Oscar Wilde

For other uses, see Oscar Wilde (disambiguation).

Oscar Wilde
Photograph taken in 1882 by Napoleon Sarony
Occupation	Playwright, short story writer, poet, journalist
Nationality	Irish
Period	Victorian era
Signature

Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde (16 October 1854 – 30 November 1900) was an Irish writer, poet and prominent aesthete. His parents were successful Dublin intellectuals, and from an early age he showed his intelligence, becoming fluent in French and German, then an outstanding classicist, first at Dublin, then at Oxford. After university, Wilde moved around trying his hand at various literary activities: he published a book of poems, lectured extensively, and wrote journalism prolifically. Known for his biting wit, flamboyant dress, and glittering conversation, Wilde had become one of the most well-known personalities of his day. Though it was his only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray - still widely read - that brought him more lasting recognition. He became one of the most successful playwrights of the late Victorian era in London with a series of hilarious social satires which continue to be performed, especially his masterpiece The Importance of Being Earnest. At the height of his fame and success, he suffered a dramatic downfall in a sensational series of trials. Wilde was imprisoned for two years' hard labour after being convicted of "gross indecency" with other men. In prison he wrote De Profundis, a dark counterpoint to his earlier philosophy of pleasure. After release from prison he set sail for Dieppe by the night ferry, never to return to Ireland or Britain. In France he wrote The Ballad of Reading Gaol, a long, terse poem commemorating the harsh rhythms of prison life, but no further creative work. He died, destitute, in Paris aged forty-six years old.

Early life and Education

Statue of Oscar Wilde by Danny Osborne in Dublin's Merrion Square (Archbishop Ryan Park)

Oscar Wilde was born at 21 Westland Row, Dublin (now home of the Oscar Wilde Centre, Trinity College, Dublin) the second of three children born to Sir William Wilde and Jane Francesca Wilde. Coming two years behind William ("Willie"). Jane Wilde, under the pseudonym "Speranza" (the Italian word for 'hope'), wrote poetry for the revolutionary Young Irelanders in 1848 and was a life-long Irish nationalist. She read the Young Irelanders's poetry to Oscar and Willie, inculcating a love of them to her sons. Her interest in the neo-classical revival was also apparent in their home: paintings and busts of the ancients furnished it. William Wilde was Ireland's leading oto-ophthalmologic (ear and eye) surgeon and was knighted in 1864 for his services to medicine. He also wrote books about Irish archaeology and peasant folklore. A renowned philanthropist, his dispensary for the care of the city's poor at the rear of Trinity College, Dublin, was the forerunner of the Dublin Eye and Ear Hospital, now located at Adelaide Road.

His father's extra-marital affairs produced three other children: Henry Wilson, born in 1838, and Emily and Mary Wilde, born in 1847 and 1849 respectively. In 1855, the family moved to No. 1 Merrion Square, where Wilde's sister, Isola, was born the following year. The Wildes' new home was larger and, with both his parents' sociality and success soon became a "unique medical and cultural milieu"; guests at their salon included Sheridan le Fanu, Charles Lever, George Petrie, Isaac Butt, William Rowan Hamilton and Samuel Ferguson.

Isola died aged eight of meningitis. Wilde's poem Requiescat is dedicated to her memory:

"Tread lightly, she is near

Under the snow
Speak gently, she can hear

the daisies grow"

The family was again struck by tragedy when Emily and Mary died in an accident in 1871. When the dress of one caught fire; her sister rushed her out of the house and down the steps to roll her in the snow, but her dress caught alight, and both died. When Sir William died in 1876, Henry Wilson supported the family until his own sudden death a year later.

Dublin, Portora, & Dublin

Oscar Wilde was educated at home until he was nine, where a French bonne and a German governess taught him their languages. He then attended Portora Royal School in Enniskillen, Fermanagh. He summered at the villa his father built in Moytura, County Mayo, until he left Oxford. It was there the young Wilde played with the older George Moore.

He left Portora with a royal scholarship to read classics at Trinity College, Dublin, from 1871 to 1874, sharing rooms with his older brother Willie Wilde. Trinity, one of the leading classical schools, set him with scholars such as R.Y. Tyrell, Arthur Palmer and his tutor, John Pentland Mahaffy who inspired his interest in Greek literature. Wilde later, though having reservations about Mahaffy, was generous with his praise calling him "my first and best teacher" and "the scholar who interested me in Greek things". For his part Mahaffy first boasted of having created Wilde, only, later, to credit him as "the only blot on my tutorship". Wilde quickly established himself as an outstanding student: he came first in his class in his first year, and won a scholarship by competitive examination in his second, and then, in his finals, won the Berkeley Gold Medal, the highest academic award at Trinity. The university also offered a course in aesthetics, the Museum Building, just built in 1861, had been inspired by John Ruskin's teachings. The University Philosophical Society also provided an education, discussing intellectual and artistic subjects such as Rosetti and Swinburne weekly. Wilde quickly became an established member - the members' suggestion book for 1874 contains two pages of banter (sportingly) mocking Wilde's emergent aestheticism. He even presented a paper entitled "Aesthetic Morality".

Oxford

He was encouraged to compete for a demyship to Magdalen College, Oxford - which he won easily, having already studied Greek for over nine years. He read Greats from 1874 to 1878 at Magdalen; from there he applied to join the Oxford Union, but failed to be elected.

