Record Number: 28798

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Reading Experience:

Evidence:

'What you have given me is more golden than gold, more precious than any treasure this great country could yield me, though the land be a network of railways, and each city a harbour for the galleys of the world.

It is a sonnet I have loved always, and indeed who but the supreme and perfect artist could have got from a mere colour a motive so full of marvel: and now I am half enamoured of the paper that touched his hand, and the ink that did his bidding, grown fond of the sweet comeliness of his charactery [...] Again I thank you for this dear memory of the man I love, and thank you also for the sweet and gracious words in which you give it to me: it were strange in truth if one in whose veins flows the same blood as quickened into song that young prince of beauty, were not with me in this great renaissance of art which Keats indeed would have so much loved, and of which he, above all others, is the seed.

Let me send you my sonnet on Keats's grave, which you quote with such courteous compliments in you note, and if you would let it lie near his own papers it may keep some green of youth caught from those withered leaves in whose faded lines eternal summer dwells.'

Century:

1850-1899

Date:

Between 12 Mar 1882 and 21 Mar 1882

Country:

United States of America

Time

n/a

Place:

n/a

Type of Experience
(Reader):
 

silent aloud unknown
solitary in company unknown
single serial unknown

Type of Experience
(Listener):
 

solitary in company unknown
single serial unknown

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Reader / Listener / Reading Group:

Reader:

Oscar Wilde

Age:

Adult (18-100+)

Gender:

Male

Date of Birth:

16 Oct 1854

Socio-Economic Group:

Professional / academic / merchant / farmer

Occupation:

Author, Poet and Journalist

Religion:

n/a

Country of Origin:

Ireland

Country of Experience:

United States of America

Listeners present if any:
e.g family, servants, friends

n/a

Additional Comments:

n/a

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Text Being Read:

Author:

John Keats

Title:

'Sonnet on Blue'

Genre:

Poetry

Form of Text:

Manuscript: Sheet

Publication Details

Poem was first published in 1848 by Lord Houghton in his Life, Letters, and Literary Remains of John Keats

Provenance

owned

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Source Information:

Record ID:

28798

Source:

Print

Author:

Oscar Wilde

Editor:

Merlin Holland

Title:

The Complete Letters of Oscar Wilde

Place of Publication:

New York

Date of Publication:

2000

Vol:

n/a

Page:

157-8

Additional Comments:

Source is a letter to Emma Speed, dated 21 March 1882, included in Merlin Holland & Rupert Hart-Davis, eds., The Complete Letters of Oscar Wilde (New York: Henry Holt & Co., 2000); the editors note that Speed had sent Wilde the manuscript of Keats's 'Sonnet on Blue', which Wilde had quoted in one of his lectures. Note that the extract is also a record of his reading of Speed's letter and his hopes about the physical fate of his own poem, apparently sent in reply.

Citation:

Oscar Wilde, Merlin Holland (ed.), The Complete Letters of Oscar Wilde, (New York, 2000), p. 157-8, http://www.open.ac.uk/Arts/reading/UK/record_details.php?id=28798, accessed: 04 May 2024

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Additional Comments:

Wilde's description of the fragment, as well as an assessment of its probable provenance, can be found in the Century Guild Hobby Horse, July 1886.