While we are not reading Oscar Wilde in this travelling class, my lord
we should be. If only time
permitted. There are some sites in Dublin
associated with Wilde, and so he is doubly worth thinking about.
We remember Wilde as a critic, a poet, an essayist, a dramatist, a
letter writer, and a novelist who lived his life his way, as an eccentric genius, full of enthusiasm, decadence and
flair, which ultimately ended too soon, and indeed most tragically.
If we begin at the beginning, it is easy to see that Oscar Wilde came
by his eccentric genius honestly.
Wilde’s mother, whose name was Jane Frances, demanded that everyone
refer to her as Francesca Speranza. She felt her poetry (she was a poet) was so
infectious that if the public was exposed to it, they would catch her poetic
fever, and it would spread through the country like a contagion. She repeated this so regularly that she
became known as Francesca Speranza Influenza Wilde.
The reputation of Wilde’s father, a famous eye and ear doctor in
Dublin, in the Merrion Square neighborhood of Dublin (where there is a lovely
statue of Oscar Wilde reclining on a rock) was even more widespread that his
son. His fame, involving chlorophorm, an ex-lover, and a lengthy trial is too
complex to get into here. It does serve to show that the Wilde men do not fare
well with litigious lovers.
Take warning, Dear Oscar.
We know very little about Oscar as a child, other than from his mother.
She, who seems to be attached to impressive names, dubbed her second son, Oscar
Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde. A flair
for extravagance is rooted early in Oscar as well. An early piece of his
writing comes to us as a letter to his mother while at summer camp, age
13. 
Oscar Wilde Statue - Merrion Square Dublin
It starts thus:
“Darling Mama,
The [clothes] hamper came today and I never got such a jolly
surprise. It was more than kind of you
to send it, though the flannel shirts you sent are . . . not mine. Mine, as you may remember, are the one quite
scarlet and the other that divine lilac shade . . .”
Not the typical note one might get from a young lad at summer camp,
but Oscar Wilde, my friends, was in no way typical. He was certainly a man of fashion.
At Trinity College in Dublin, Wilde became attracted to the
Aestheticism movement, and thus he decided to always surround himself with
beautiful things, and here is when he decided to make his symbol the lily. When asked why he chose the lily, he respond
by saying “Because it is the most beautiful, and useless thing in the world.”
When Wilde finished his time at Trinity, he also, in essence, finished
his time in Ireland, moving to Oxford England to escape the confining and
claustrophobic atmosphere of Dublin. James Joyce, his fellow Irishman, who we
will hear about in our next reading, would heartily agree with these
sentiments. In Oxford, Wilde did well in
his classes, but they did not take up too much of his time, as he spent much of
his time furnishing and refurnishing his rooms.
Again, surrounding himself with beauty as well as variety. After one of his great refurbishings (and
there were many), he noted “I find it harder and harder every day to live up to
my blue china.”
In his 20s Wilde was known mostly for his entertaining wit at parties,
his extravagance in dress, and his connection to the aesthetic movement. He had
a successful speaking tour in America, where he notoriously presented a lecture
to miners (in a mine mind you) in Leadville Colorado, where he spoke about the
beauty of ornate silver. He followed his
presentation by drinking whiskey with the men.
He was a huge success. Even so, he
returned to England as a 28-year-old man who was still unsure of what he would
do for a career.
In part because of his well-documented travels in America, Wilde was a
favorite topic in the newspapers, and as such, gossip and rumors began to
spread about him, particularly that he was spending too much time with young
men, and not enough time with young women.
In the Victorian age to be a homosexual, and a public figure even more
so, was not tolerated by the ass…… by the puritanical moralists. Family members and friends encouraged Oscar
to find a wife. Particularly a wealthy
one. He was successful, . . . successfully
marrying the wealthy Constance Lloyd, successfully designing her gown for the
wedding, and successfully giving her two sons.
The marriage, though, was not ultimately successful. Oscar preferred the company of young,
intelligent, beautiful men, who shared an interest in the arts. He was living a double life.
And so in 1890 Wilde published The
Picture of Dorian Gray.