Attracted by its dress, secrecy and ritual, Wilde petitioned the Apollo Masonic Lodge at Oxford, and was soon raised to the sublime degree of Master Mason. During a resurgent interest in Freemasonry in his third year, he commented he "would be awfully sorry to give it up if I secede from the Protestant Heresy". He was deeply considering converting to Catholicism, discussing the possibility with clergy several times. Wilde was left speechless after an audience with Pope Pius IX while visiting Rome. He eagerly read Cardinal Newman's books, and became altogether more serious in 1878, when he met the Reverend Sebastian Bowden, a priest in the Brompton Oratory who had received some high profile converts. Neither his father, who threatened to cut off his funds, nor Mahaffy thought much of the plan; but mostly Wilde, the supreme individualist, balked at the last minute from pledging himself to any formal creed. On the appointed day of his baptism, Fr Bowden recived a bunch of altar lillies instead. He retained a lifelong interest in Catholic theology and liturgy.

While at Magdalen College, Wilde became particularly well known for his role in the aesthetic and decadent movements. He began wearing his hair long and openly scorning "manly" sports, and began decorating his rooms with peacock feathers, lilies, sunflowers, blue china and other objets d'art. He dressed flamboyantly and entertained and spent lavishly. Lilies became a dominant symbol of Wilde, and his remark "Every day I find it harder and harder to live up to my blue china", quickly became famous, grasped as a slogan for the aesthetes and as the epitome of their terrible vacuousness by critics. Some elements disdained the aesthetes, but their languishing attitudes and showy costumes became a recognised pose. Wilde was frowned upon by some of his fellow students, who were suspicious of his poses, but respected in his own aesthetic circle.

By his third year Wilde had truly begun to create himself and his myth, and saw his learning developing in much larger ways than merely the prescribed texts. This attitude resulted in him being rusticated for one term, when he nonchalantly returned to college late from a trip to Greece with Prof. Mahaffy.

Wilde was deeply impressed by John Ruskin and Walter Pater, who argued for the central importance of art in life. He didn't meet Prof. Pater until his third year, but had been enthralled by his Studies in the History of the Renaissance, published during Wilde's final year in Dublin. Pater argued that man's sensibility to beauty should be refined above all else, and that each moment should be felt to its fullest extent. Years later in De Profundis, Wilde called Pater's Studies... "that book that has had such a strange influence over my life". He learned tracts of the book by heart, and carried it with him on travels in later years. Pater gave Wilde his sense of almost flippant devotion to art, though it was Ruskin who gave him a purpose for it. Ruskin despaired at the self-validating aestheticism of Pater, for him the importance of art lay in its potential for the betterment of society. He too admired beauty, but it must be allied with and applied to moral good. When Wilde eagerly attended his lecture series The Aesthetic and Mathematic Schools of Art in Florence, he learned about "aesthetics" as simply the non-mathematical elements of painting. Despite being given to neither early rising nor manual labour, Wilde volunteered for Ruskin's project to convert a swampy country lane into a smart road neatly edged with flowers. Wilde was later to comment ironically when he wrote in The Picture of Dorian Gray that "All art is quite useless".

While at Magdalen, Wilde won the 1878 Newdigate Prize for his poem Ravenna, which reflected on his visit there the year before, and he duly it read at Encaenia. In November 1878, he graduated with a rare double first in his B.A. of Classical Moderations and Literae Humaniores (Greats). Wilde wrote a friend, "The dons are 'astonied' beyond words - the Bad Boy doing so well in the end!"

Apprenticeship of an aesthete: 1880-1890

Trade card for 'Aesthetic' cigars, using a photo taken by Napoleon Sarony, 1882

After graduation from Oxford, Wilde returned to Dublin, where he met again Florence Balcombe, a childhood sweetheart. She, however, became engaged to Bram Stoker (who later wrote Dracula), and they married in 1878. Wilde was disappointed but stoic: he wrote to her, remembering "the two sweet years - the sweetest years of all my youth" they had spent together. He also stated his intention to "return to England, probably for good". This he did in 1878, and returned to his native country only twice, for brief visits.

Unsure of his next step, he wrote to various acquaintances enquiring about Classics positions at Oxbridge. It was a lean year; though Wilde did compete for the fellowship at Trinity College, Oxford, which he did not take altogether seriously. His mother encouraged him to stand for Parliament, but he continued to try to use his classical learning. The Rise of Historical Criticism was his submission for the Chancellor's Essay prize of 1879, which, though no longer a student, he was still eligible to enter. Its subject, "Historical Criticism among the Ancients" seemed ready-made for Wilde - with both his skill in composition and ancient learning - but he struggled to find his voice with the long, flat, scholarly style. Unusually, no prize was awarded that year. With the last of his inheritance from the sale of his father's houses, he set himself up as a bachelor in London.

At 26 years old, his first play Vera; or, The Nihilists had been circulated among some friends for comment, and Wilde's name was gaining currency on artistic matters. In mid-1881 Wilde decided to issue a volume entitled Poems: he had published many shorter lyrics and poems in magazines, especially the Dublin University Magazine and Kottabos but this collected, revised and expanded his poetic efforts. The book was generally well received, and sold out its first print run of 750 copies, prompting further printings in 1882. Bound in a rich, enamel parchment cover embossed with gilt blossom and printed on hand-made Dutch paper, Wilde was also to present many copies to the dignitaries and writers who would receive him over the next few years. The Oxford Union's librarian requested a presentation copy and Wilde complied. After a debate called by Oliver Elton, the book was condemned for alleged plagiarism in a tight vote. The Librarian, who had liked the book and wanted it for the library, returned his copy to Wilde with a note of apology.

Wilde's address in the 1881 British Census is given as 1 Tite Street, London. The head of the household is listed as Frank Miles, with whom Wilde shared rooms at this address. Wilde would spend the next six years in London and Paris, and in the United States where he travelled to deliver lectures.

