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Let's talk about Oscar

The first modern gay man.

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by Anonymousreply 86October 3, 2020 4:23 AM

Fabulous Irish wit. Case study in how a brilliant man is broken. Would be so nice if he had come out of his ordeal stronger, but seemed he was well and truly a broken soul.

by Anonymousreply 1November 9, 2018 8:41 PM

The trade off was that he spent his last years being out in Paris.

by Anonymousreply 2November 9, 2018 8:52 PM

The homeland forgives a brilliant son only after his death. Exile in Paris was no picnic for an artist rooted to his soil.

by Anonymousreply 3November 9, 2018 9:02 PM

Brilliant, but overall a very sad life, especially at the end of it. Diminishes the brilliance of his wit.

by Anonymousreply 4November 9, 2018 9:04 PM

That's true of a lot of creative lives. One just needs to go see a recent Woody Allen film. Decline doesn't diminish the brilliance of achievement.

by Anonymousreply 5November 9, 2018 9:12 PM

I always wonder if I would have cracked in two years of hard labor in miserable surroundings. I think the dramatic shift from a pampered decadent life to the other extreme must have been uniquely tough for him. He just didn’t know how to function and sank into deep depression - before there was any treatment for it. But his decadent pre and post jail life was the ultimate cause of his demise.

by Anonymousreply 6November 9, 2018 9:14 PM

Does anyone else think Bosie is unfairly maligned? He was very young when he hooked up with Oscar. I think part of the attraction was finally getting his father's attention.

by Anonymousreply 7November 9, 2018 9:16 PM

OP, posting as a sodomite.

by Anonymousreply 8November 9, 2018 9:25 PM

Bosie was a little spoiled bitch. Left all the hard work to Robert Ross and did nothing supportive of Oscar or gay rights. With that said, Oscar was the old fool for falling for him and letting him ruin his life. Just as so many DL threads have warned, old men don’t fall for a hot young piece - it will end in tears.

by Anonymousreply 9November 9, 2018 9:29 PM

Oscar couldn't stay away from Bosie. He loved the drama.

by Anonymousreply 10November 9, 2018 9:31 PM

Bosie swore he never let Oscar fuck him. I don't believe him,that's a bitchy bottom if ever I saw one.

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by Anonymousreply 11November 9, 2018 9:40 PM

He didn't die from depression, folks. He died from syphilis.

Intellectuals of the time, from all over, loved living in Paris.

by Anonymousreply 12November 9, 2018 9:46 PM

Possibly the only moving footage of Oscar at the Paris Expo.

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by Anonymousreply 13November 9, 2018 9:52 PM

Look how beautiful the women were.

by Anonymousreply 14November 9, 2018 9:53 PM

Read a fantastic Wilde bio years ago - not the Elliman one that everyone in literary circles raves about - but Neil McKenna’s Secret Life of Oscar Wilde.

As a gay man it was a revelation. I mean - I know how important sex and sexuality is to me and who I am - and to my various partners and friend over the years. But in most ‘literary’ biographies - they all kinda blank on that. They all seem to go out of their way to minimise and or ignore any hint of anything not vanilla - and there’s always this over-emphasising relationships with women and saying there’s no real proof of anything untoward going on with men...blah blah blah. Such bullshit.

McKenna found plenty of documentary evidence - and there were many influential gay relationships in Wilde’s life - and many were very affectionate and supportive and long term. Yet a lot of reviewers at the time felt uncomfortable because there was too much detail amd they felt it was all TMI.

I do hate to see hetero sensibilities upset - but clearly this is an important part of Wilde’s existence. Yet time and again, when bios of famous homosexuals are written (even if the term referred to an act rather than a lifestyle at the time - let’s face it - as OP pointed out - Wilde lived very much like a modern homosexual man) - sexual contact and intimate relationships with other men are downplayed. Look at Alan Turing for example. Even in that stupid film with Cumberbatch a few years back - they played up the relationship with Keira Kneightly’s character as if there was something romantic going on - when the real life person it was based on was just a work colleague who was a good acquaintance, Or the most egregious - Hans Christian Anderson. When I was in Copenhagen several years ago, it was the hundredth anniversary of Anderson’s death or whatever - and I saw a few exhibits in various museums and galleries about his life. By the end of it - you’d have to be blind to not realise he was a big old mo. Letters and diaries raving about the beauty of random guys and soldiers to close, like-minded male friends - no significant female romantic relationships - everything about him screamed GAY! - yet the various exhibitions would always focus on some woman he’d allegedly talked to on a train once or wherever as his great lost love - or words to that effect.