Like much that was produced by Wilde, it created a sensation. On one level, It is about a dashing young man
and his pursuit of sensual pleasures. Dorian
Gray continues to look young and beautiful throughout the novel, even though
his actions become more and more unacceptable to society and to himself. It
might be an ingenious commentary on the problem of seeing oneself in art. Indeed,
a portrait that Gray keeps hidden in a remote upper room, takes on the physical
costs of his actions and becomes hideous to look at. And while the opening preface suggests that
art and morality should remain separate, that art is for art’s sake, there
seems to a theme in this novel about the problem of living the double life, or
a warning about selfish hedonism. At the
end, mm Gray can no longer bear to look at the rotten image of his inner self
that the portrait represents, and so in an eerie and delightful gothic moment,
in his attempt to slash the picture, he instead just slashes himself.
Lord Alfred Douglas, a young beautiful man who also was the youngest
son of the Marquis of Queensbury, impressed Wilde by saying he had memorized large
passages from the work. Lord Alfred Douglas was charming, and
reckless, and he loved vexing his father, the Marquis of Queensbury. Wilde and Lord Douglass became inseparable.
Now the Marquis of Queensbury, is a towering figure in the sport of
Boxing. If you know anything about
boxing…..well you have me there….but I do know this…. there is something called
the Queensbury rules. They are named for
him.
Not surprisingly Queensbury wanted his son to graduate from Oxford
with a fine reputation, and thus he began tyrannizing his son. The son used his relationship with
Wilde to pester and enrage his father. And
indeed, it was clear to many that Lord Alfred Douglas was doing just that: Using Oscar Wilde. In a way, we could say that: Lord Douglas was good looking on the outside,
but rotten inside.
During this time Wilde pumped out may of his greatest works :Lady Windermere’s Fan (1892) A Woman of no Importance (1893) and The Importance of Being Earnest a story that
is in part about living the double life in (1895). Like Dorian
Gray, The Importance of Being Earnest
was a sensation.
Indeed, The Importance of Being
Earnest is one of the funniest, wittiest, pun-filled (I did say Pun
–filled) play you will ever see. It
questions whether marriage is a plague, or just a dull responsibility. It skewers Victorian prudery and pretensions,
and it presents a life of triviality, decadence, and the double-life as a life
of liberty. Both central male characters
in the play have secret identities and activities. Jack is Jack in the country and Earnest in
the City. Algenon is Algey in the City
and Earnest in the country. Neither is exactly
Earnest.
In an attempt to cut Wilde down as he came to the height of his fame, Queensbury
heightened his attacks on Wilde by leaving a calling card addressed to “Oscar
Wilde, posing as a Sodomite” at his club for all the members to see. At least
that is what is what was recorded as evidence by the judge. The national Archives shows the original copy
saying - (either because Queensbury was
in a rage, or in a rush, or just … ignorant) “Oscar Wilde Posing Somdomite – or
Oscar Wilde posing a Somdomite” - I’m
not sure what either of those means….but it sounds compelling. Anyway… Even though it created some
embarrassment, we are told Wilde would have never done anything about it, but Lord
Douglass egged him on demanding that Wilde take out a slander suit on his
father, which Wilde finally agreed to do.
The trial did not last long and a second trial did not end in Wilde’s
favor, Victorian England and all that rot.
Ultimately, for his “Gross Indecency” The Judge sentenced Wilde to
“Two years Hard Labor.” This tragic
sentence was a disaster for Wilde. His
name was removed from the playbills and he was pressed to sell most all of his
beautiful furniture and possessions, including his blue china, to pay lawyer’s
fees. Worst of all, his time in prison weakened
his heath immensely. While he did not
die there, he did not live long after his release.
In a squalid Paris Hotel, Wilde died in poverty, without his beloved
beautiful surroundings. One of the last
witticisms Wilde gives us is from this deathbed:
“My Wallpaper and I are fighting a duel to the death. One or the other of us has to go!”
But that isn’t the witticism I wish to leave you with. Instead, let us turn back to the trial,
whereas the Marquis of Queensbury leapt up and accused Wilde stating “You are
in the gutter and you are dragging my son there too” – Wilde, in his erudite
elegance retorted “We are all of us in the gutter, sir, but some of us are
looking at the stars.”