To the New World and back

The aesthetic movement was caricatured in Gilbert and Sullivan's comic opera Patience (1881). While Patience was a success in New York City, its producers were unsure how well aestheticism was known in the rest of America. So Richard D'Oyly Carte invited Wilde for a lecture tour of North America, simultaneously priming the pump for the U.S. tour of Patience, and selling to the public one of the aesthetic movement's most charming personalities. Wilde arrived on 3 January 1882 aboard the SS Arizona. Wilde reputedly told a customs officer that "I have nothing to declare except my genius", although the first recording of this remark is many years afterward. Wilde criss-crossed the country on a gruelling schedule, lecturing in a new town every few days.

Keller cartoon from the Wasp of San Francisco depicting Wilde on the occasion of his visit there in 1882

During his tour of the United States and Canada, Wilde was mercilessly caricactured in the press. For example, The Wasp, a San Francisco newspaper, published a cartoon ridiculing Wilde and aestheticism—but he was also well received in such settings as the mining town of Leadville, Colorado.

The Springfield Republican commented on Wilde's behaviour during his visit to Boston to lecture on aestheticism, suggesting that Wilde's conduct was more of a bid for notoriety rather than a devotion to beauty and the aesthetic. Wilde's teaching was criticised by T.W. Higginson, a cleric and abolitionist, who wrote in Unmanly Manhood, of his general concern that Wilde, "[whose] only distinction is that he has written a thin volume of very mediocre verse", would improperly influence the behaviour of men and women, arguing that his poetry "eclipses masculine ideals [..that..] under such influence men would become effeminate dandies". Though Wilde's press reception was hostile, he was the toast of the town, feted in the most fashionable salons in every city he visited.

His earnings, plus expected income from The Duchess of Padua allowed him to move to Paris between February and mid-May 1883, there he met Robert Sherard, whom he entertained constantly: "We are dining on the Duchess tonight", Wilde would declare before taking him to a fancy restaurant. In August that year he returned to New York for the production of Vera, his first play, which he had revised and offered to a New York producer, after it was turned down in London. He reportedly entertained the other passengers with Ave Imperatrix!, A Poem On England, a fine poem about the rise and fall of empires. E.C Steadman, in Victorian Poets describes this "lyric to England" as "manly verse - a poetic and eloquent invocation". He was again talk of the town, and the play was initially well received by the audience, though reviews were lukewarm at best and attendance fell sharply. The play closed a week after it had opened.

He was left to return to England and lecturing: Personal Impressions of America, The Value of Art in Modern Life and Dress were among his topics. In London, he been introduced to Constance Lloyd in 1881, daughter of Horace Lloyd, a wealthy Queen's Counsel. She happened to be visiting Dublin in 1884, when Wilde was lecturing at the Gaiety Theatre (an 18 year old W. B. Yeats was also among the audience). He proposed to her, and they married on 29 May 1884 at the Anglican St. James Church in Paddington, London. Constance's allowance of £250 was generous, but the Wildes' tastes were relatively luxurious and, after preaching to others for so long, their home was expected to set new standards of design. No. 16 Tite Street was duly renovated in seven months at considerable expense. The couple quickly produced two sons, Cyril (1885) and Vyvyan (1886).

Robert Ross at twenty-four

Robert Ross had read Wilde's poems before they met, and he was unrestrained by the Victorian prohibition against homosexuality, even to the extent of estranging himself from his family. A precocious seventeen year old, by Richard Ellmann's account, he was "...so young and yet so knowing, was determined to seduce Wilde". Wilde who had long alluded to Greek love, and - though an adoring father - was put off by the carnality of his wife's second pregnancy, relented to Ross's attentions in Oxford in 1886.

Criticism over artistic matters in the Pall Mall Gazette provoked a letter in self-defence, and soon Wilde was a contributor to that and other journals during the years 1885-1887. He enjoyed reviewing and journalism, it was a form that suited his style: he could organise and share his views on art, literature and life, yet it was less tedious than lecturing. Buoyed up, his reviews were largely chatty and positive.

Editorship: 1887-1889

Oscar Wilde reclines for Napoleon Sarony. In The Picture of Dorian Gray Lord Wotton speaks "languidly" three times and "languorously" once. If Wilde appeared to emulate him it was through hard work; by the late '80s he was a father, an editor, and a writer.

His flair, having previously only been put into socialising, suited journalism and did not go unnoticed. With his youth nearly over, and a family to support, in mid 1887 Wilde became the editor of The Lady's World magazine, which he promptly renamed The Woman's World. During his editorship, Wilde raised the tone of the magazine, adding serious articles on parenting, culture and politics, while keeping the discussions of fashion and arts. Two pieces of fiction were usually included, one to be read to children, the other for the ladies themselves. Wilde used his wide artistic acquaintance to solicit good contributions, including those of Lady Wilde and his wife Constance, while his own "Literary and Other Notes" were themselves popular and amusing.

The initial vigour and excitement he brought to the job began to fade as administration, commuting and office life became tedious. His lack of interest showed in the magazine's declining quality and flagging sales. He increasingly sent instructions by letter, and as he began a new period of creative work his own column appeared less regularly. As he wrote less for his employer, he wrote more for himself. The Portrait of Mr. W.H., which he had begun in 1887, was published in Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine . It is a short story in which a theory that Shakespeare's sonnets were written out of the poet's love of the boy actor "Willie Hughes" is advanced, retracted, and then propounded again. The only evidence for this is two supposed puns within the sonnets themselves. The anonymous narrator is at first sceptical, then believing, finally flirtatious with the reader. By the end fact and fiction have melded together. In October 1889, at the end of the second volume, Wilde left The Woman's World. The magazine ceased to exist shortly afterward.

