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The life and works of Oscar Wilde
Tekst/illustrasjoner:
Brigid McCauley/Clipart.com
Filosofiske spørsmål:
Øyvind Olsholt
Sist oppdatert: 20. januar 2004
Oscar
Wilde (1854-1900) was a brilliant author,
playwright,
and wit.
He was born in the middle of the Victorian age—the period
of English history during which Queen Victoria reigned, from 1837-1901.
During this period in English history, the country was undergoing
many radical changes, all of which contributed to the way in which
the people who lived during this period lived and thought. In modern
times, Victorian society is generally remembered as one that was
puritanical, repressive, obsessed with the appearance of respectability,
strict discipline and high morals. The quality of earnestness
became a typical Victorian value, and was applied to all areas of
Victorian life, especially in religion, literature and social conduct.
Though
somewhat one-sided, the term "Victorian" is also associated
with negative qualities such as narrow-mindedness,
double standards, hypocrisy,
sexual repression
and extreme class-consciousness.
Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was born in Dublin, Ireland,
in 1854. He was the son of Sir William Wilde, a distinguished
surgeon,
and the writer and poet Jane Francesca Elgee (who wrote under the
name of Speranza).
The picture to the right shows Oscar Wilde's mother, Jane Wilde.
She was a revolutionary poet and an authority on Celtic myth and
folklore. Wilde's father, apart from being the leading ear and eye
surgeon in the whole of Ireland, was also an author. He wrote books
about archaeology, folklore, and about the author Jonathan Swift
(author of Gullivers Travels).
Wilde the wit
Oscar Wilde left Ireland at the age of 20 to study at Oxford University
in England, where he achieved
a brilliant academic record. Already as a young man he gained a
reputation as a dandy,
as well as for being a master of witty conversation.
Wilde despised sport and violence, and summed up his feelings about
both activities in the following remark, taken from his play A
Woman of No Importance (1893): "The English country
gentleman galloping after a fox: the
unspeakable in pursuit of the uneatable."
The homosexual Wilde
Wilde had been married for several years and was the father of
two children at the time of his meeting (in 1891) with the handsome
young poet Lord Alfred Douglas (Wilde called him "Bosie"),
with whom he established a homosexual relationship that was to have
disastrous
consequences for him. Many of his works contained homosexual undertones,
a fact that outraged
Victorian society and which was to become a major factor in his
eventual public humiliation
and downfall.
The picture of Dorian Gray
Throughout
the course of his literary career, Wilde excelled
in a variety of literary genres,
his work often reflecting a close connection between his art and
his own life. Early in his career he wrote fairy
tales in which, as in all good fairy tales, the good and pure
always triumphed in the end. They differed, however, in one important
aspect. Rather than depicting
evil as an external force, Wilde chose to reveal
the evil within human beings. Written for "children from eight
to eighty", the tales can be read as a representation of Oscar
Wilde's own inner battle against the evil forces within himself,
and of his wish to remain in a world of childlike innocence.
One of Wilde's best-known novels, The Picture of Dorian Gray,
created a public
outcry when it was published in 1891. The novel's implied
homosexual theme was considered immoral by Victorian society, a
society in which homosexuality was considered not only immoral and
unnatural, but was also a serious criminal offence punishable by
imprisonment.
The novel tells the story of Dorian Gray, an extremely handsome
young man, and his selfish pursuit
of sensual
pleasures. When his friend Basil Hallward paints his portrait,
Gray expresses his wish that he could forever stay as young and
as charming as the portrait: "I would give everything. I would
give my soul for that!" Not long after, he discovers that his
wish has come true; the more corrupt and immoral Dorian becomes,
the older and uglier the figure in the portrait appears, while Dorian
himself retains
his beautiful and youthful appearance.
After many years of leading such an immoral life, Dorian finds
himself alone with his bad
conscience for all the suffering he had caused others. No longer
able to bear looking at the portrait, which reminded him of the
life he has led, Dorian decides to destroy it by stabbing it with
a knife. When his house servants rush to find out what has happened,
they find the figure in the portrait exactly as it had been painted
all those years ago. On the floor lies a dead man, "a withered,
wrinkled,
and loathsome
man" with a knife in his heart. In his attempt to kill his
conscience, Dorian Gray had killed himself.
Through Dorian's tragic fate, Wilde portrayed what could happen
to someone who cannot control his evil impulses. However, the press
at the time attacked the novel for being blatantly
immoral. Wilde then decided to tell basically the same story, only
this time in
the guise of a comedy. The play, Lady Windermere’s
Fan (1892), proved
to be much more palatable
to his Victorian public, and the play was a success.
The Importance of Being Earnest
Of the four stage comedies by Wilde, his last, The Importance
of Being Earnest [Earnest er et guttenavn som også
betyr «alvorlig» og «oppriktig»; jfr. det
tilsvarende navnet Ernst på norsk], is generally
regarded as his masterpiece. It was first staged in 1895, and was
an immediate success. Although written as a farce,
The Importance of Being Earnest is actually an attack on
Victorian society, in particular on its social and moral hypocrisy,
the social class system, the attitude of marriage as a social tool,
and the triviality
of aristocratic life.
