“I find it harder and harder every day to live up to my blue china.”

So said Oscar Wilde, whose birthday it is today.

His mother, Jane Speranza Francesca Wilde (aka Lady Wilde, aka “Speranza”) was an incredible woman, in the canon of Irish literary history certainly, not to mention its politics and social upheaval. My father knew a lot about Speranza, of course. She was a poet, a radical, a political firebrand, in many ways. In 1864, a new edition of her poems came out, and she dedicated it to her two sons:

Dedicated to my sons Willie and Oscar Wilde

‘I made them indeed
Speak plain the word country. I taught them, no doubt,
That country’s a thing one should die for at need’

That gives you a taste of the feeling of the household Wilde grew up in. He was certainly his mother’s son. His father was a fascinating man, a physician who specialized in the eye and ear, to this day there are procedures referred to as “Wilde’s incision”, for example, or “Wilde’s cone of light”, dating back to the mid-1860s, when William Wilde was practicing in Ireland. He was an extraordinary man. He was also a writer, and published books on all kinds of things – one of his main interests was the archeology in Ireland, and he published a catalog of antiquities from one particular archeological site, and the book now sits in the National Museum of Ireland. He also published books on folklore, legends, wives’ tales – all of the things that his patients told him, their own received history and “cures” for their ills.

Oscar Wilde’s parents were, frankly, powerhouses.

Speranza was “inflammatory”, the word comes up all the time, a true patriot, willing to say what needed to be said about the English situation in Ireland.

Wilde grew up in a household of artists and politicians and surgeons and revolutionaries. It had to have been heady stuff for the small sensitive brilliant boy.

He went to Oxford, starting in the year he was 20 years old. Oxford was his beginning. The beginning, certainly, of his notoreity (he said the “blue china” line while at Oxford, and it caused quite a stir). He consciously lost his Irish accent, and while, yes, much of what he did at Oxford was about the appearance of things (he wore formal wear, he was obsessed with decorating his room, he had an “outfit” for everything) – Wilde never did anything by a whim. He was testing the boundaries, he was interested in aesthetics – and what that might have to do not only with art but also character, how a man lived. Not to mention his studies. Wilde distinguished himself at Oxford. He encountered many of the writers and philosophers that would make the deepest imprint on him, and leave him forever changed. One of the things I love about Wilde is how suggestible he was. I suppose that doesn’t sound like a compliment, but I mean “suggestible” as: openness, receptivity. He took everything on, tried it out for a bit, and then was willing to put it aside if it didn’t work for him. Or, if he realized, “That worked for me when I was 20, but now that I am older, it doesn’t have the same impact.” He really wrestled with his influences. He argued with them in his papers at Oxford, he took them on, examined the implications, and tried to see what he could take from it for his own work (which was still in its infant stage at that point). Pater, Swinburne – these were major influences. Walt Whitman, of course, but he really wrestled with that one. Many of his influences were highly controversial at the time, the New Romantics, the aesthetes, not seen as particularly Christian, as a matter of fact, they were seen as pretty demonic, living only for pleasure. Wilde, while obviously a funny man who liked hanging out with friends, and was always the life of the party, was not really a decadent aesthete (as many of his ‘buddies” were – a pox on their houses, they were so quick to drop him like a hot potato when he got into trouble – he actually LIVED it and was willing to take the fall – they were just posers – I’m still mad at all those guys, and I know it’s ridiculous, it has nothing to do with me, but whatever; I read biographies of Wilde and tears fill my eyes when I imagine how he was abandoned at the end, by people who were life-long friends). Anyway, my point is: Wilde was not “decadent”. He enjoyed art and beauty and the surface of things, but he was too hard a worker, too intelligent and rigorous with his work ethic, to be a true decadent. That is why HE had to take the fall. Who cares if some nobody poet-wannabe gets convicted of sodomy? Nobody cares about that. But Oscar Wilde? That’ll stick it to ’em.