All the World's a Stage: 1890-1895

Wilde, having tired of journalism, had been busy behind the scenes setting out his aesthetic ideas more fully in his series of dialogues that were published in the major literary-intellectual journals of the day. Pen, Pencil and Poison: A Study was published in 1889 by his friend Frank Harris, editor of the Fortnightly Review, while The Decay of Lying: A Dialogue was in Eclectic Magazine in February of the same year.

They were followed by the first version of The Picture of Dorian Gray, published as the lead story in the July 1890 edition of Lippincott's Monthly Magazine, along with five other novels. Wilde revised it extensively, adding six new chapters at the behest of his publisher, for publication in book form the following year. It was Wilde's annus mirablis: apart from his novel, he also published several collections of earlier published pieces. His critical prose writings were signifacantly revised and packaged as Intentions. Meanwhile two collections of fairy stories for children were pulbished , Lord Arthur Saville's Crime & Other Stories, and in September The House of Pomegranates was dedicated "To Constance Mary Wilde".

Le "great event"

Wilde, not content with being more well-known than ever in London, returned to Paris in November 1891. The success of his stories and novel behind him, his thoughts had began to move towards the dramatic form, though it was the biblical iconography of Salome that filled his head. He was received at the salons littéraires, including the famous mardis of Stéphane Mallarmé, a renowned symbolist poet of the time. One evening, after discussing his ideas of Salome, he returned to his hotel to notice a blank copybook lying on the desk. It occured to him to write down what he had been saying. The play, written in French, was soon nearly finished. When Wilde left just before Christmas, the Paris Echo newspaper referred to him as "le great event" of the season.

"Bosie"

Wilde and Lord Alfred Douglas in 1893

In mid-1891 poet Lionel Johnson introduced Wilde to Lord Alfred Douglas, an undergraduate at Oxford at the time. An intimate friendship immediately sprang up between Wilde and Douglas, but it was not initially sexual, nor did the sexual activity progress far when it did eventually take place. According to Douglas, speaking in his old age, for the first six months their relations remained on a purely intellectual and emotional level - "from the second time he saw me, when he gave me a copy of Dorian Gray which I took with me to Oxford, he made overtures to me. It was not till I had known him for at least six months and after I had seen him over and over again and he had twice stayed with me in Oxford, that I gave in to him. I did with him and allowed him to do just what was done among boys at Winchester and Oxford ... Sodomy never took place between us, nor was it attempted or dreamed of. Wilde treated me as an older one does a younger one at school". After Wilde realised that Douglas only consented in order to please him, Wilde permanently ceased his physical attentions. Lord Alfred's father, The Marquess of Queensberry, was known for his outspoken atheism, brutish manner and creation of the modern rules of boxing. Twice divorced and spending wildly, he berated his younger son with threats to cut him off if he did not stop idling his life away.

Comedy

Wilde, who had first set out to irriate Victorian with his dress and talking points, then outrage it with Dorian Gray, his novel of vice hidden beneath art; finally found a way to critique society on its own terms. Lady Windermere's Fan was first performed on the 20 February 1892 at St James Theatre, packed with the cream of society. On the surface a witty comedy, there is subtle subversion underneath: "it concludes with collusive concealment rather than collective disclosure". The audience, like Lady Windermere, are forced to soften harsh social codes in favour of a more nuanced view. The play was enormously popular, touring the country for months, but largely thrashed by conservative critics. When Wilde answered the calls of "Author!" and appeared before the curtains at the end, they were more offended by the cigarette in his hand than his egoistic speech:

Ladies and Gentlemen. I have enjoyed this evening immensely. The actors have given us a charming rendition of a delightful play, and your appreciation has been most intelligent. I congratulate you on the great success of your performance, which persuades me that you think almost as highly of the play as I do myself .

It was followed by A Woman of No Importance in 1893, another essentially Victorian comedy: revolving around the spectre of illegitimate births, mistaken identities and late revelations.

Feasting with Panthers

Wilde was now infatuated with Douglas and they began a tempestuous affair, consorting together regularly. If Wilde was relatively indiscreet, even flamboyant, in the way he acted, Lord Douglas was reckless in public. Wilde, who was earning up to £100 a week from his plays (his salary at The Woman's World had been £6), indulged Douglas's every whim: material, artistic or sexual. Their relationship was not marked by fidelity, and Douglas soon dragged Wilde into the Victorian underground of gay prostitution. Douglas and some Oxford friends began to discuss homosexual-law reform, "The Cause", and they founded an Oxford journal, The Chameleon, to which Wilde "sent a page of paradoxes originally destined for the Saturday Review". Phrases and Philosophies for the Use of the Young, was to come under attack six months later at Wilde's trial, where he was forced to defend the magazine to which he had unthinkingly sent his work. In any case, it became unique: The Chameleon was not published again.

At Douglas's encouragement, Wilde stepped up the pace of casual sexual affairs. Through Douglas he met Alfred Taylor, and they both introduced him to a series of young, working class, male prostitutes from 1892 onwards. These relationships usually took the same form: Wilde would meet the boy, offer him gifts, dine him privately and then take him to a hotel room. Unlike Wilde's idealised, pederastic relations with John Gray, Ross and Douglas, all of whom remained part of his aesthetic circle, these consorts were uneducated and knew nothing of literature. Soon his public and private lives had become sharply divided.

