Essay Wow!

Oscar Fingal O’flahertie Wills Wilde, known to the world as simply Oscar Wilde, led a life as elaborate and jaw dropping as the pronunciation of his full name. He scoured every crevice of his genius to write and rewrite his life, as a man’s tongue must search the soft, round corners of his mouth to twist out those thick, Irish consonants, and swallow every ounce of those vacillating vowels which come so flowingly into each other when proclaiming his magnificently foretelling name.

Oscar was named after a fictional Gaelic character that was born into a paradise where “no one worked and no one grew old and time was endless.” (Belford, p.4) This was perhaps a foreshadowing for Wilde’s obsessions with youth, youths, and the purity of innocence. It may also have predicted his dependency on others for their money. He would later justify this by explaining that artists should not have such responsibilities as work; and the rich, who so enjoy their cultured company, should be happy to support them. Even though his life was far from paradise and stained with dark areas of embarrassment and futile longings, Wilde was always able to surround himself with the fresh vibrancy of adolescence. He found nothing more inspiring than the untainted dreams of young boys, and nothing more precious than their fair skin and soft golden curls.

Having been brought up in a wealthy household in Ireland, Oscar’s early life appears uneventful and yet his surroundings were essentially splattered with eccentricity. His mother was known for wearing outlandish dresses to formal balls, which were often written about in the following day’s papers. She also found a bit of fame and controversy as a nationalist, but she was best described as an entertaining hostess with utmost charm.

Oscar’s father also had his moments, having illegitimately fathered three children before marriage and then being accused of raping a minor post-matrimony.

Young scar grew up in a bohemian family of outspoken people including his older brother who eventually led a pitiful Oscar-shadowed life and died in his early forties from alcoholism. The two never got along, even as children Oscar once sat back and laughed as his brother’s clothes accidentally caught on fire and the poor boy desperately ran in circles among the crackling of flames and the cackling of his deviously delighted younger brother.

Another memorable instance in Wilde’s childhood was a photograph of misleading indications. Oscar had a picture taken of him in a blue dress which many people later disassociated with him being dolled up by his mother to coincide with his effeminacy. (Ironically, this trait would later bring both fame and shame to Oscar’s legacy.) In truth the dress was a result of his mother’s superstitions and not her premonitions. Women would dress their infant sons as girls because it was a widely accepted Gaelic belief that there existed a lecherous fairy with an incurable appetite for young boys. Then again, perhaps there was some clairvoyance at hand.

Oscar’s finding of himself and separation from his family came when he entered Oxford as a promising young student. This also marked the commencement of his own uninhibited adventures. He discovered three things at Oxford, which would forever change his life; his love for aesthetics, his brilliant wit, and the beauty of boys. Although his attraction to those of his own sex never truly revealed itself until much later, well after he was married.

Wilde studied theatre and Greek history where he learned of Hellenistic lifestyles and the importance of same sex relations among males in that time period. As put by his teacher and friend, John Pentland Mahaffy, “Men tended to fall in love with other men because they felt that women lacked intellectualism.

Oscar also wanted to build his life to mirror Christ’s in certain ways. He believed Christ to be “a romantic artist and poet, a sexually ambiguous individualist and aesthete, much like himself.”(Belford p.44) There was something also about the physical beauty of Christ, which demanded a need for observance as powerful as the philosophies he represented. A thin, fragile body of a man, a God, stretched across a crucifix with a nakedness and a vulnerability that in a single captured moment of agony crashed into a person’s heart with pure chaotic empathy, melted one’s mind into the thick, waxy fuel of enlightenment, and seduced one’s soul with the perversions of promised, sin free, paradises. Paintings of Christ were in many ways depicted as homoerotic icons.

Oscar’s religious history was a variable pinball game of beliefs. He would be born Protestant, be secretly baptized Catholic by his mother, find sanctuary in Hellenism, briefly return to Christ, then stray into Mysticism, be condemned a sinner by his peers, and finally accept God as a Catholic before ending his worldly love affair with Christ; the only being who had a heart big enough to hold Oscar’s soul, swelled with sin.

