His full name was Oscar Fingall O’Flahertie Wills Wilde, but he is known today simply as Oscar Wilde. One of many great Irish writers, Wilde burned brightly — but briefly — at the end of the nineteenth century. He left a personal and literary legacy perhaps more relevant to our age than to his own.
Born in 1854, Wilde became the darling of England in the Gay ’90s. Given the contemporary meaning of that word, of course, that makes his story doubly ironic. Though he wrote copious reviews, letters, and essays, his fame today rests primarily on a handful of his works, mainly his novel The Picture of Dorian Gray and several plays, most notably The Importance of Being Earnest.
As significant as his writing, however, was his conversational skill. A contemporary claimed that everything Wilde said seemed to have been worked out in advance — or, as Wilde himself put it, “I put all my genius into my life; I put only my talent into my works.”
And Wilde left a treasury of such epigrams:
“A cynic is a man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.”
“Work is the curse of the drinking classes.”
“Morality is simply the attitude we adopt towards people we personally dislike.”
Challenged at a dinner to discuss any subject someone might propose, Wilde instantly replied, to a suggestion of “The Queen,” with, “The Queen is not a subject.”
Wilde’s downfall, however, came in three of the most spectacular trials of the nineteenth century. Wilde had formed a liaison with Lord Alfred Douglas, son of the Marquis of Queensbury. When the Marquis denounced Wilde as a “somdomite” (demonstrating that upper-class origins are no guarantee of spelling skills) Wilde recklessly sued him for libel — and lost. In 1895, he found himself on trial for “criminal perversion.”
During two trials (the first ending in a hung jury), Wilde was cross-examined by a former schoolmate, Edward Carson, the finest barrister of his day. Carson challenged Wilde relentlessly with excerpts from his own writings. Though Wilde ultimately could not deny the evidence against him, he skillfully parried Carson’s questions — leaving, thanks to the court transcripts, samples of his dazzling verbal repartee. Some highlights:
CARSON: You are of the opinion that there is no such thing as an immoral book?
WILDE: Yes.
CARSON: May I take it that you think The Priest and the Acolyte [an early Wilde article] was not immoral?
WILDE: It was worse; it was badly written.
* * *
CARSON: Here is one of [your] “Phrases and Philosophies for the Use of the Young”: “Wickedness is a myth invented by good people to account for the curious attractiveness of others.” You think that true?
WILDE: I rarely think that anything I write is true.
* * *
[Carson read a passage from Dorian Gray]
CARSON: “I quite admit I adore you madly.” What do you say to that? Have you ever adored a young man madly?
WILDE: No, not madly; I prefer love — that is a higher form.
CARSON: Never mind about that. Let us keep it down at the level we are at now.
WILDE: I have never given adoration to anybody except myself.
* * *
CARSON: This is in your introduction to Dorian Gray. “There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well-written, or badly written.” That expresses your view?
WILDE: My view on art, yes.
CARSON: A perverted novel might be a good book?
WILDE: I don’t know what you mean by a “perverted” novel.
* * *
[Carson read from a poem Lord Alfred had sent to Wilde]
CARSON: “Your slim gilt soul walks between passion and poetry.” Is that a beautiful phrase?
WILDE: Not as you read it, Mr. Carson. You read it very badly.
* * *
CARSON: Do you drink champagne yourself?
WILDE: Yes; iced champagne is a favorite drink of mine—strongly against my doctor’s orders.
CARSON: Never mind your doctor’s orders.
WILDE: I never do.
* * *
[During the second trial, Wilde was examined by another barrister]:
GILL: Rather a rough neighborhood? [where Wilde visited a young man]
WILDE: That I don’t know. I know it was near the Houses of Parliament.
* * *
GILL: Do you think that an ordinarily constituted being would address such expressions to a younger man?
WILDE: I am not, happily I think, an ordinarily constituted being.
Convicted at the second trial, Wilde received two years at hard labor that broke him spiritually and financially. An exile to France upon his release, he died at 46, with his last words, “I am dying — as I have lived — beyond my means.” His 171st birthday is next Thursday, Oct. 16.
Frank Zotter, Jr. is a Ukiah attorney.
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