Francis Douglas, Viscount Drumlanrig, Lord Alfred's older brother, possibly had an intimate association with Archibald Philip Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery,the Prime Minister to whom he was private secretary, which ended with Viscount Drumlanrig's death in an unexplained shooting accident. The Marquess of Queensberry came to believe his sons had been corrupted by older homosexuals or, as he phrased it in a letter, in the aftermath of Viscount Drumlaing's death "Montgomerys, The Snob Queers like Rosebery and certainly Christian Hypocrite like Gladstone and the whole lot of you". As he had attempted to do with Rosebery, Queensberry confronted Wilde and Lord Alfred on several occasions, but each time Wilde was able to mollify him.

Queensberry even had an interview with Wilde at 16 Tite Street. Calling without an appointment, Queensberry clarified his stance:

"I do not say that you are [improper conduct], but you look it, and pose at it, which is just as bad. And if I catch you and my son again in any public restaurant I will thrash you"

to which Wilde responded:

"I don't know what the Queensberry rules are, but the Oscar Wilde rule is to shoot on sight".

Then telling his manservant that Queensberry was the most infamous brute in London, and that he was not to be shown into the house again. His account in De Profundis was less triumphant, describing Queensberry was epileptic with rage, screaming every insult under the sun. Queensberry only described the scene once, saying Wilde had "shown him the white feather", meaning he had acted cowardly. Though trying to remain calm, Wilde saw that he was becoming ensnared in a brutal family quarrel. He did not wish to bear Queensberry's insults, but he knew to confront him could lead to disaster were his liaisons disclosed publicly.

The Importance of Being Earnest

Wilde's final play again returns to the theme of switched identities: the play's two protagonists engage in "bunburying", the maintenance of alternate personas in the town and country, which allows them to escape Victorian social mores. The play, universally acknowledged as a riposte to Wilde's boast to André Gide that he had "put my genuis into my life, and only my talent into my works" - premiered on St. Valentine's day 1895. Wilde had firmly reached his artistic maturity and rapidly wrote the play in late 1894.

Wilde's professional success mirrored escalation in his feud with Queensberry. On the opening night of The Importance of Being Earnest Queensberry planned to publicly insult Wilde by throwing a bouquet of spoiling vegetables onto the stage. Wilde was tipped off, and Queensberry was barred from entering the theatre. Wilde and Douglas promptly left London for a holiday in Monte Carlo. While they were there, on the 18 February 1895, the Marquess left his calling card at Wilde's club, the Albemarle, inscribed: "For Oscar Wilde, posing somdomite"[sic].

Trials

The Marquess of Queensberry's calling card with the offending inscription "For Oscar Wilde posing Somdomite [sic]"

Wilde vs Queensberry

Wilde made a complaint of criminal libel against the Marquess of Queensberry based on the calling card incident, and the Marquess was arrested but later freed on bail. The libel trial became a cause célèbre as salacious details of Wilde's private life with Alfred Taylor and Lord Alfred Douglas began to appear in the press. A team of detectives, with the help of the actor Charles Brookfield, had directed Queensberry's lawyers (led by Edward Carson QC) to the world of the Victorian underground. Here Wilde's association with blackmailers and male prostitutes, cross-dressers and homosexual brothels was recorded, and various persons involved were interviewed, some being coerced to appear as witnesses.

The trial opened on 3 April 1895 amongst scenes of near hysteria both in the press and the public galleries. After a shaky start, Wilde regained some ground when defending his art from attacks of perversion. The Picture of Dorian Gray came under fierce moral criticism, but Wilde fended it off with his usual charm and confidence on artistic matters. Some of his personal letters to Lord Alfred were examined, their wording challenged as inappropriate and evidence of immoral relations. Queensberry's legal team proposed that the libel was published for the public good, but it was only when the prosecution moved on to sexual matters that Wilde balked. He was challenged on the reason given for not kissing a young servant; Wilde had replied, "He was a particularly plain boy—unfortunately ugly—I pitied him for it." Counsel for the defence, scenting blood, pressed him on the point. Wilde hesitated, complaining of Carson's insults and attempts to unnerve him. The prosecution eventually dropped the case, after the defence threatened to bring boy prostitutes to the stand to testify to Wilde's corruption and influence over Queensberry's son, effectively crippling the case.

The Crown vs Wilde

After Wilde left the court, a warrant for his arrest was applied for and served on him at the Cadogan Hotel, Knightsbridge. Robert Ross found him there with Reginald Turner; both men advised Wilde to go at once to Dover and try to get a boat to France; his mother advised him to stay and fight like a man. Wilde, lapsing into inaction, could only say, "The train has gone. It's too late." Wilde was arrested for "gross indecency" under Section 11 of the Criminal Law Amendment Act 1885. In British legislation of the time, this term implied homosexual acts not amounting to buggery, which was an offence under a separate statute. After his arrest Wilde sent Robert Ross to his home in Tite Street with orders to remove certain items. Ross and Wilde's butler forced into the bedroom and library, packing some personal effects, manuscripts and letters. Wilde was then imprisoned on remand at Holloway where he received daily visits from Lord Alfred Douglas.

Wilde in the dock, from The Illustrated Police News, 4 May 1895

Events moved quickly and his prosecution opened on 26 April 1895. Wilde had already begged Douglas to leave London for Paris, but Douglas complained bitterly, even wanting to take the stand; however he was pressed to go and soon fled to the Hotel du Monde. Ross and many other gentlemen also left the United Kingdom during this time. Under cross examination Wilde presented an eloquent defence:

Charles Gill (prosecuting): What is "the love that dare not speak its name?"

