Wilde Psychoanalysis: Oscar and Sigmund Architects of Modern Homosexualities

Résumé

Freud and Wilde, born nineteen months apart, each probed the sexual conventions of nineteenth-century Europe. One was a revolutionary thinker whose theories helped define modern psychology; the other, an Irish man of letters imprisoned for “gross indecency.” Through their wit, provocations, and often-fraught treatments of queer desire, both shaped emerging discourses on sexuality that challenged prevailing norms. Their work contributed to new constructions and understandings of homosexual identity, even as their positions on same-sex desire were sometimes paradoxical. Both endured personal or professional consequences for their non-heterosexual expressions or associations, tensions that continue to shape their cultural resonance. This paper examines parallels between Wilde and Freud two men who never met, but whose approaches to homosexuality continue to meet in explicitly and subtly influenced modern ideas of queer identity.