ABSTRACT
In January, 1895, Oscar Wilde, though decidedly not an ideal husband, was enjoying the success of his society comedy, An Ideal Husband, the theme of which involves a secret sin and public disgrace. The myth of Narcissus, as told in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, is essentially a self-destructive homosexual fable with incestuous implications. Narcissus’ father, the river god Cephisus, finding an object of desire in his own waters, ravishes Liriope, who gives birth to Narcissus. Wilde derived his ideas concerning dandyism from such English and French forerunners as Beau Brummell, Byron, and Disraeli among the English, and among the French, Barbey d’ Aurevilly and Baudelaire, whose exposition of dandyism was perhaps the most original of the nineteenth century. An inversion of the Narcissus myth, the story may reveal an aspect of Wilde’s self-representation, defensively employed, for if the Narcissus myth is, in part, a homosexual fantasy, Wilde’s tale may be interpreted as the narcissist’s defense.
