Men, Sex, and a Selfish Giant – Review of Wilde (1997)

by Fern Riddell, (King’s College, London) [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Y7NGglgjCU[/youtube] “You shocked them. But the more frivolous you seem, the more serious you are, aren’t you?” -Bosie to Oscar Wilde Now, Oscar Wilde has been a love of mine since I read ‘A Picture of Dorian Grey’ during my A Levels. His style of writing, and his observations on the frailty of human interaction, is so delicate in its understanding that it will always be timeless. Wilde has often divided critics; there are those

Read more

Dominic Janes, ‘William Bennett’s Heresy: Male Same-Sex Desire and the Art of the Eucharist’

In ‘William Bennett’s Heresy: Male Same-Sex Desire and the Art of the Eucharist,’ Dominic Janes’ continues to develop his study of the history of Christian ethics and aesthetics—first, in the context of the early Church, and secondly, in relation to the nineteenth century. In Victorian Reformation: The Fight over Idolatry in the Church of England, 1840-1860 (2009), he explored the discourses surrounding ‘idolatry’, which was, in a narrow sense, the worship of idols, but, in a broad sense, could mean

Read more