To celebrate Pride month, I am devising a few little tributes to some of the LBGTQ+ writers who have inspired me over the years.
OSCAR WILDE
Era: Victorian.
“I can resist everything except for temptation…”
I wanted to write an article that was deliberately devoid of any LBGTQ+ clichè terms, such as ‘flamboyant’, but I have fair reason to believe Oscar Wilde wouldn’t have actually minded that one too much, which is just as well, because it’s hard to find another word that sums him up.
Known for his glittering persona, lavish taste, hedonistic lifestyle and almost theatrical wardrobe, Wilde was a far cry from the introverted ‘shy and retiring wallflowers’ stereotype we writers often get pegged with. Once described as an ‘erratic genius’ (by a clergyman, randomly) he was nothing if not, well, flamboyant. His legacy is equal parts his literary works and his turbulent life.
Born in Dublin in 1854, Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde (heck of a mouthful, that) lived a colourful, complex, and ultimately rather short life, but in that time he managed to carve himself a literary legacy that is still studied today.
Growing up in Ireland, Oscar was very close to his mum, Jane, (an established poet in her own right) who used to read him and his brother poetry every night, thus fuelling his early interest in the written word (he is just as much a poet as a playwright.) He was academically outstanding and fluently spoke French, German and Greek. After earning his degree at Oxford, he moved to London; drawn in by its social appeals and the literary circles.
He was known for his love of fine art, interior design, and aestheticism, which is probably most noticeable in The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890), but what he really liked to do was to test the water of propriety, and to question all that was considered risqué within the era of the Victorians. His work delved into ‘unnatural passion’ and the ‘exposure of sin’ (this would later work against him while on trial for the then-crime of homosexuality, when some of his work was read out in court and deemed more than suggestive of homoeroticism.) Wilde would ultimately be imprisoned for almost two years for such ‘crimes’, the inhumane conditions of the Victorian prisons later contributing to his death.
He died at the age of forty-six from meningitis. ‘Historical gossip’ will say this was brought on by syphilis, but was actually caused by an ear infection from a ruptured ear drum. He is buried in his favourite city, Paris.
His work stands out because of its sharp wit, its nod to fine culture and aesthetic (with a charmingly gothic edge), undeniable talent, and the salacious, scandalous nature behind the man, who perhaps deliberately invented himself as this colourful character, knowing it would get tongues wagging.
And here they are, approximately 120 years after his death, wagging away.
clarataylor 