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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. What is Oscar Wilde's father's name?

2. When did Oscar Wilde matriculate at Oxford?

3. How do Oscar Wilde's spending habits change when he gets married?

4. Whose house does Oscar Wilde move out of while his first play is being prepared?

5. Why did Oscar Wilde lose his scholarship?

Short Essay Questions

1. What was Oscar Wilde's relationship with Robert Harborough Sherard?

2. What factors made Oscar Wilde's lecturing tour in America a success?

3. With whom does Oscar Wilde visit Rome in 1875?

4. Where does Oscar Wilde move after graduating from Oxford?

5. How was Oscar Wilde baptized?

6. How does Wilde's wife Constance handle the news of Oscar Wilde's homosexuality?

7. Why does Archibald Forbes attack Oscar Wilde?

8. What is memorable about Oscar Wilde's stop in Leadville, Colorado?

9. Describe Oscar Wilde's marriage to Constance Lloyd.

10. How did Oscar Wilde feel about his studies at Oxford?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Oscar Wilde was always extravagant with his money. How does his extravagance fit with his brief, epigrammatic literary style? Is there an aesthetic that unites these two aspects of his personality, or are they simply different sides of the writer's life?

Essay Topic 2

Oscar Wilde was baptized both as a Protestant and as a Catholic. What do these religions represent to him? Why does he consider converting to Catholicism? What does he hope to gain? What does he expect to free himself from in his Protestant faith? What would conversion have meant to him and to the people around him?

Essay Topic 3

Oscar Wilde came into prominence as a friend and opponent of James McNeill Whistler. Describe how Oscar Wilde used controversy and debate and personal invective to his own purposes. What does Wilde gain from his contests, with Whistler and other critics, and then with the Marquis of Queensberry--as a person? What does he gain as a public personality?

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This section contains 658 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample