

Joyce and Wilde
Tuesday, 16th June 2009
Three events –
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3.15pm: Seminar on Joyce and Wilde, The Celtic Club. $20
5.30pm for 6pm: Dinner with Wilde (includes readings of Wilde's plays), The Celtic Club. $40, drinks at bar prices

Oscar Wilde, it will be argued, is a ghost who haunts Ulysses, being mentioned often, both explicitly and implicitly, and arguably present in the character of Buck Mulligan. Bloomsday in Melbourne Inc. places Joyce and Wilde in an Antechamber of Heaven to sort out their differences. It's a contest between two modern ways of writing. A seminar will explore aspects of betrayal in the writings of Joyce and Wilde and in Joyce's representation of sexuality and homosexuality in Ulysses.
Wilde was a significantly different artist from Joyce, and a convenient point of departure for Joyce's writing. Joyce was only 13 when Wilde was tried, and he admired him greatly, while at the same time being quite ambivalent about by the 'crime' for which he was convicted, and traumatised by the conduct and outcomes of the trial.