Wilde: "The love that dare not speak its name" in this century is such a great affection of an elder for a younger man as there was between David and Jonathan, such as Plato made the very basis of his philosophy, and such as you find in the sonnets of Michelangelo and Shakespeare. It is that deep spiritual affection that is as pure as it is perfect. It dictates and pervades great works of art, like those of Shakespeare and Michelangelo, and those two letters of mine, such as they are. It is in this century misunderstood, so much misunderstood that it may be described as "the love that dare not speak its name," and on that account of it I am placed where I am now. It is beautiful, it is fine, it is the noblest form of affection. There is nothing unnatural about it. It is intellectual, and it repeatedly exists between an older and a younger man, when the older man has intellect, and the younger man has all the joy, hope and glamour of life before him. That it should be so, the world does not understand. The world mocks at it, and sometimes puts one in the pillory for it."

The trial ended with the jury unable to reach a verdict and Wilde's counsel, Sir Edward Clark, was finally able to agree bail. Wilde was freed from Holloway and went into hiding at the house of Ernest and Ada Leverson, two of Wilde's firm friends. The Reverend Stewart Headlam put up most of the £5,000 bail, having disagreed with Wilde's heinous treatment by the press and the courts. Edward Carson approached Frank Lockwood (QC) and asked 'Can we not let up on the fellow now?' His request was denied. If the Crown was seen to give up at that point, it would have appeared that there was one rule for some and not others, and outrage could have followed.

The final trial was presided over by Mr Justice Wills. On 25 May 1895 Wilde and Alfred Taylor were convicted of gross indecency and sentenced to two years' hard labour. The judge himself described the sentence as "totally inadequate for a case such as this," although it was the maximum sentence allowed for the charge under the Criminal Law Amendment Act of 1885. Wilde's response "And I?, May I say nothing my Lord?" was drowned out by cries of "Shame".

Decline: 1895-1900

Imprisonment

Wilde was imprisoned first in Pentonville and then Wandsworth prisons in London. The regime at the time was tough, "hard labour, hard fare and a hard bed" was the guiding philosophy, and it wore particularly harshly on Wilde as a gentleman, though his status provided him no special privileges. In November he was forced to attend Chapel, and there he was so weak from illness and hunger that he collapsed, bursting his right ear drum, an injury that would later contribute to his death. . He spent two months in the infirmary. . Richard B. Haldane, the Liberal MP and reformer, visited him and had him transferred in November to Reading Prison, some 30 miles west of London. Wilde knew the town of Reading from happier times, boating on the Thames and visits to the Palmer family (including a tour of the famous Huntley & Palmers biscuit factory which was quite close to the prison). The transfer itself was the lowest point of his incarceration, as a crowd jeered and spat at him on the platform.

Now known as prisoner C. 3.3, (Block C, floor three, cell three) he was not, at first, even allowed paper and pen, but Haldane eventually succeeded in allowing access to books, and writing materials. Wilde requested, among others, The Holy Bible in French, Italian and German grammars, some Greek texts, Dante, En Route (a new French novel about Christian redemption) by Joris-Karl Huysmans), St Augustine, Cardinal Newman and Pater's essays.

Between January and March 1897 Wilde wrote a 50,000-word letter to Douglas, which he was not allowed to send, but permitted to take with him upon release. In it he repuidates Lord Douglas for what Wilde finally sees as his arrogance and vanity; he hadn't forgotten Douglas's remark, when he was ill, "When you are not on your pedestal you are not interesting.". He also felt redemption and fulfilment in his ordeal, realising that his hardship had filled the soul with the fruit of experience, however bitter it tasted at the time.

...I wanted to eat of the fruit of all the trees in the garden of the world... And so, indeed, I went out, and so I lived. My only mistake was that I confined myself so exclusively to the trees of what seemed to me the sun-lit side of the garden, and shunned the other side for its shadow and its gloom.

On his release, he gave the manuscript to Ross, who may or may not have carried out Wilde's instructions to send a copy to Douglas (who later denied having received it). De Profundis was partially published in 1905, its complete and correct publication first occurred in 1962 in The Letters of Oscar Wilde.

Exile

Prison had been unkind to Wilde's body, but he was released on the 19th of May 1897 with a feeling of spiritual renewal and immediately wrote to the Jesuits requesting a six month Catholic retreat. When the request was denied, Wilde wept. He left England the next day for the continent, to spend his last three years in penniless exile. He took the name "Sebastian Melmoth", after Saint Sebastian and the titular character of Melmoth the Wanderer, Wilde's great-uncle Charles Maturin's gothic novel.

Wilde spent mid-1897 with Robert Ross in in Berneval-le-Grand, where he wrote the poem The Ballad of Reading Gaol. It was a commercial success and brought him a little money. The title page identified the author as "C.3.3." - it was only after the sixth printing that his name was added in parentheses, though many in literary circles had known Wilde to be the author.

Although Douglas had been the cause of his misfortunes, he and Wilde were reunited in August 1897 at Rouen. This meeting was disapproved of by the friends and families of both men. Constance Wilde was already refusing to meet Wilde or allow him to see their sons, though she kept him supplied with money. During the latter part of 1897, Wilde and Douglas lived together near Naples, but for financial and other reasons, they separated.

Wilde's final address was at the dingy Hôtel d'Alsace (now known as L'Hôtel), in Paris; "This poverty really breaks one's heart: it is so sale, so utterly depressing, so hopeless. Pray do what you can" he wrote to his publisher. He corrected and published his plays An Ideal Husband and The Importance of Being Earnest, the proofs of which Ellman argues show a man "very much in command of himself and of the play" but he refused to write anything else "The joy of creation has been kicked out of me" he wrote to a friend. He spent much time wandering the Boulevards alone, and spent what little money he had on alcohol. A series of embarrassing encounters with English visitors, or Frenchmen he had known in better days, further damaged his spirit. He is quoted as saying, just a month before his death, "My wallpaper and I are fighting a duel to the death. One of us has got to go." On 12th October he sent a telegram to Ross: "Terribly weak. Please come."

