OSCAR WILDE (1854-1900)
Oscar Wilde was born on 16 October 1854 in Dublin, Ireland. His father, Sir William Wilde, was an important surgeon, and his mother was an Irish nationalist poet.
He studied at Trinity College in Dublin and in 1875, at the age of 20, won a scholarship to study at Oxford University, where he was an outstanding scholar and a promising poet.
While at Oxford he was deeply influenced by the aesthetic theories of two eminent art critics, John Ruskin and Walter Pater.
Wilde remained an aesthete throughout his life and pursued beauty in all its forms – literature, the arts, interior design, clothes, furniture and objects.
In 1879 Wilde moved to London where he began writing and mixing in high society. He soon became known as a great wit, a brilliant conversationalist and an eccentric – he shocked and delighted his listeners.
In 1882 he published his first book, Poems, and toured and lectured in the United States. On his return to London in 1884 he married Constance Lloyd and they had two sons, Cyril and Vyvyan.
The Happy Prince and Other Tales, a collection of short stories for children, was published in 1888 and Wilde was now famous in London as a writer.
The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891) was Wilde’s only novel and it was immediately attacked by the critics because of its ambiguous morality and allusions. The book contains the famous “Preface”, a series of aphorisms* in answer to some of the criticisms. These include the statement:”There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.” (“Non esistono libri morali o libri immorali. I libri sono o scritti bene o scritti male. Nient’altro.” )
Between 1891 and 1895 Wilde wrote a series of highly successful plays: Lady Windermere’s Fan, A Woman of No Importance, An Ideal Husband and his masterpiece, The Importance of Being Ernest.
In 1895 Wilde was accused of homosexuality, which was illegal in England at that time. After the trial he was sentenced to two years’ imprisonment and hard labour. While in prison, he wrote De Profundis, a long letter to his friend Lord Alfred Douglas, that is a sort of confession where he expresses his repentance; it was published after his death.
After his release from prison Wilde was a ruined man. He went to live in France, where he wrote The Ballad of Reading Gaol (1898), a poem against the sentence of death.
His only drama, Salomè, was set to music by Strauss.
He died in poverty of meningitis in Paris on 30 November 1900.
The Picture of Dorian Gray is a “fable with a moral”. It relates the story of a young beautiful man who lives a disorderly life. He tries to remain young and beautiful, while the signs of the passing years and dissipation appear on his portrait painted by a famous artist. (The portrait turns into the symbol of his sinful life). In the end Dorian stabs the picture (which represents a witness of his own dissolute life), but so doing he stabs his own heart and dies.
It is a disturbing book.
*aphorism: short, wise saying; maxim (breve massima che esprime una norma di vita o una sentenza filosofica; sentenza filosofica o massima etica espressa in poche parole)
Oscar Wilde in America
In 1882 Oscar Wilde visited America and gave a series of lectures (conferenze, lezioni di tipo universitario). He was not the first important British writer to give a lecture tour in America. Charles Dickens had been a great success in America earlier in the 19th century. Wilde travelled to many great cities, including New York, Boston, Chicago, Washington and Baltimore. He also went to Canada during his lecture tour. He was in America from January to October and earned a lot of money.
The Americans wanted to see Oscar Wilde because of his reputation. He was famous for being witty (spiritoso, arguto), for wearing unusual clothes and for having the latest ideas about art. He chose his clothes carefully before he began his visit. During his lectures, he often wore ‘knee-breeches’ (calzoni alla zuava), half-length trousers with silk stockings. Everybody wanted to see the eccentric Irish writer with shocking ideas about beauty in art.
The American newspapers printed a lot of stories about Wilde. They wrote that ‘Oscar Wilde was disappointed with (rimase deluso) the Atlantic’ when he crossed from England to America. As he entered the country, he said: ‘I have nothing to declare except my genius.’ When he saw Niagara Falls, where many Americans went on honeymoon, he said: ’Niagara is the first great disappointment (delusion) of American married life.’ Towards the end of his tour, he said: ‘I have civilised America.’
At first, Wilde was very popular. People invited him to dinners and parties and introduced him to famous American writers. He met the two most famous American poets at that time, Walt Whitman and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. But not everybody liked Oscar. Many Americans thought his clothes were silly and his ideas were dangerous. In Boston, 60 American university students from Harvard attended his lectures, wearing similar clothes to Oscar. Each one carried a sunflower. They wanted to make fun of him (prenderlo in giro) for being effeminate and ridiculous. The newspapers began to attack him. But large audiences came to his lectures and Oscar continued to make money. Wilde ever visited a silver mine in the Rocky Mountains. The miners had never seen anyone like Oscar before. They lowered him down a mine in a silver bucket and he had dinner under the ground. His visit to the mine was a great success.
The visit to America was an important step in Oscar Wilde’s career. After the tour, he stayed in America a little longer and arranged for productions of two of his plays. In 1887, he published The Canterville Ghost, where he has fun describing an American family.