God it was fucked! As a gay man - so frustrating to see the huge pink elephant in the room that no one was prepared to even contemplate let alone discuss... blah!

by Anonymousreply 15November 9, 2018 10:03 PM

If Oscar were around today he'd be setting Twitter on fire with his bon mots.

by Anonymousreply 16November 9, 2018 10:24 PM

Excellent post R15.

by Anonymousreply 17November 9, 2018 10:58 PM

I don't think Wilde lived like a modern homosexual man: I don't know any gays who are married to women with a shitload of children.

He lived like a self-hating fin-de-siecle gay guy, much like JA Symmonds: married to a woman, lots of children who only knew his name, but never saw him.

The non-self-hating gay guys at the time didn't marry: Henry James, Walter Pater, Maurice Baring, Walt Whitman, etc.

by Anonymousreply 18November 10, 2018 12:15 AM

Oscar's beautiful boy became a withered hag.

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by Anonymousreply 19November 10, 2018 12:29 AM

Early Boisie pic looks like he enjoys the opioids.

by Anonymousreply 20November 10, 2018 1:06 AM

Oscar married for money. He loved his sons but after they were born family life held few attractions.

by Anonymousreply 21November 10, 2018 1:09 AM

Bosie and Oscar were both opium users.

by Anonymousreply 22November 10, 2018 1:10 AM

I heard he lived for years in a garbage can in an iffy neighborhood in New York City.

by Anonymousreply 23November 10, 2018 1:27 AM

[quote] posting as a sodomite.

Oh, dear.

by Anonymousreply 24November 10, 2018 1:37 AM

I think Oscar had a serious Martyr complex. He could have escaped to Europe, but chose not too.

by Anonymousreply 25November 10, 2018 5:00 AM

A rather sad portrait of Boise, supposedly from 1931:

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by Anonymousreply 26November 10, 2018 5:07 AM

^ Bosie

by Anonymousreply 27November 10, 2018 5:07 AM

Boise and Bosie were both very sad in 1931.

by Anonymousreply 28November 10, 2018 5:11 AM

R26 It was the style back then to be downcast and demure when you posed for a picture. When this inane grinning for photographs started I have no idea.

by Anonymousreply 29November 10, 2018 9:49 AM

[quote]I do hate to see hetero sensibilities upset

Why?

by Anonymousreply 30November 10, 2018 10:26 AM

Is Bosie wearing eyeliner in that pic?

by Anonymousreply 31November 10, 2018 10:50 AM

On one eye.

by Anonymousreply 32November 10, 2018 10:56 AM

I think not just eyeliner, but lipstick as well.

by Anonymousreply 33November 10, 2018 10:57 AM

[quote] It was the style back then to be downcast and demure when you posed for a picture. When this inane grinning for photographs started I have no idea.

When modern dentistry gave people nice smiles beyond the age of 18.

