Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Oscar Wilde and his homosexuality
Features of Oscar Wilde writings
Features of Oscar Wilde writings
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: Oscar Wilde and his homosexuality
On October 16, 1854, the eccentric and fervently revered Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde was born in Dublin, Ireland. Wilde’s work as a dramatist, novelist, and poet was marked by controversial wit, and was often the subject of moral outrage in Europe. Much of his writing reflected his own life and his protest against societal norms happening during the nineteenth century. His only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, was greatly attacked for having themes of homoeroticism, and was part of the history that actualized his notoriety. However, the questions posed by his work and his life, are still relevant now as they were a hundred years ago (Ellmann, xvii).
Wilde’s interests were greatly influenced by the work of his parents during his upbringing. His father, Sir William Wilde, worked as Ireland’s leading ear and eye surgeon, and published multiple books on archaeology and folklore (“Oscar Wilde,” Encyclopedia Britannica). Wilde’s mother, Jane Francesca Agnes, was a gifted poet who wrote mostly myth and folklore. Her work was often published under the pseudonym, Speranza (“Oscar Wilde,” Encyclopedia Britannica). With two strong literary and professional role models, Wilde went on to study at Trinity College in Dublin (1871-74), and Magdalen College in Oxford (1874-78). He received a degree with honors, and established himself as a brilliant scholar, a poet, and a wit after receiving the Newdigate Prize (1878) for his long poem, Ravenna (“Oscar Wilde,” Encyclopedia Britannica). It was also during this time that Wilde began exploring his feelings of homosexuality.
Wilde had several relationships with men that turned him into a target for blackmail. Unfortunately for Wilde, the Victorian Era was polluted with ideas of homosexual...
... middle of paper ...
...transcended, to lust (Shmoop Editorial Team). For both Wilde and Lord Henry, self-denial of temptation is a form of self-mutilation, the only cure for which is to acknowledge and yield (McKenna 125). This struggle between love and lust—between song and shadow—is constantly regnant in Oscar Wilde’s life, and its center is the journey of sexual self-discovery.
Works Cited
Ellmann, Richard. Oscar Wilde. New York: Knopf, 1988. Print.
Fuller, Sophie. "Construction of Musical Meaning." The Idea of Music in Victorian Fiction. Aldershot, Hants, England: Burlington, VT, 2004. 171-96. Print.
McKenna, Neil. The Secret Life of Oscar Wilde. New York: Basic, 2005. Print.
"Oscar Wilde." Encyclopedia Britannica. Encyclopedia Britannica Online Academic Edition. Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2013. Web. 6 Nov. 2013.
Wilde, Oscar, 1854-1900. Oscar Wilde in Aesthetic Dress. 1882.
We know that Oscar is married and has children but these letters he has written to different men strike him as gay to some. During this time period, many disagreed with this act, especially Lord Alfred Douglas of Queensberry, one of Wilde’s partners father. Some may say this lead to the theme of hate for the fact that Lord Alfred Douglas of Queensberry despised Wilde for sending these letters to his son and having these feelings towards him (Polashuk, 2007).
Wilde, Oscar. The Picture of Dorian Gray; For Love of the King. London: Routledge/Thoemmes Press, 1993.
Baselga, Mariano. “Oscar Wilde: The Satire of Social Habits.” In Rediscovering Oscar Wilde, England: Colin Smuthe, 1994: pp. 13-20.
3. Arno, The. "Oscar Wilde - Biography and Works. Search Texts, Read Online. Discuss.." The Literature Network: Online classic literature, poems, and quotes. Essays & Summaries. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 May 2012. .
Wilde, Oscar. The Picture of Dorian Gray. Michael Patrick Gillespie, Editor. Norton Critical Edition. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2007.
In this novel, Oscar Wilde displays Dorian’s moral corrosion negatively in order to convince his audience of the detrimental effects of aestheticism. As Dorian descends deeper into the depths of his depravity, the audience loses faith in him. His innocent, childlike and charitable qualities, seen in his philanthropy and petulance when he is first introduced, are lost, and he acts cruelly and selfishly. For example, when his lover, Sibyl Vane, performs on stage and fails to meet Dorian’s expectations, Wilde fashions Dorian’s reaction to be callous and bitter to her so that the reader sympathizes with Sibyl.