Wilde, granted, was extremely careless at the end, and he allowed into his life the Marquess of Queensberry (who, I’m sorry, I know this is a cliche – but I read about this gentleman, and what happened to all of his sons, not to mention his own awful personality – and I can’t help but think: Dude? Look. You’re totally gay, mkay? Just admit it. Nobody is THAT angry without having some tendencies. You’re gay, Marquess. Totally gay. AND you have raised sons who are gay, and this you cannot stand, this was your greatest failure: NOT because you are disappointed for your sons that they are “different” – but because YOUR homosexuality will now be revealed – it will be seen as a reflection of YOU and this you could not abide, because you’ve got something to hide. Uhm, am I actually bitch-slapping the Marquess of Queensberry on my blog? 100 plus years after the fact? Well, yes, I am. It felt good.) Wilde, in love with the Marquess’ son, could not perceive the danger, could not understand what exactly he was inviting in to his life. When we’re in love, we obviously aren’t always careful. But you read the slow clang of events in Wilde’s life, and you can feel the increasing danger at that point, you can feel how much they are going to ‘get’ him – and does the punishment fit the crime? Awful. Just awful. Wilde bears some responsibility for that, of course, he was not just a victim – but my God, what a punishment for being careless. He lost his freedom, his heart was broken – and I believe he died of that broken heart. Lord Douglas (the Marquess’ son, and Oscar Wilde’s great love) was no great shakes himself, and basically saw a way to “stick it to dear old Dad”, through his notorious famous lover Oscar.

Reading the timeline of events, I just want to take Oscar aside and tell him to get the hell out of dodge for a while, escape – it WON’T be worth it.

But alas, it happened.

Wilde wrote about his passage to prison:

On November 13th 1895 I was brought down here from London. From two o’clock till half-past two on that day I had to stand on the centre platform of Clapham Junction in convict dress and handcuffed, for the world to look at … When people saw me they laughed. Each train as it came up swelled the audience. Nothing could exceed their amusement. That was of course before they knew who I was. As soon as they had been informed, they laughed still more. For half an hour I stood there in the grey November rain surrounded by a jeering mob. For a year after that was done to me I wept every day at the same hour and for the same space of time.

In the 1895 trial, Charles Gill, the prosecutor, asked Wilde about the “love that dare not speak its name”, a quote which came from a poem by Lord Douglas. Wilde, a broken man already by this point, answered:

The ‘Love that dare not speak its name’ in this century is such a great affection of an elder for a young man as there was between David and Jonathan, such as Plato made the very basis of his philosophy, and such as you find in the sonnets of Michaelangelo and Shakespeare. It is that deep, spiritual affection that is as pure as it is perfect. It dictates and pervades great works of art like those of Shakespeare and Michaelangelo, and those two letters of mine, such as they are. It is in this century misunderstood, so much misunderstood that it may described as the ‘Love that dare not speak its name,’ and on account of it I am placed where I am now. It is beautiful, it is fine, it is the noblest form of affection. There is nothing unnatural about it. It is intellectual, and it repeatedly exists between an elder and a younger man, when the elder man has intellect, and the younger man has all the joy, hope and glamour of life before him. That it should be so the world does not understand. The world mocks at it and sometimes puts one in the pillory for it.

Max Beerbohm, an old friend of Wilde’s (fascinating man himself, a writer, drama critic, and caricaturist) was there that day and wrote to a friend afterwards:

Oscar has been quite superb. His speech about the Love that dares not tell his name was simply wonderful and carried the whole court right away, quite a tremendous burst of applause. Here was this man, who had been for a month in prison, and loaded with insults and crushed and buffeted, perfectly self-possessed, dominating the Old Bailey with his fine presence and musical voice. He has never had so great a triumph, I am sure, as when the gallery burst into applause – I am sure it affected the jury.

It did not.