His moods fluctuated; Max Beerbohm relates how, a few days before Wilde's death, their mutual friend Reginald 'Reggie' Turner had found Wilde very depressed after a nightmare. "I dreamt that I had died, and was supping with the dead!" "I am sure", Turner replied, "that you must have been the life and soul of the party." Turner was one of the very few of the old circle who remained with Wilde right to the end, and was at his bedside when he died.

File:Paryż père-lachaise wilde.JPG

The tomb of Oscar Wilde in Père Lachaise Cemetery

Death

Wilde died of cerebral meningitis on 30 November 1900. Different opinions are given as to the cause of the meningitis; Richard Ellmann claimed it was syphilitic; Merlin Holland, Wilde's grandson, thought this to be a misconception, noting that Wilde's meningitis followed a surgical intervention, perhaps a mastoidectomy; Wilde's physicians, Dr. Paul Cleiss and A'Court Tucker, reported that the condition stemmed from an old suppuration of the right ear (une ancienne suppuration de l'oreille droite d'ailleurs en traitement depuis plusieurs années) and did not allude to syphilis. Most modern scholars and doctors agree that syphilis was unlikely to have been the cause of his death.

On his deathbed Wilde was finally received into the Roman Catholic church. Robert Ross, in his letter to More Adey (dated 14 December 1900), describes it: "He was conscious that people were in the room, and raised his hand when I asked him whether he understood. He pressed our hands. I then sent in search of a priest, and after great difficulty found Father Cuthbert Dunne ... who came with me at once and administered Baptism and Extreme Unction. - Oscar could not take the Eucharist". Wilde had long maintained an interest in the Catholic Church having met with Pope Pius IX in 1877 and describing it as "for saints and sinners alone – for respectable people, the Anglican Church will do". During his time in prison Wilde had pored over the works of Saint Augustine, Dante and Cardinal Newman.

Wilde was initially buried in the Cimetière de Bagneux graveyard outside Paris; in 1909 his remains were disinterred to Père Lachaise Cemetery, inside in the city. His tomb was designed by Sir Jacob Epstein, comissioned by Robert Ross, who asked for a small compartment to be made for his own ashes. They were transferred to the tomb in 1950. The modernist angel depicted as a relief on the tomb was originally complete with male genitalia which were broken off by a visitor and subsequently kept as a paperweight by a succession of cemetery keepers; their current whereabouts are unknown. In 2000, Leon Johnson, a multi-media artist, installed silver prosthesis to replace them.

The epitaph is a verse from The Ballad of Reading Gaol:

And alien tears will fill for him
Pity's long-broken urn,
For his mourners will be outcast men,
And outcasts always mourn.

Aestheticism and philosophy

1881 caricature in Punch

For Wilde, the purpose of art was to guide life, and to do this it must concern itself only with the pursuit of beauty, disdaining morality. Just as Dorian Gray's portrait allows its owner to escape the corporeal ravages of his hedonism, and Miss Prism mistakes a baby for a book in The Importance of Being Earnest, Wilde sought to juxtapose the beauty he saw in art onto daily life. This was a practical as well as philosophical project: in Oxford he surrounded himself with blue china and lillies; in America he lectured on interior design; in London he paraded down Piccadily carrying a lily, long hair flowing. In Victorian society, Wilde was a colourful agent provocateur: his art, like his paradoxes, sought to subvert as well as sparkle. His own estimation of himself was of one who "stood in symbolic relations to the art and culture of my age". Ellman argues that Wilde's poem Hélas was a sincere, though flamboyant attempt to explain the dichotimies he saw in himself:

TO drift with every passion till my soul
Is a stringed lute on which all winds can play,

Politics

For much of his life, Wilde advocated socialism, which he argued "will be of value simply because it will lead to individualism". He also had a strong libertarian streak as shown in his poem Sonnet to Liberty and, subsequent to reading the works of Peter Kropotkin (whom he described as "a man with a soul of that beautiful white Christ which seems coming out of Russia")he declared himself an anarchist. Wilde was concerned about the effect of moralising on art: following his vision of art as separate from life, he thought that the government most amiable to artists was no government at all. This point of view did not align him with the Fabians, the leading intellectual socialists of the time. In The Soul of Man Under Socialism he presents a vision of society where mechanisation has freed human effort from the burden of necessity, and can be expended entirely on artistic creation. Other political influences on Wilde may have been William Morris and John Ruskin. Wilde was also a pacifist and quipped that "When liberty comes with hands dabbled in blood it is hard to shake hands with her". In addition to his primary political text, the essay "The Soul of Man under Socialism", Wilde wrote several letters to the Daily Chronicle advocating prison reform and was the sole signatory of George Bernard Shaw's petition for a pardon of the anarchists arrested (and later executed) after the Haymarket massacre in Chicago in 1886.