by Anonymousreply 34November 10, 2018 4:24 PM

I agree about the McKenna book R15 it really goes there in a way other bio's tend to steer from. I think the Literatti want to keep Oscar as a sainted figure led astray by love, but he was clearly a lot more earthbound in his desires. Bosie was a horror R7 Douglas Murray's biography tries to present a balanced portrait of him, but his ugly character is unavoidable. His life was a wretched decline too, he even had a spell in prison himself in the '20s , six months for libeling Winston Churchill! Bosie was never much of a looker based on the few photos of his heyday , tastes change but he looked like a scrawny, pissy twink , I think maybe a bigger appeal to Oscar was his title, sadly Oscar's snobbery was as huge as his talent. In later life Bosie totally rejected homosexuality and became an intense Catholic, even tho he was a rampant homo all his early life and coined the phrase 'the love that dare not speak it's name'. I think Oscar was ruined because he thought his secret was safe, he'd been hiding in plain sight for years and was shocked that Queensbury had uncovered his hiding places and located his renters and was going to present them in court. If he'd run he could have avoided prison but he wouldn't have avoided ruin, the mistake was taking Queensbury to court in an effort to fulfill Bosie's dream of publicly humiliating his father. It's hideous to think Wilde got 2 years hard labour for liking dick, I doubt many could weather that, the labour itself, treading a pointless turnmill for hours on end was bad enough but the lack of nourishment and unsanitary conditions prisoners lived in then would finish anyone, let alone a pampered Toff, it's a wonder Wilde didn't die during the sentence. Tragic waste, what else he may have written,he was so brilliant, invented a myth we refer to today in Dorian Gray and plays that are still revived when many of his Victorian contemporaries, giants of the time are forgotten.

by Anonymousreply 35November 10, 2018 6:48 PM

I just saw The Happy Prince, the biopic , with Rupert Everett as Oscar and Colin Firth as his loyal friend Reggie Turner. I then read about Wilde's exile in France and Italy after seeing the movie and it appears to follow the facts pretty closely.

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by Anonymousreply 36November 10, 2018 7:03 PM

You're right, R24, it should have been "somdomite".

by Anonymousreply 37November 10, 2018 7:26 PM

Oscar was into rough trade. Aristocratic Bosie was an exception.

by Anonymousreply 38November 10, 2018 9:09 PM

[quote] I doubt many could weather that, the labour itself, treading a pointless turnmill for hours on end was bad enough but the lack of nourishment and unsanitary conditions prisoners lived in then would finish anyone, let alone a pampered Toff, it's a wonder Wilde didn't die during the sentence. Tragic waste, what else he may have written,he was so brilliant, invented a myth we refer to today in Dorian Gray and plays that are still revived when many of his Victorian contemporaries, giants of the time are forgotten.

Poor, poor pampered toff!

Lots of his rough trade were street children.

But whatever...

He went to prison when he was 40. It was hard labor, but it wasn't in fricking Siberia. Most people would be fine.

by Anonymousreply 39November 10, 2018 9:21 PM

This review sounds a bit homophobic.

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by Anonymousreply 40November 10, 2018 9:28 PM

Frank Miles was probably Oscar's first male lover.

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by Anonymousreply 41November 10, 2018 10:37 PM

R40 I'm leery about a socialist propaganda rag that CENSORS commentary on 95% of its articles but the reviewer does say McKenna's book has no "decent references, the notes are inadequate and there is no bibliography. Such neglect undercuts the value of the original work"

And (speaking personally as someone who doesn't do anal) there are some homosexual practices I find quite sick-making.

by Anonymousreply 42November 10, 2018 10:51 PM

I don't think Wilde intended to be a martyr. During the libel trial, he lied continually about having had sex with men. It seems more likely that he had, out of love and vanity, made a terrible error in judgment. On the stand during his criminal trial he gave a remarkable defense of gay love, but by then Queensberry had bankrrupted him and his criminal conviction was a forgone conclusion.

by Anonymousreply 43November 10, 2018 10:55 PM

R42, is it that hard not to use profanity or to say disgusting things about women and minorities?

by Anonymousreply 44November 10, 2018 10:55 PM

R44 Where's the profanity?

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by Anonymousreply 45November 10, 2018 11:06 PM

Well, R42 is complaining about getting bounced from the comment section of the Guardian.

He could abide by their none-too-stringent rules, which are listed on the site...

by Anonymousreply 46November 10, 2018 11:16 PM

R46 I think you need to look at that website where you will see that commentary is banned for all the major articles.

Comments were banned for the article quoted at R40.

It does allow commentary for their 'lifestyle' articles.

