Oscar Wilde: A Biography
A Concise Synopsis of the Writer of 'The Picture of Dorian Gray'
Aug 25, 2009
Oscar Wilde was one the greatest celebrities of the Victorian Age. Through art, wisdom and scandal he kept the people rapt with adoration or disgust at his every breath.
Wilde famously stated
“Biography lends to death a new terror”.
However, he did also state:
“The only thing worse than being talked about, is not being talked about”
Therefore his grave will still surely sparkle under the shimmering glow of recognition.
Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was born on the 16th of October 1854 (the same day as Davina McCall and John Mayer, as Wilde himself would say “Most modern calendars mar the sweet simplicity of our lives by reminding us that each day that passes is the anniversary of some perfectly uninteresting event.”)
His birthplace was 21 Westland Row, Dublin. Second son of the Sir William Wilde (a revolutionary leading oto-ophthalmologic surgeon) and Jane Francesca Wilde (a poet with the ‘Young Irelanders’)
Education & Early Life
Oscar was educated at home until age 9. After this he attended the Portora Royal School in Enniskillen, Fermanagh.
After this Wilde went on to study classics at Trinity College, Dublin, (1871 to 1874). Wilde was consistently a stunning student and won the Berkeley Gold Medal, for work in classical literature.
In 1874 he was awarded a scholarship to Magdalen College, Oxford, where he studied until 1878. During this time Wilde became more and more involved with the aesthetic and decadent movements in and around the college. The aesthetic movement, as it sounds, based importance on aesthetic quality and beauty above traditional morality and social values. The decadent movement (referred to as the artistic transition stage between Romanticism and Modernism) based itself upon a lack of discipline in moral affairs. Dismissing the concerns and values that society is traditionally based upon for a life of ease and self-indulgent luxury. Both these involvements began to push Oscar further from educated expectancies that were held for him inside and as a Graduate of Oxford.
Wilde graduated with a double first in classical moderations and Literae Humaniores.
Sexuality
“A man can be happy with any woman as long as he does not love her.”
Wilde married Constance Lloyd on the 29th May 1884. They had two sons Cyril, born in 1885, and Vyvyan, born in 1886.
Wilde’s sexuality has been in question ever since he died. Although married he is stated as to have linked his sexuality with the Ancient Greek paederastic tradition. This tradition, spreading from the time of Homer, was one where an older man would take a younger male and form a close and sometimes sexual bond. During Homeric times it was considered natural and completely ordinary, in fact the very notion to the Ancient Greeks of a specific sexuality, whether it being purely hetro or homo-sexual would have seemed absurd. Perhaps it was the wealth of decadence and the aesthetic way of living that led Oscar to dismiss the society and culture around him and choose himself to share and relish in any and each desire he had. There are various rumours and tales of him sharing sexual and loving bonds with younger men, such as Robert Ross, Frank Miles and Lord Alfred Douglas.
As he famously writes in ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’
“The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it”.
Oscar seemed to live through and by his own quotes with confident belief in his own wit and wisdom.
Scandal
One of Oscars main love interests, Lord Alfred Douglas (or ‘Bosie’) had a family who would not stand for any kind of rumours or suspicion of homo-sexuality.
John Sholto Douglas, Alfred’s father, suggested with politely-forked tongue that he must call to an end his "intimacy" with Wilde. He proceeded to send vicious and cutting letters, and tried on many occasion to embarrass and humiliate Wilde with public displays of accusations and allegations.
Wilde took John Douglas to trial for libel. Unbeknown to him the trial would turn in several ongoing trials, as Douglas' legal team proposed to provide male witnesses that would tell their tale of sexual indecency with Wilde.
The trails lasted between 3 April 1895 and 25 May 1895.
Wilde was finally found guilty of ‘gross indecency’ and sentenced to two years imprisonment. The judge viciously stating during the sentence that the two men in question were ‘Dead to all sense of shame’.
Release and Death
Once released Oscar Wilde took the assumed name of Sebastian Melmoth and lived in quiet self-imposed exile from artistic culture.
He is reported to have shared further relations with Alfred Douglas, and several young Parisian men. However Constance Lloyd, although still keeping him financially afloat refused to meet him or let him see his children.
Wilde died in Paris on the 30th November 1900.
A wit until the very end, Wilde supposedly gazed around his room in the last few months of his life and stated
“My wallpaper and I are fighting a duel to the death. One or other of us has got to go”.
Oscar Wilde is truly unique. Whereas most would be remembered as foolish to open trial and then find themselves drowned in legality, Wilde is purveyed as a victim and martyr of social injustice. His works remain hugely popular. His plays are regularly put on performance throughout the world. His only novel ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’ has recently been served up for cinemas.
Oscar Wilde was perhaps morally questionable, living a life of decadence and luxury until he was brought down by his own desires. However his work is truly sublime, decorated beautifully with glorious word-play and wondrous wit. It deserves to be read and enjoyed by all. Oscar Wildes quotes and all will be remembered forever.
Although he states that the idea of biographies being written after death is terrifying, if this has made an enemy of his memory, it must rest easy and not be worried over, as one of his finest quotes states:
“Always forgive your enemies, nothing annoys them more”
Thank you Oscar. Truly. Your words only burn brighter.
 |
