Oscar Wilde’s Fairy-tale The Selfish Giant in Ellis’s Works: from Dramaturgy to Poetry

Abstract

The article discusses some aspects of the reception of Oscar Wilde’s fairy tale The Selfish Giant by the Russian symbolist poet and translator Ellis (L.L. Kobylinsky; 1879–1947) as reflected in archival sources and memoirs of his contemporaries. Particularly, Ellis’ participation in theatre performances for children and his interest in the forms of juvenile literature are considered within the framework of his overall poetical activities. Among these plays, a piece entitled The Garden of the Giant which is based on Wilde’s tale The Selfish Giant is to be mentioned first and foremost, since Ellis himself attributed great importance to this work making several attempts to publish it separately and even trying to convince a Moscow modernist publishing house Musaget to implement his rather extraordinary plans. The article also attempts to demonstrate that Ellis’ passion for Wilde’s literary heritage can be traced in his own subsequent work as his second collection of verse Argo (1914) proves it. As, I argue, its first section entitled Snuffbox with Music has been developed under the influence of Ellis’ previous work on juvenile performances, which manifests itself in dedications, the texts of the section borrowed from the juvenile plays as well as through the motivic structure of this cycle.

Keywords

• ellis (lev l. kobylinsky)
• oscar wilde
• fairy tales
• wilde’s reception in russia.