One may wonder how it could be that Victorian audiences could laugh
at a play that satirised them and their values. The answer lies
in Wilde's genius in the genres of wit and farce. The trademark
of farce is that the situations and the characters' attitudes, reactions,
and customs
are improbable
and exaggerated,
and cannot be explained by reason. The fact that the characters
and the situations are so ridiculous
creates a distance between the story and the audience, enabling
the audience to laugh at them.
Another reason for the success of the play was Wilde's genius for
epigrams,
which Wilde uses to challenge
and question
the conventional
values and expectations of Victorian society. Here are some of the
epigrams that appear in the play:
- Divorces are made in heaven
This epigram pokes
fun at the popular phrase "A marriage made in heaven".
- The truth is rarely pure and never simple
This epigram attacks the truth of the popular phrase "The
pure and simple truth".
- In marriage, three is company, two is none
Here Wilde has taken the popular saying "Two is company,
three is a crowd" and adapted it to suit his own purpose.
The final years
In 1895, Lord Alfred’s father, an aristocrat, accused Wilde
of homosexuality. Wilde sued
for libel, lost the case, and was then arrested and charged
with the same crime. After a highly publicised trial in which
Wilde was ridiculed
and humiliated,
he was found guilty
of "grove,
indecent acts". He was sentenced
to two years hard
labour, and ended up in Reading Gaol,
where the almost inhumane conditions severely damaged his health.
While in prison, Wilde wrote De Profundis (1905), an
essay written in the form of a letter to his long-time lover, Bosie,
in which he described his time leading up to his imprisonment.
His wife Constance was forced to flee the country with their children,
and to change the family name, though she still hoped that Oscar
would renounce
his lover and return to his family on his release
from prison. However, despite his attempts to comply
with his wife's wishes, Wilde was unable to resist
temptation. He returned to Bosie, thereby sealing
his own fate.
After leaving jail, Wilde, now a ruined man, emigrated to France,
where he lived the last three years of his life under an assumed
name. Before his departure from England he had been divorced and
declared a bankrupt,
and in France he had to rely on the few friends he had left for
financial support. It was during this period that he wrote his final
masterpiece, The Ballade of Reading Gaol, an elegy
for an executed
man, Charles Wooleridge, a guardsman
who killed his wife in a fit
of jealousy. Executions
were not common
events at Reading Gaol, and the poem was Wilde's humane and
sensitive response to this man's plight
and to the inhumane conditions of Victorian prisons.
Wilde's health deteriorated
during this period, and he eventually died at the age of 46, penniless
and alone in a cheap Paris hotel room, in November 1900. He was
buried in a Paris graveyard.
Suggested topics for philosophical discussion
- Is it necessary to feel pain and suffering in order to be
a creative artist? Or is it rather the other way round: one
has to be happy and glad in order to create excellent works
of art? Is it possible to feel joy and pain at the same time?
Do you think Wilde felt he was doing a good thing when he wrote
about the evil of man?
- There are different kinds of pain and suffering. You can suffer
physical pain when, for example, somebody hits you with a spade.
You can suffer injustice when, for example, you have to pay
for damage caused by others. Or you can suffer emotional pain
when, for example, you are in love with a person that does not
love you back. Can you think of other kinds of suffering? What
kind of pain do you think Oscar Wilde suffered? What, in your
opinion, is the worst kind of suffering?
- Innocence was an important theme for Wilde. He thought that
the reason why many people are so unhappy was because they had
lost the innocence of their childhood. Does this mean that all
children are happy? Or that all adults are unhappy? Do you think
of yourself as an innocent person? What, in your opinion, are
the characteristics of an innocent person:
– no memory of the past?
– no plans about the future?
– no feelings of guilt or shame?
– no compassion
for other people?
– no desire to be accepted by other people?
– no desire to impress other people?
– no suspicion
towards other people?
– no wish to do evil?
– no wish to do good?
– no wish to do evil or good?
– no longing for pleasure and success?
– kindness?
– helpfulness?
– naiveté?
– a firm belief in supernatural
things, for example fairies and demons, gods and spirits?
– happiness?
- Because he lived in a society that systematically suppressed
deviating
thoughts and opinions, it was very important for Wilde to express
his views about sexuality. But if the society in which he lived
had been more tolerant, perhaps Wilde would have been less critical?
Do you think we live in a tolerant society today? If yes, then
is there no need for critical thought and/or rebellious
artists today? If no, then in what way is today's society intolerant?
Is it possible, or desirable, to create a society where everybody
and everything is tolerated? Should we also tolerate evil, crime
and injustice? Do you think there would be no more evil, crime
or injustice if everything were tolerated?
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