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    Reparative/Redempti​ve Reading from Reading Gaol: Towards a Eucharistic Theory of Interpretation

    Cover for Reparative/Redempti​ve Reading from Reading Gaol: Towards a Eucharistic Theory of Interpretation
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    Creator
    Ritter, Nancy
    Advisor
    O'Malley, Patrick R.
    Abstract
    This thesis argues that Oscar Wilde anticipates Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick’s concept
     
    of reparative reading. In 2003’s Touching Feeling: Affect, Pedagogy, Performativity,
     
    Sedgwick argues that the hermeneutics of suspicion – whereby the reader exposes the
     
    unjust power structures lying beneath the surface of a cultural object – has become
     
    endemic to literary studies in a way that limits scholars’ political and interpretive impact.
     
    She offers reparative reading as an alternative approach that prioritizes the curatorial
     
    affects of hope and nurture, enabling scholars to find sustenance in cultural objects made
     
    with hostile intent.
     
    Though a very different text from Touching Feeling, Wilde’s De Profundis also
     
    articulates an approach to cultural objects that can productively be understood as
     
    reparative. Incarcerated for “gross indecency” with other men, Wilde refuses to accept
     
    the punitive and disciplinary intent of the prison system, instead re-envisioning its harsh
     
    mechanisms as means for spiritual growth and aesthetic development. In my introduction,
     
    I compare the two texts, arguing that both ultimately advocate a model of reading that I
     
    call Eucharistic. I then outline this Eucharistic model, drawing on Roman Catholic
     
    sacramental theology to crystallize the affective motives and political investments of
     
    Wilde and Sedgwick’s projects. Finally, I situate this Eucharistic model in the current
     
    scholarly conversation on queer theory.
     
    In each of the chapters, I analyze how Wilde reparatively engages various aspects
     
    of the Christian tradition to nurture his identity as a queer man. The first chapter
     
    considers “The Fisherman and His Soul,” a fairy-tale published in 1891’s A House of
     
    Pomegranates, and argues that Wilde undermines the false binary between sensuality and
     
    spirituality by figuring a self-righteous priest and the titular lovestruck fisherman as
     
    doubles of one another. The second chapter argues that Wilde embeds baptismal and
     
    Eucharistic imagery in The Importance of Being Earnest, repackaging the eroticized
     
    Catholicism of earlier works to appeal to a mainstream, middle-class Anglican audience.
     
    My final chapter returns to De Profundis, arguing that we should see the letter as a
     
    reparative reworking of the biblical epistles of St. Paul.
     
    Description
    M.A.
    Permanent Link
    http://hdl.handle.net/10822/1059478
    Date Published
    2020
    Subject
    Catholicism; Gender and Sexuality Studies; Oscar Wilde; Queer theory; Religion; Victorian; British literature; Irish literature; English literature; English literature;
    Type
    thesis
    Publisher
    Georgetown University
    Extent
    106 leaves
    Collections
    • Graduate Theses and Dissertations - English
    Metadata
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    Georgetown University Seal
    ©2009 - 2023 Georgetown University Library
    37th & O Streets NW
    Washington DC 20057-1174
    202.687.7385
    digitalscholarship@georgetown.edu
    Accessibility