![]() ![]() The libel trial was a sensation as salacious details of Wilde’s private life with Douglas and other young men began to appear in the press. That nutty Marquess and his creative spelling. Wilde, with the encouragement of Douglas and against the advice of his friends, charged Queensberry with libel, since the note was basically a public accusation that Wilde had committed the crime of sodomy. It was inscribed: “For Oscar Wilde, posing somdomite”. The Marquess left his calling card at Wilde’ s gentlemen’s club, The Albemarle. The Marquess was the father of Wilde’s lover, Lord Alfred Douglas. “We who live in prison, and in whose lives there is no event but sorrow, have to measure time by throbs of pain, and the record of bitter moments.”Īt the height of his fame and success, while The Importance Of Being Earnest was still being performed in London, Wilde had the Marquess of Queensberry prosecuted for criminal libel. This play does not have a wasted piece of dialogue or a false moment.Īs for Wilde himself, you probably know the sad tale: Wilde was brought to trial in 1895 and sentenced to two years hard labor for the crime of “Gross Indecency”. His play, The Importance Of Being Earnest (1895) is, for me, the most perfect stage comedy of all time. His short story The Happy Prince (1888) is a story for children and so it lacks the naughty bits hinted at in Dorian Gray, but it still stands as a story with a metaphor for the vanity of gay culture. “Books are well written, or badly written. Still, he did revise it extensively for a new edition in 1891: six new chapters were added, some of the more decadent passages and gayness were removed, and a preface was included consisting of 22 epigrams, including: “If a work of art is rich and vital and complete, those who have artistic instincts will see its beauty and those to whom ethics appeal more strongly will see its moral lesson.” One London newspaper called it: “Unclean, poisonous, and heavy with the mephitic odours of moral and spiritual putrefaction”. Reviewers were critical of the novel’s decadence and gay allusions when first published. Although sodomy isn’t actually mentioned, Dorian Gray is simply sticky with homoeroticism and innuendo. It was a brave step on Wilde’s part to write such a novel. The Picture Of Dorian Gray (1890) is basically just an ode to the beauty of men, written in an age where being queer was a crime punishable with hard labor and imprisonment. He became obsessed with beauty from an early age, which became a major theme in most of his works. ![]() As famous for his lust for a certain peaches and cream young man, as he is for his literary works, now his decipherable portrait is the most widely recognized LGBTQ symbol after the Rainbow Flag. Over 120 years after his death, Wilde remains the quintessential gay man. “Give a man a mask and he will tell you the truth.”ĭo we need a #BornThisDay post about the Gay Icon, Oscar Wilde? Is there anything that I could share with all of you that has not been gleaned from the life and works of the world’s most famous homosexual? ![]() October 16, 1854– Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde: He went on to say, with typical eloquence and clarity of vision, that his greatest misjudgment had been to put his faith in a society that celebrated his wit but abhorred his sexuality.Photograph by Napoleon Sarony, public domain Wilde quickly regretted having pressed his case, writing to Douglas from his prison cell, per The Atlantic, “I am here for having tried to put your father in prison.” As The New Yorker pointed out in 2011, “no work of mainstream English-language fiction had come so close to spelling out homosexual desire.” The novel became a key piece of evidence against him in court. It didn’t help that he had offended the sensibility of British reviewers five years earlier with The Picture of Dorian Gray. But the latter’s lawyers dug up enough dirt to get the libel charge dismissed, and to turn the tables on Wilde, who was arrested for being gay, or “committing gross indecency,” in the legal terms of the time. Wilde persisted nonetheless, expecting his own celebrity to win out over the ravings of Lord Queensberry. He did so against the advice of friends like the journalist Frank Harris, who urged Wilde to drop the case and flee to France until the media storm had blown over, according to Barbara Belford’s book Oscar Wilde: A Certain Genius. ![]() Wilde took Douglas’ father, Lord Queensberry, to court for libel. ![]()
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