a great artist and an outsider. Interestingly, both authors often conceived their writing intersemiotically, that is through the lens of art forms such as music and painting. Joyce and Wilde’s Irishness coincided with their interest in the oral dimension of folklore, that is in literature as sound and music. Wilde and Joyce seem to invite us to think of literature as a musical performance. In short, in the very act of reading, we literally play Wilde, we play Joyce; the reader becomes, in other words, an echo chamber exceeding the realm of the self, in a vital and never-ending vibration with and through others.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