Perhaps the only person Oscar found more aesthetically pleasing than Christ was a fair young boy with soft, golden curls by the name of Sir Arthur Douglas. Wilde would come to love and hate this boy who would eventually dominate the influences in the rest of his life.

Being married with two sons, Oscar hid his socially unaccepted homosexual interests, but soon and with his overwhelming attraction towards Douglas his guard began to slip. He would invite boys into his house for intellectual “discussions” which he felt his wife, being a simple minded female, could not engage in. Oscar was fascinated with the ideas of the youth. He also disappeared on several occasions traveling through Western Europe and Egypt with Douglas as his companion. His wife, Constance, was willing to ignore these excursions and play the role of the dutiful housewife as she focused her efforts on raising the children. Wilde found himself able to abandon his responsibilities back home while living out his fantasies with many male lovers, most importantly Douglas. For it was Douglas’ father whom eventually confronted Wilde with his actions by accusing him publicly of sodomizing his son. An accusation, which would thrust Wilde into a spotlight from which he could never escape, even after death.

Oscar filed suit against Lord Douglas, Sir Arthur’s father, for slander and immediately found him having to defend himself against the sodomy charges. Towards the end of this greatly publicized trial, Oscar once again found himself at the mercy of irony. The opposing attorney, Edward Carson, could not get actual testimony of Oscar’s actions and certainly no acceptance of guilt from Oscar, who with his graceful wit danced around any incriminating questions. Suddenly out of certain mishap, Carson asked Wilde of his relationship with several young men, and he finally came to the seemingly innocent name of Douglas’ former servant, Walter Grainger. Carson asked Wilde if he knew the man, and Oscar’s answer was “yes.” Carson then asked if he had ever kissed Grainger, unknowingly shoving Wilde into the sharp claws of his own wit. Out of instinct Oscar shot back, “Oh dear no. He was a peculiarly plain boy. He was unfortunately extremely ugly, I pitied him for it.” An errant confession that, had the boy been prettier, he would have kissed him. This delivered through an absent-minded quip on Wilde’s true view on what is important in life. In mattered not that Grainger was a male, only that he was ugly. Although Wilde parried back with his wit, it was not enough to keep his verbal stumble from tumbling his entire defense.

Oscar spent his next two years of existence in a prison cell condemned to unbearable hard labor. By this time he had already written several plays for which he was being recognized, including “Salome” and “The Importance of Being Ernest.” “Ernest” was currently in production, but was quickly shut down as a result of the scandal surrounding its author.

He had also written his most noteworthy novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, which summed up his entire view on vanity and egoism. Mirroring his life, or rather quite the opposite, Dorian’s obsession with the beautiful, namely himself, led to his own self-corrosion and eventual demise.

During his stay in prison, Oscar fell and injured his ear, which became infected, and several years later contracted meningitis, which eventually killed him. He also bickered several times with Sir Arthur Douglas, both declaring they would no longer have anything to do with each other. A divorce from his wife also finalized itself as he sat helplessly behind bars while the world spun by without him.

When Oscar was finally released he had no money, no true friends, and no inspiration. He traveled around on the expense of the few friends he still had, most of whom just felt sorry for him, and reacquainted himself dearly to an old friend of his by the name of Absinthe (an alcoholic drink which induces hallucinations.) Together, Oscar and the Green Fairy (absinthe’s other name.) slowly faded away into a mist of young Egyptian gigolos and poor health.

His wife had passed away and he briefly reengaged with Douglas, but it didn’t last and, quite frankly, neither did he. An extravagant life style and a view on life, which cannot be compared, is what Oscar Wilde left to this world. After his death, his works became classics and his life notorious. Like the slight breeze of a whisper Oscar entered this world and soon found himself to be a whirlwind of controversy, sucking in and spitting out all those who ventured too closely. Then, just as he had arrived, Oscar quietly wisped away, dissipating into the thick night air from whence he came.

Bibliography

All information came from prior readings of Wilde’s Dorian Gray and Importance of being Ernest. As well as information learned in speaking with those more familiar with Oscar Wilde including, Greg Mercurio and Brendan Keith.

Historical information came from;

· Belford, Barbara Oscar Wilde, a Certain Genius. Random House Inc., NY. 2000

Oscar Wilde

A Life of Wit and… Irony

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