The Life Of Oscar Wilde

von: André Kaminski

8. bzw. 6. Semester

Table of Contents

0. Introduction

1. Parents and Family

2. Education

3. Life as a Writer, Family Man and Lover

4. The Fall

5. Exile and Final Curtain

6. Conclusion

7. Bibliography
 

0. Introduction

This homework will deal with the biography of Oscar Wilde. It is perhaps rather unusual for a homework in a course in literature to deal predominantly with the life of a writer. Usually, academic treatment of literature tries not to give too much attention to the mere biographical background of any writer whose works are discussed. But certainly the case of Oscar Wilde1 would be one to call for an exception from the rule.

As to the reasons for the unusual treatment of a writer in this respect, it can – first of all – be stated that the dates and events in Oscar Wilde’s life are very well documented. Seemingly, the life of Oscar Wilde has, on the whole, been of greater interest to scholars than the synoptic analysis of his works. One scholar comments on the disproportion in academe between sifting through the life and analysing the works: “Es besagt viel, wenn man feststellt, wie wenig über sein Werk gesagt und wie ausführlich über sein Leben fabuliert wurde. [...] Das zahlenmäßige Missverhältnis zwischen Biographien und Werkuntersuchungen bestätigt nur die Beobachtung, dass sein Leben stets stärker die Aufmerksamkeit des Publikums auf sich gezogen hat als das, was er geschrieben hat.”2 He adds that such an approach is rather inappropriate: “Dies geriet einer gerechten Beurteilung seines oeuvre nicht zum Vorteil, sondern hat ihr eher geschadet.“3

Be that as it may, any research will certainly reveal many significant links between the life and the works of Oscar Wilde. And here we have the second reason for the discussion of his biography in this homework: even the most superficial glance at the life will reveal that it is hardly possible to deal with life or oeuvre separately. One can find the anarchistic dandy, trying to live up to the principles of aestheticism, in both of them. In Oscar Wilde’s lifetime, his contemporaries of the Victorian age experienced “Oscar Wilde’s complex personality [, which] was full of contrasts, inner tensions and excesses”4, as well as most of his works5. It is not surprising that, being for the most part dramatic, Wilde’s works also contain many “contrasts, inner tensions and excesses” – if only in the form of a finely wrought bon mot of one of the notorious characters. It is both his life, i. e. his public as well as his private life, the turns he took, his behaviour, his attitudes, and the reactions to it, as well as his works that demanded a lot of attention from Victorian society.

To pay due respect to a great author, one has to say that the works still demand that attention today. The works have been part of the canon for a long time. The dramas share one rank with those of Wilde’s contemporary George Bernard Shaw, although they differ in form quite a lot, and also in attitude. Especially the society comedy “An Ideal Husband” has been popular with directors, and has been staged repeatedly, with the dark secret of Sir Robert Chiltern brought up to date, to give the work an immediate relevance.6 The novel “Dorian Gray” has been very popular with the general public, and has been sold in an impressive number of copies. The last film about Oscar Wilde as topic dates back to 19977, starring Steven Fry and Jude Law. One of the biographers to whom the facts of Oscar Wilde’s life have been of such immense interest was Richard Ellmann8. Ellmann wrote the most voluminous and detailed biography and seems to have specialised in treating the important Irish writers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries9, including Oscar Wilde.

This homework will rely on the eminent biography of Ellmann, as well as on John Sloan’s hybrid biography. Overcoming Kohl’s complaints (footnote two), Sloan’s work blends a brisk biography with extensive treatment of general issues like “The Fabric of Society”, “The Literary Scene”, social and intellectual issues, and the process of re-contextualization, always trying to incorporate an analysis of the works. In addition to the these two volumes of biography, two terse and even pointed essays dealing with both Oscar Wilde and the reception of Wilde will also be used. The first of these essays is the one written by Norbert Kohl, cited above, the other Gore Vidal’s “Oscar Wilde: On the Skids Again”. Being a ‘gay icon’ and an outstanding writer among many other things, Oscar Wilde has attracted this eminent American writer, who took the opportunity to comment on both Wilde and his biographer Ellmann in the essay, on occasion of the publication of Richard Ellmann’s biography of Oscar Wilde.

[...]

1 As it is, both the literal and the general meaning of ‘case’ can be referred to, here.

2 Kohl, 11

3 ibidem

4 Andela Zander in the course description of the seminar, Kommentiertes Vorlesungsverzeichnis WS 2004/05 Institut für Anglistik/Amerikanistik.

5 The one important work explaining important aspects of his life, De Profundis, was published only in 1905, of course; five years after Wilde’s death, when also the Victorian Age was about to expire.

6 See Sloan, 178

7 Gilbert, Brian (director): Wilde, Columbia Tri-Star Films, 1997

8 Prof. Richard Ellmann, Oxford, 1918-87, U.S. writer and scholar, Pulitzer Prize-winner for his Wilde-biography.

9 William Butler Yeats, Oscar Wilde, James Joye, and Samuel Beckett.