ABSTRACT
At the apex of Oscar Wilde's brand, the popularity and the imaginative genius of his writing combined with his spontaneous yet always sophisticated behavior to achieve acclaim across London society. A full picture of the interpretive possibilities growing out of the interaction of the author's milieu with his process of composition must begin by acknowledging his Irish background and by highlighting the challenges that it posed in his efforts to charm British society. The class-conscious British world in which Wilde moved throughout his adult life instinctively and unabashedly denigrated anyone and anything deemed "not English". From Oxford to London and beyond, people would immediately recognize Wilde's Irish roots. Although polite society would not openly remark upon it, that ancestry would marginalize him in the eyes of many in society. Wilde had much loftier goals than merely cultivating a reputation as a campus character.