Selected oeuvre

Main article: Oscar Wilde bibliography

• Poems (1881)
• The Happy Prince and Other Stories (1888), fairy stories
• Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories (1891), fairy stories
• House of Pomegranates (1891), fairy stories
• Intentions, a collection of essays and dialogues outlining his aesthetic theories was published in 1891
• The Picture of Dorian Gray, (novel) serialised in Lipincott's 1890, published in book form in 1891
• Lady Windermere's Fan (1892), play
• A Woman of No Importance (1893), play
• An Ideal Husband, play, first preformed 1895, published 1898
• The Importance of Being Earnest, play, first preformed 1895, published 1898
• De Profundis, letter written in 1897 in prison, published variously in 1905, 1908, 1942, 1962
• The Ballad of Reading Gaol, (1898) poem

Biographies

No. 16 Tite Street, Chelsea, the Wilde family home from 1884 to his arrest in 1895

Main article: Biographies of Oscar Wilde

Wilde's life continues to fascinate, he has been the subject of numerous biographies since his death. The earliest were memoirs by those known to him including Frank Harris, his friend and editor, who wrote a biography, Oscar Wilde: His Life and Confessions. Of his other close friends, Robert Sherard, Robert Ross his literary executor, Charles Ricketts and Lord Alfred Douglas variously published biographies, reminiscences or correspondence. In 1946, Hesketh Pearson published The Life of Oscar Wilde (Methuen), it contains material derived from conversations many who had known or worked with Wilde. It gives a vivid impression of Wilde's presence must have been like, although dated. In 1954 Vyvyan Holland published his memoir Son of Oscar Wilde, which recounts the difficulties Wilde's wife and children faced after his imprisonment. It was revised and updated by Merlin Holland in 1989.

Wilde's life was still waiting for independent, true scholarship when Richard Ellmann began researching his 1987 biography Oscar Wilde, for which he posthumously won a National (USA) Book Critics Circle Award in 1988 and a Pulitzer Prize in 1989. It is considered to be the definitive work on the subject. Ray Monk, a philosopher and biographer, described Ellman's Oscar Wilde as a "rich, fascinating biography that succeeds in understanding another person". The book was the basis for the 1997 film Wilde, directed by Brian Gilbert.

Neil McKenna's 2003 biography, The Secret Life of Oscar Wilde, offers an exploration of Wilde's sexuality. Often speculative in nature, it was widely criticised for its lack of scholarly rigour and pure conjecture. Thomas Wright's Oscar's Books (2008) explores Wilde's reading from his childhood in Dublin to his death in Paris. After tracking down many books that once belonged to Wilde's Tite Street Library, (dispersed at the time of his trials) he was the first to examine Wilde's marginalia.

Wilde's charm had a lasting affect on the Parisian litterati too; who have produced a number of original biographies and monographs on him. Andre Gide, over whom Wilde had such a strange affect, wrote, In Memoriam, Oscar Wilde, Wilde also features in his journals. Thomas Louis, who had earlier translated books on Wilde into French, produced his own L’esprit d’Oscar Wilde in 1920. Modern books include Philippe Jullian's Oscar Wilde, and L'affaire Oscar Wilde ou Du danger de laisser la justice mettre le nez dans nos draps (The Oscar Wilde Affair, or, On the Danger of Allowing Justice to put its Nose in our Sheets) by Odon Vallet, a French religous historian.

Bibliography

• Beckson, Karl E (1998), The Oscar Wilde encyclopedia, AMS studies in the nineteenth century, no. 18, AMS Press, ISBN 9780404614980
• Breen, Richard (1977, 2000) Oxford, Oddfellows & Funny Tales Penny Publishing Limited London ISBN 1901374009
• Ellmann, Richard (1988), Oscar Wilde, Vintage Books, ISBN 9780394759845
• Igoe, Vivien (1994), A literary guide to Dublin : writers in Dublin, literary associations and anecdotes, Methuen, ISBN 9780413674203
• Harris, Frank (1916) Oscar Wilde: His Life and Confessions [in two volumes]. New York
• Holland, A. and Hart-Davis, Rupert (2000): The Complete Letters of Oscar Wilde. p 1219-1220, New York: Henry Holt and Co. ISBN 0805059156
• Holland, Merlin (2003) Irish Peacock and Scarlet Marquess: The Real Trial of Oscar Wilde (UK and Ireland edition), The Real Trial of Oscar Wilde (International) Fourth Estate
• Holland, Merlin (Ed.) (2003) The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde. Collins ISBN 10 0007144369
• Hyde, H. Montgomery Oscar Wilde: The Aftermath, Farrar Straus ltd, New York (1964) Mandarin (1990)
• Kiberd, Declan (1996) Ch.2 "Inventing Ireland: The Literature of a Modern Nation", Harvard University Press ISBN 10:0-674-46363-3
• Kilfeather, Siobhán Marie (2005). Dublin, a cultural history. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0195182022.
• Mason, Stuart (1914; new ed. 1972) Bibliography of Oscar Wilde. Rota pub; Haskell House Pub ISBN 10 0838313787
• Morley, Sheridan (1976), Oscar Wilde, London: Weidenfeld & Nicholson, p. 39, ISBN 0297771604
• Raby, Peter (ed.). (1997) The Cambridge Companion to Oscar Wilde. Cambridge University press ISBN 0-521-47987-8

External links

• The Oscar Wilde Society (UK). Accessed 2010-02-22
• Oscar Wilde Society (U.S.) Contains a reconstructed itinenary of Wilde's U.S. lecture tour there. Accessed 2010-02-22
• Record of Wilde's indictment and conviction - official Old Bailey website. Accessed 2010-02-22
• Details including court transcriptions of the Trials of Oscar Wilde. Accessed 2010-02-22
• Guardian article: My hero: Oscar Wilde 5 September 2009. Accessed 2010-02-22
• Guardian article: 10 most popular misconceptions about Oscar Wilde 7 May 2003. Accessed 2010-02-22
• Template:Worldcat id
• Wilde texts from University College Cork, electoronic texts, including selection of his Journalism. Accessed 2010-02-22
• The Oscar Wilde Collection - text of Wilde's poetry, plays and fiction. Accessed 2010-02-22
• Online Books by Oscar Wilde. Accessed Accessed 2010-02-22
• Works by Oscar Wilde at Project Gutenberg

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