Wilde, Oscar
AKA: Wilde, Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills
ACHIEVEMENTS: Noted poet and dramatist.
NICKNAME/ALIAS: None.
DATE AND PLACE OF BIRTH: 16th October 1854, in Dublin, Ireland.
DATE/PLACE OF DEATH/AGE AT DEATH: 30th of November 1900 in Paris, France Aged 46.
DISCIPLINE: Author.
FIELD: Poetry and Drama.
LANGUAGE: English.
PARENTS: Father, Sir William Wilde, mother, Lady Jane Francesca Wilde.
SIBLINGS: William and Isola.
SPOUSE: Constance Lloyd.
CHILDREN: 2 sons, Cyril and Vyvyan.
EDUCATION: Trinity College, Dublin; Magdalen College, Oxford University.
MAJOR WORK: Vera; or the Nihilists (1880), The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891), The Soul of Man Under Socialism (1895), The Ballad of Reading Gaol (1898), The Importance of Being Earnest (1899), The Ideal Husband (1899), De Profundis (1905).
LIFE AND TIMES: Wilde’s mother was a poet and journalist who supported the Irish nationalist and women’s rights movements. His father, William Wilde, was a surgeon and specialist in diseases of the eye and ear, as well as an Irish antiquarian and writer. At Oxford Wilde was a student of Pater and Ruskin*. Wilde soon became infamous for his attitude towards religion and literature, and for his choice in clothes. He adopted the style and identity of a dandy, and was known for wearing velvet knee pants and other outrageous outfits.
After Oxford, Wilde lived in London and became a noted spokesman for Aestheticism, a late 19th century English movement advocating “art for arts sake”: that art should be concerned foremost with its formal artistic value, and not be concerned with politics, religion, science, morality or other forces outside the art itself.
Wilde also associated with the fin de siecle decadent and symbolist poets and writers of the period living in France and England. These included Whistler*, and Sickert*.
In 1880 Wilde and his friend, artist Frank Miles, lived across the street from Whistler. Wilde and Whistler became friends and both publicly espoused the aesthetic philosophy. However, as Wilde became better known, Whistler accused Wilde of stealing his ideas. Wilde later retaliated by publishing a negative review of Whistler’s book, The Gentle Art of Making Enemies (1890).
In late 1881 Wilde sailed to the United States for an 12-month lecture tour. He traveled the country, speaking on aestheticism, home decoration, and Irish poetry, while meeting important American authors, such as Whitman*, Henry James, Longfellow*, and Holmes*. Wilde continued to travel, and after returning to London in early 1883, he quickly left again for Paris.
In Paris he met many of the leading literary and artistic figures of the day, including Hugo*, Verlaine*, Degas*, and Pissarro*.
Wilde’s first play, Vera; Or the Nihilists, was produced in New York in 1883. The play opened to poor reviews and Wilde soon returned to England where he married Constance Lloyd.
In 1889 he was commissioned by Joseph Marshall Stoddart of Lippincott’s Monthly Magazine in Philadelphia to write a story for the magazine; also present at this meeting was author, Conan Doyle*, who was also commissioned to write a piece. The result of this meeting was the 1890 appearance of Wilde’s novel Picture of Dorian Gray. The novel generated many negative reviews from readers who were disturbed by the veiled references to homosexuality. However, when the book edition appeared the following year it drew praise from Yeats*
In 1891 Wilde again traveled to Paris to work on a play entitled Salomé. While in Paris he met writers such as Proust* and Gide*. Wilde wrote Salomé in French and the play was illustrated by English artist and fellow aesthete, Beardsley*, who would go on to draw other less than flattering character sketches of Wilde. While he was in Paris he also met the artist and anarchist Toulouse-Lautrec*, who in 1895 painted a portrait of Wilde.
Around this time Wilde also published the pamphlet, The Soul of Man Under Socialism, which reflected his growing interest in libertarian socialism, as well as the influence of anarchist Kropotkin*.
In 1882 Wilde prepared to produced his play Salomé with famous American actress Sarah Bernhardt* in the leading role. However, when the play was submitted for licensing, it was refused under a law dating back to the Protestant Reformation that prohibited the production of plays with biblical characters.
Among the few to protest against this censorship was author and translator, Archer*. Strauss* composed the opera for the German translation of Salomé.
Also in 1891, Wilde met Lord Alfred Douglas* and became romantically and sexually involved with him. Douglas (called Bosie by his friends) was seventeen years younger than Wilde, an aristocrat, homosexual, poet, the central love of Wilde’s life, and the cause of Wilde’s ownfall.
In 1893 another of Wilde’s plays, A Woman of Importance, was successfully produced in London by Tree*, the half brother of author, dandy and friend of Wilde, Beerbohm*.
Then in 1884, the Marquess of Queensberry became aware of Wilde and Douglas’ relationship and demanded that Wilde stop appearing in public with Douglas. In 1895 Queensberry appeared at Wilde’s club and left him a card which said, “To Oscar Wilde, posing as a sodomite.”
Wilde responded to this offense, under the urging of Douglas, by suing Queensberry for libel. The trial began on 3 April 1895, Wilde was represented by Sir Edward Clarke, the Solicitor General. Carson* his former friend and schoolmate from Trinity College, represented Queensberry.
The trial, which began well for Wilde, but soon deteriorated when it became clear that Queensberry’s lawyers had gathered ample evidence of Wilde’s homosexual affairs. After the third day of the trial, Wilde dropped the suit. However, Queensberry’s lawyers turned over all their evidence to the Director of Public Prosecutions.
Wilde was then arrest and charged with criminal homosexuality, a punishable crime in England at the time. All of Wilde’s books were taken out of print, his name expunged from posters and announcements for all his plays, and his wife and children had to go into hiding.
Wilde’s trial began on 26 April, but when the jury could not reach a verdict a second trial was ordered. At his second trial, which began on 20 May, he was convicted and sentenced to two years’ hard labor.
In prison he wrote his long letter to Douglas, both accusing him of Wilde’s downfall, and attempting reconciliation. Wilde was released from prison in 1887, after serving the entire two year sentence. He was now bankrupt and permanently separated from his wife and children.
He left England and lived in France, where he wrote his last great work, The Ballad of Reading Gaol, a long poem that was about both his prison experience and his relationship with Alfred Douglas. Also during this time he wrote a series of articles promoting prison reform.
ASSESSMENT: Wilde’s work helped bring a modern sensibility, that allowed for irony and wit, into British drama at the turn of the century. His outrageous behavior, which brought him public attention, linked his name to the British Aesthetic movement and eventually led to his downfall, when his homosexuality was exposed. Wilde is recognized today as one of the great forces of British literature from the turn of the century. His works such as the Picture of Dorian Grey, The Importance of Being Earnest, and the Ballad of Reading Gaol continue to be relevant today.
EXTRA CONNECTIONS: Actor Forbes-Robertson* was a friend.
He met painters John* and Rothenstein*
He wrote sonnets to Ellen Terry*
ONELINER: Oscar Wilde, major Victorian writer and wit.
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Beckson, Karl, “Oscar Wilde.” Dictionary of Literary Biography Vol. 10: Modern British Dramatists 1900-1945. ed Stanley Weintraub. Detroit: Gale Group, 1982. pp.204-218.
Brown, Sally, Oscar Wilde. New York: The Pierpont Morgan Library in association with The British Library, 2000.
Callow, Simon. Oscar Wilde and His Circle. London: National Portrait Gallery Publications, 2000.