9 Fascinating Facts About Oscar
Wilde
BY HOLLIE STEPHENS
1. OSCAR WILDE’S MOTHER WAS AN
IRISH REVOLUTIONARY.
Wilde’s mother Jane Francesca
Elgee, a poet, published under the pseudonym “Speranza” for a weekly Irish
nationalist newspaper. The word means “hope” in Italian, and she chose it
because she believed that she was descended from the Italian poet Dante. Elgee
supposedly used a pen name to avoid embarrassing her family by revealing her
real identity when she published her work.
Speranza’s writing, which focused
on controversial issues like the suffering during the Irish Famine, made her a
household name in Ireland. She also shaped her son’s character. Later on,
according to the Irish Times, “Speranza's considerable influence was brought to
bear on Oscar to ensure that he did not back down from the infamous trial which
centered on his homosexuality.”
2. OSCAR WILDE EDITED A WOMEN’S
MAGAZINE IN THE 1880S.
While working on his essays and
short stories, Wilde had a successful career as editor of a women’s magazine
called The Woman’s World. The publication was originally called The Lady’s
World, but Wilde renamed it, intending that it “deal not merely with what women
wear, but with what they think, and what they feel.”
3. CRITICS SLAMMED OSCAR WILDE’S
ONLY NOVEL, THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY.
WIKIMEDIA COMMONS // PUBLIC
DOMAIN
Wilde’s famously decadent novel
is commended as a classic today, but at the time of its initial publication in
Lippincott’s Magazine in 1890, the reception for the work was lukewarm. The
novel tells the story of a handsome man who is able to enjoy eternal youth and
beauty, despite committing moral transgressions, because a portrait of him
degenerates in his place. Many criticized the book’s homoerotic overtones,
branding it “effeminate,” “unmanly,” and “leprous.”
4. OSCAR WILDE TOLD FAIRY TALES
AT DINNER PARTIES.
Wilde published two collections
of original fairy tales: The Happy Prince and Other Tales (1888) and A House of
Pomegranates (1891). Though they were put forth as material for children, Wilde
told these stories at dinner parties, where he was always the star
raconteur—suggesting that the stories (which contained themes of martyrdom and
homosexual love) were in fact intended for an adult audience. When asked if he
had meant for children to appreciate them, Wilde said, “I had about as much
intention of pleasing the British child as I did of pleasing the British
public.”
5. ONE OF OSCAR WILDE'S PLAYS WAS
BANNED BY THE LORD CHAMBERLAIN.
Between 1879 and 1894, Wilde
wrote nine plays, four of which cemented his reputation as a witty observer of
Victorian mores: Lady Windermere’s Fan, A Woman of No Importance, The
Importance of Being Earnest, and An Ideal Husband. But another play, Salomé,
struck a darker tone in its depiction of a lustful woman who seduces her
stepfather, King Herod, by performing the dance of the seven veils and
demanding the head of John the Baptist.
Salomé is considered by many to
be Wilde's most decadent work, but it was some time until English audiences
could enjoy the production in all its glory. In Victorian Britain, the Lord
Chamberlain—the most senior officer of the Royal Household of the United
Kingdom—was responsible for licensing stage performances. He banned Salomé
because it portrayed biblical characters, which had been forbidden since the
Protestant Reformation. As a result, Salomé was not performed in England until
the early 20th century.
6. OSCAR WILDE THWARTED A PLAN TO
DISRUPT THE OPENING NIGHT OF HIS PLAY THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST.
Wilde became close to Lord Alfred
Douglas (nicknamed Bosie), a young Oxford student he met at a tea party,
beginning in 1891. Bosie’s father, the ill-tempered Marquess of Queensberry,
became obsessed with their relationship and vowed to stop it. He plotted to
disrupt the London premiere of The Importance of Being Earnest in 1895, but
Wilde was wise to the plan and arranged for police to be at the venue.
Unfortunately, that was just the beginning of Wilde’s escalating troubles with
him; the marquess also left a card at Wilde’s club accusing him of [sic]
“posing as somdomite.”
With Bosie’s encouragement, Wilde
decided to sue the marquess for libel. During the trial, Queensberry’s defense
suggested that Wilde solicited 12 male prostitutes. Wilde eventually withdrew
the libel charge, but the damage was done. He was soon back in court for a
criminal trial, The Crown v. Wilde, facing 25 counts of “gross indecency” and
conspiracy to commit gross indecencies, a vague term usually interpreted to
mean sexual activity between men that falls short of actual sex. He pleaded not
guilty and was released on bail when the jury could not reach a verdict. In the
retrial, Wilde was convicted and sentenced to two years’ hard labor.
7. READING GAOL, WHERE OSCAR
WILDE WAS IMPRISONED, WAS REPURPOSED FOR ART.
During his term of imprisonment
at Reading Gaol, Wilde was forced to endure unsanitary conditions and perform
grueling physical labor. The miserable two-year sentence inspired his famous
poem The Ballad of Reading Gaol, which he completed after his release. The
facility (later HM Prison Reading), located about 40 miles west of central
London, was operational until 2013. In 2016, it was repurposed for an art
exhibition as part of a two-month project featuring readings and installations
on themes connected to imprisonment and separation.
8. OSCAR WILDE CONVERTED TO CATHOLICISM
ON HIS DEATHBED IN A PARISIAN HOTEL ROOM.
The Catholic Church still
maintains that practicing homosexuality is a sin. But Wilde (who was raised in
a Protestant family) decided to convert to Catholicism shortly before he died
in Paris in 1900, three years after his release from prison. Wilde had a
lifelong fascination with Catholicism, remarking that it was “the highest and
the most sentimental” of faiths, and enjoyed an audience with Pope Pius IX in
1877. Earlier in life, Wilde had quipped, "I'm not a Catholic. I am simply
a violent Papist.”
9. ADMIRERS ONCE COVERED OSCAR
WILDE’S TOMB IN KISSES.
Wilde’s tomb, with its famous
monument by sculptor Jacob Epstein, is located in Père Lachaise Cemetery in
Paris, France. It’s a popular draw for literary-minded tourists visiting the
city. In the late 1990s, visitors began leaving lipstick kisses on the stone as
a mark of admiration—but the trend eventually left Wilde’s monument looking
more like Jim Morrison’s, on the opposite side of the same cemetery. Because
the grease from the lipstick and repeated cleanings began eroding the stone,
the French and Irish governments paid for a glass barrier to be erected around
Wilde’s monument in 2011.