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Victorians in the Closet: Oscar Wilde's Monstrous Hollywood Legacy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 December 2021

Kate Hext
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Abstract

This essay offers a new perspective on the Victorians’ representation in early cinema. It argues that the profile of Oscar Wilde and the decadent movement was such, in early twentieth-century America, that its movies often viewed the Victorians through a decadent lens. Situating its discussion in a detailed exposition of Hollywood's interest in late-Victorian decadence, this essay discusses the reciprocal relationship between Oscar Wilde's imagination and cinematic horror. It sketches the inherently cinematic qualities in decadent writing and, focusing on Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891), offers a new reading of how it incorporates different cinematic technologies to create a sense of supernatural horror. The essay goes on to examine how Wilde's novel inspired early American horror films, with close analysis of how its dialogue and visual effects were incorporated into the genre-defining adaptation of Jekyll and Hyde (1920).

Type
Research Article
Information
Victorian Literature and Culture , Volume 49 , Special Issue 4: Special Issue: Scales of Decadence , Winter 2021 , pp. 711 - 729
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Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press

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