Wilde, Oscar. The Picture of Dorian Gray. 1891. Mineola, New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1993.
Summers, Claude J. "In Such Surrender There May Be Gain: Oscar Wilde and the Beginnings of Gay Fiction, " Gay Fiction: Wilde to Stonewall, Studies in Male Homosexual Literacy Tradition, Continuum, 1990. Excerpted in Twentieth Century Criticism, Volume 41. Pages 398-401.
A critical analysis of Oscar Wildes only novel would yield that it is in fact a homosexual allegory of doomed, forbidden passion. The relationship between Lord Henry and Dorian, as well as Basil and Dorian is, clearly Homoerotic and must’ve shocked Victorian society.
Oscar Wilde was born in October 16, 1854, in the mid era of the Victorian period—which was when Queen Victoria ruled. Queen Victoria reigned from 1837 to 1901.While she ruined Britain, the nation rise than never before, and no one thought that she was capable of doing that. “The Victorian era was both good and bad due to the rise and fall of the empires and many pointless wars were fought. During that time, culture and technology improved greatly” (Anne Shepherd, “Overview of the Victorian Era”). During this time period of English, England was facing countless major changes, in the way people lived and thought during this era. Today, Victorian society is mostly known as practicing strict religious or moral behavior, authoritarian, preoccupied with the way they look and being respectable. They were extremely harsh in discipline and order at all times. Determination became a usual Victorian quality, and was part of Victorian lifestyle such as religion, literature and human behavior. However, Victorian has its perks, for example they were biased, contradictory, pretense, they cared a lot of about what economic or social rank a person is, and people were not allowed to express their sexuality. Oscar Wilde was seen as an icon of the Victorian age. In his plays and writings, he uses wit, intelligence and humor. Because of his sexuality he suffered substantially the humiliation and embarrassment of imprisonment. He was married and had an affair with a man, which back then was an act of vulgarity and grossness. But, that was not what Oscar Wilde was only known for; he is remembered for criticizing the social life of the Victorian era, his wit and his amazing skills of writing. Oscar Wilde poem “The Ballad of Reading Gaol” typifies the Vi...
From the years 1888-1895 Wilde successfully published multiple books including “The Picture of Dorian Gray” (Rosson 2).
Wilde, O. (1945). The picture of Dorian Gray. The Electronic Classics Series, The Pennsylvania State University. p. 3/ Retrieved January 3, 2014 from http://www2.hn.psu.edu/faculty/jmanis/oscar-wilde/dorian-gray.pdf
Woodcock, George. The Paradox of Oscar Wilde. London-New York: T.V. Boardman and Co., Ltd., 1950.
She went on to use the “Speranza”, as her pen name. She many great works, and later married William Wilde in 1854. Oscar also had 4, siblings. 3 sisters, Mary, Isola, and Emily, thankfully has was also blessed with a brother, Henry. Unlike the other children, Oscar loved to read, and write, and was a very bright young boy. He attended Portora Royal School at Enniskillen, where his love Greek and Rome started to flourish. Upon his graduation in 1874, Wilde received the Berkeley Gold Medal as Trinity's finest student in Greek, he also received a scholarship for further study at Magdalen College in Oxford. He acquired first in his at his Oxford classes. this was also where he became in tune with his writing ability. In 1878, the year of his graduation, his poem "Ravenna" won the Newdigate Prize for the best English verse composition by an Oxford undergraduate. After his years in college had finished he moved to London England, to be with his good friend frank Miles, who was a popular portraitist among London's upper class. In London Wilde published his first poem book, which received a decent amount of
Wilde, Oscar, and Michael Patrick. Gillespie. The Picture of Dorian Gray: Authoritative Texts, Backgrounds, Reviews and Reactions, Criticism. New York: W. W. Norton &, 2007. Print.