Caricature of Oscar Wilde, by Max Beerbohm

On today, Oscar Wilde’s birthday, a man who has given me so much pleasure, has made me laugh until my stomach hurts, I didn’t mean to write about all his pain and suffering, but I found I couldn’t help it. His suffering was acute, it had an air of sacrificial lamb about it. It was excessive. He did not last long once he was released from prison. He had lost everything. Most of his friends, his entire library, his social standing, his health. He moved to a small village in France, had a couple of visitors now and then, reconnected with Lord Douglas, but by that point, Wilde was on his way out. Life had broken him. He converted to Catholicism on his death-bed, something he had been tormented by for years. His father had not let him convert, back then, Catholicism was way beyond the pale, but Wilde never got over yearning for it. His yearnings were often aesthetic (naturally), there was something in the ceremony itself that struck deep chords within him (I can relate), but whatever it was, and it’s not for me to say, a local Catholic priest was found in the middle of the night, and baptized Oscar Wilde on his death bed.

There’s so much more to say about this man – I haven’t even touched on his plays!! Those epigrams! His genius – it is quite unsettling what he does, and it is easy to understand why the powers-that-be found him disturbing. His epigrams are NOT just clever. That is the greatest misunderstanding about Wilde. His epigrams have, as their goal, to up-end the status quo. You think you’re going one way, it feels good and right that you are going THIS way, and then the second half of the epigram up-ends your expectations. Leaves you in a state of chaos. Wilde required his audience to be “suggestible” as well. To not just dismiss something out of hand, but to take it on, try it on for size, see what you think about it. Hopefully you’re laughing, throughout, as well, that’s the beauty of Wilde, he is not a scold – and many people did laugh – but, sadly, many people did not. Who was this Irish fairy, wearing velvet suits with flowers in his buttonhole, who was he and who was HE to tell us the status quo needed to not just be up-ended, but laughed at in the process? He’s got a nerve.

Yes, he did.

Thank God.

Some quotes from (and about) Wilde below.

And happy birthday, to Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde.

Mankind has been continually entering the prisons of Puritanism, Philistinism, Sensualism, Fanaticism, and turning the key on his own spirit: But after a time there is an enormous desire for higher freedom – for self-preservation.

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The mind of a thoroughly well-informed man is a dreadful thing. It is like a bric-a-brac shop, all monsters and dust, with everything priced above its proper value.

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To win back my youth … there is nothing I wouldn’t do – except take exercise, get up early, or be a useful member of the community.

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Miss Morris is the greatest actress I ever saw, if it be fair to form an opinion of her from her rendition of this one role. We have no such powerfully intense actress in England. She is a great artist, in my sense of the word, because all she does, all she says, in the manner of the doing and the saying, constantly evoke the imagination to supplement it. That is what I mean by art.

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To disagree with three-fourths of the British public on all points is one of the first elements of sanity.

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from a letter Wilde wrote to Walt Whitman:

Tennyson’s rank is too well fixed and we love him too much. But he has not allowed himself to be a part of the living world and of the great currents of interest and action. He is of priceless value and yet he lives apart from his time. He lives in a dream of the unreal. We, on the other hand, move in the very heart of today.

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Wilde on Walt Whitman:

He is the grandest man I have ever seen, the simplest, most natural, and strongest character I have ever met in my life. I regard him as one of those wonderful, large, entire men who might have lived in any age and is not peculiar to any people. Strong, true, and perfectly sane: the closest approach to the Greek we have yet had in modern times.

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To be either a Puritan, a prig or a preacher is a bad thing. To be all three at once reminds me of the worst excesses of the French Revolution.

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The most graceful thing I ever beheld was a miner in a Colorado silver mine driving a new shaft with a hammer; at any moment he might have been transformed into marble or bronze and become noble in art forever.

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Praise makes me humble. But when I am abused I know I have touched the stars.

