The Duchess of Padua: An Italianate Play by Oscar Wilde

Abstract

This article re-examines The Duchess of Padua (1883) by Oscar Wilde within the framework of Italianate drama, Irish cultural politics, and gender studies. It argues that Renaissance Italy functions less as a historical setting than as a symbolic space through which Wilde explores modern concerns such as political violence, dispossession, and social injustice. Focusing on Guido’s rejection of revenge and Beatrice’s assumption of agency, the essay demonstrates how Wilde subverts the conventions of revenge tragedy to articulate an Anglo-Irish ambivalence toward violence and an emerging ethics grounded in love, restraint, and moral transformation.