Includes bibliographical references (pages 213-222)
Introduction. Oscar Wilde and performance theory -- Foundations and experiments: Oscar Wilde at Oxford -- Celebrity, caricatures and public performances in the 1880s -- Wilde's performance theory and the critical essays -- Decadent anxiety and negative capabilities: The picture of Dorian Gray and Salome -- The dialectic of persona and stereotypes in the society comedies -- Performance as redemption in De profundis and The ballad of reading Gaol