Oscar Wilde

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Oscar Wilde
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Wilde trivia

• On a tour stop in Leadville, Colorado, Wilde saw
  a sign on a saloon that said, Please do not
  shoot the pianist. Hes doing his best.
• Wilde said that was the only rational method of
  art criticism that I have ever come across.

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Some Wilde Quotes

• True friends stab you in the front.
• We live in an age where unnecessary things are
  our only necessities.
• To believe is very dull. To doubt is intensely
  engrossing . . .

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Some Quick Facts about Wilde

• Born in Dublin, Ireland
• Lived 1854-1900 (Victorian Era)
• Published only one novel
• Wrote 9 plays
• Regarded as one of the greatest playwrights of
  the Victorian Era

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At Home

• Wilde is born to Dublin celebrities
• Father was ear and eye surgeon
• Mother often called a snob

Grave Marker and Memorial in
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Sir William and Lady Jane Wildes Memorial,
Dublin.
Mount Jerome Cemetery, Dublin of Sir William
Wilde and his wife. Lady Wilde. Photographed by
Adam Quinan, August 2006.
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Wilde in Love

• Wilde falls in love with Florence Balcombe
• Florence accepts Bram Stokers
• marriage proposal
• Wilde moves to London

Bram Stoker
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Oscar Wilde's House, 34 Tite Street, Chelsea.
Photograph by Philip V. Allingham. 2002.
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On May 29, 1884, Oscar married Constance Lloyd.
They had two sons.
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• In the summer of 1891, Oscar met Lord Alfred
  'Bosie' Douglas, the third son of the Marquis of
  Queensberry.

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Robert Ross at 24
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• Algy My dear Aunt Augusta, I mean Bunbury is
  dead. He was found out.
• -- The Importance of Being Ernest

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The Aesthetic and Decadent Movements art for
arts sake

• Wears his hair long
• Openly mocks masculine sports
• Decorates his room with lilies, sunflowers, blue
  china, peacock feathers
• Publications report with skepticism

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On Wilde

• . . . Eclipses masculine ideals that under
  such influence men would become effeminate
  dandies.
• - Thomas Wentworth Higginson, publisher and
  critic of Wilde

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Keller cartoon from the Wasp of San Francisco
depicting Wilde on the occasion of his visit
there in 1882.
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• In 1895 he was sent to the Reading Jail for two
  years hard labor.
• prison years were highly traumatic
• he never recovered, dying in 1900
• I had to stand on the center platform at Clapham
  Junction in convict dress and handcuffed, for all
  the word to look at . . . Of all possible objects
  I was the most grotesque. When people saw me
  they laughed.

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The Jail

• Every prisoner was expected to walk six hours a
  day on a treadmill in 29-minute
• increments with five-minute breaks. The
• distance to be covered was the equivalent of a
  6,000-foot incline.
• Rules of the prison system -- utter silence at
  all times. No books, pen, or paper. (Wilde was
  later given permission to write.)

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• The small cells bed were wooden planks without
  mattresses.
• Visitors were allowed once every three months
  for 20 minutes. Physical contact
• was out of the question.

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Two years after his release

• Wildes health never recovered after prison,
  although he kept his wit until the end. During
  his last days, he looked at the shabby wallpaper
  in his room and quipped, One of us has to go.

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The Importance of Being Earnest

• A response to Victorian
• literature, melodrama
• - Dickens
• - Robert L. Stevenson
• - Bram Stoker
• - Bronte sisters
• - Brownings

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Some Common Victorian Themes

• Uncertain parentage (because class is everything
  in Victorian England)
• Mysterious letters
• Charles Dickens
• Dark secrets from the past threaten happiness of
  respectable, well-meaning characters

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Wilde Expands and Ridicules the Genre

• The Dandy (Wilde himself)
• Serves as self-made philosopher
• Speaks in paradoxes, ridicules society
• Presents himself as shallow and trivial
• Turns out to be deeply moral and essential to
  plot resolution

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Some Themes/Motifs Youll See

• Commentary on marriage
• The constraints of morality
• Hypocrisy
• Food/Gluttony
• The importance of NOT being earnest
• Death

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Works Cited Page

• Tarpening, William. The Picture of Oscar Wilde
  A Brief Life. 6.18.07. ltwww.victorianweb.org/aut
  hors/wilde/wildebio.htmlgt
• Quote DB. Oscar Wilde. 6.19.07
  lthttp//www.quotedb.com/authors/oscar-wildegt