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1883, letter of Oscar Wilde to Marie Prescott:

All the great men of France were cuckolds. Haven’t you observed this? All! In every period. By their wives or their mistresses. Villon, Moliere, Louis XIV, Napoleon, Victor Hugo, Musset, Balzac, kings, generals, poets! Those I mention, a thousand more that I could name, were all cuckolds. Do you know what that means? I will tell you. Great men, in France, have loved women too much. Women don’t like that. They take advantage of this weakness. In England, great men love nothing, neither art, nor wealth, nor glory … nor women. It’s an advantage, you can be sure.

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1883, letter of Oscar Wilde to Marie Prescott:

Now, one of the facts of physiology is the desire of any very intensified emotion to be relieved by some emotion that is its opposite. Nature’s example of dramatic effect is the laughter of hysteria or the tears of joy. So I cannot cut my comedy lines. Besides, the essence of good dialogue is interruption.

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1885, letter of Oscar Wilde to Marillier

There is an unknown land full of strange flowers and subtle perfumes, a land of which it is joy of all joys to dream, a land where all things are perfect and poisonous.

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1885, letter of Oscar Wilde to James Whistler

Be warned in time, James; and remain, as I do, incomprehensible: to be great is to be misunderstood.

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To be at one with the elements seems to be Mr. Swinburne’s aim. He seeks to speak with the breath of wind and wave … He is the first lyric poet who has tried to make an absolute surrender of his personality, and he has succeeded. We have the song, but we never know the singer … Out of the thunder and splendour of words, he himself says nothing. We have often heard man’s interpretation of Nature; now we know Nature’s interpretation of man, and she has curiously little to say. Force and Freedom form her vague message. She deafens us with her clangours.

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As for George Meredith, who could hope to reproduce him? His style is chaos illumined by brilliant flashes of lightning. As a writer he has mastered everything, except language; as a novelist he can do everything, except tell a story.

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The amount of pleasure one gets out of dialect is a matter entirely of temperament. To say “mither” instead of “mother” seems to many the acme of romance. There are others who are not quite so ready to believe in the pathos of provincialism.

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We Irish are too poetical to be poets; we are a nation of brilliant failures, but we are the greatest talkers since the Greeks.

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letter of Oscar Wilde to W.B. Maxwell

You mustn’t take a story that I told you of a man and a picture. No, absolutely, I want that for myself. I fully mean to write it, and I should be terribly upset if I were forestalled.

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Anyone can sympathise with the sufferings of a friend, but it requires a very fine nature – it requires, in fact, the nature of a true Individualist to sympathise with a friend’s success.

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Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask and he will tell you the truth.

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Mallarme is a poet, a true poet. But I prefer him when he writes in French, because in that language he is incomprehensible, while in English, unfortunately, he is not. Incomprehensibility is a gift, not everyone has it.

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1891 letter from Stephen Mallarme to James Whistler

No O.W. —! just like him! He pushes ingratitude to the point of indecency, then? — And all the old chestnuts — he dares offer them in Paris like new ones! — the tales of the sunflower — his walks with the lily — his knee breeches — his rose-colored stiff shirts — and all that! — And then ‘Art’ here — ‘Art’ there — It’s really obscene — and will come to a bad end — As we shall see — and you will tell me how it happens —

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I detest nature where man has not intervened with his artifice.

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1891 letter of Oscar Wilde to Edmond de Goncourt

One can adore a language without speaking it well, as one can love a woman without understanding her. French by sympathy, I am Irish by race, and the English have condemned me to speak the language of Shakespeare.

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I have equally recognised that humility is for the hypocrite, modesty for the incompetent.

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1891, letter of Andre Gide to Paul Valery

Forgive my being silent: after Wilde I only exist a little.

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“Know thyself!” was written over the portal of the ancient world … the message of Christ to man was simply, “Be thyself.”

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I can see they are servants by their perfect manners.

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For do you know, all my life I have been looking for twelve men who didn’t believe in me …. and so far I have only found eleven.