(The Socialists of Wilde's day were more equitable than the champagne-socialists of today)

by Anonymousreply 47November 11, 2018 12:05 AM

You certainly won’t have to worry about Glenn commenting on this thread.

by Anonymousreply 48November 11, 2018 12:31 AM

Many major newspapers don't allow commentary on their news stories, R47. People can't be civil on political matters and the papers don't have the resources to moderate them.

by Anonymousreply 49November 11, 2018 12:31 AM

Sorry, features, not just news stories.

by Anonymousreply 50November 11, 2018 12:57 AM

The hypocritical Guardian likes to quote a 1921 mantra “Comment is free but facts are sacred” but ignores both.

by Anonymousreply 51November 11, 2018 1:44 AM

Please start a separate thread to bash the guardian if you wish. Do not hijack this one.

by Anonymousreply 52November 11, 2018 1:59 AM

He was not bad looking in his youth. Oscar liked to live large and overindulgence contributed to his decline.

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by Anonymousreply 53November 11, 2018 2:07 AM

^ In other words, he was a glutton.

One of his epigrams was 'Love and gluttony justify everything'. And look where that got him.

by Anonymousreply 54November 11, 2018 2:11 AM

I remember reading his children's stories many years ago. They're quite interesting in their way. The Selfish Giant is to be the most memorable, but The Remarkable Rocket is the most Wildean.

by Anonymousreply 55November 11, 2018 2:16 AM

*is the most memorable

by Anonymousreply 56November 11, 2018 2:16 AM

Oscar and Bosie being reunited in Dieppe. They lived together for a time until Queensbury and Constance Wilde found out and threatened to cut them off financially.

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by Anonymousreply 57November 11, 2018 2:16 AM

Oscar was a glutton who lived a celebrity lifestyle,gorging on food,booze, and sex. But I'm sure he would rather have had ten years of being fabulous rather than a lifetime of being dull.

by Anonymousreply 58November 11, 2018 2:28 AM

[post redacted because linking to dailymail.co.uk clearly indicates that the poster is either a troll or an idiot (probably both, honestly.) Our advice is that you just ignore this poster but whatever you do, don't click on any link to this putrid rag.]

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by Anonymousreply 59November 11, 2018 2:48 AM

He lost everything R39 ,was a figure of national hate,imprisoned, worked to the bone had to survive on gruel, sleep on a board and had constant dysentery, give it a try for couple of years and let us know how fine you feel after.

by Anonymousreply 60November 11, 2018 2:52 AM

R60 Oscar working 'to the bone' might have reduced his waistline.

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by Anonymousreply 61November 11, 2018 2:56 AM

It did while he was in there R61

by Anonymousreply 62November 11, 2018 3:00 AM

I like his grave in Paris.

by Anonymousreply 63November 11, 2018 3:03 AM

The ashes of his lover Robbie Ross are interred in Oscar's tomb.

by Anonymousreply 64November 11, 2018 3:15 AM

R59, Fry was Wilde in a film. Law was Bosie. We get to see him screwing a rentboy as Wilde looks on.

by Anonymousreply 65November 11, 2018 3:17 AM

Fry has all of Wilde's excesses and none of his wit.

by Anonymousreply 66November 11, 2018 3:24 AM

Give me a break, R60.

He got moved to a nicer prison when his fancy friends complained about him (ie the aristocrat) being in a normal prison. His friends kept him supplied with books and papers. People visited him as much as possible.

So he had to do the physical work of a day laborer for two years--like 80%* of people in England at the time did for their entire lives?

[quote] He lost everything

He never had anything: he lived on inherited money from the day he was born to the day he died.

If he had cared about his professional reputation, he would have left when even his straight friends told him to whisk himself away. A hard-headed ass, he stayed.

*guestimate. But it was high.

by Anonymousreply 67November 11, 2018 3:56 AM

Oscar was one of the most successful playwrights in London. At the height of his success he had four plays running simultaneously. He lost his reputation, his career, and his family. He never saw his children again and his wife died a broken woman.

by Anonymousreply 68November 11, 2018 4:03 AM

Have no doubt, the script of 'The Importance of Being Earnest' is genius.

The characters are caricaturish, the epigrams contrived and the plot equal to WS Gilbert but the fact remains that Wilde's script is genius.

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by Anonymousreply 69November 11, 2018 4:18 AM

His scripts are sugary and too crowded with jokes but he has some serious ideas underneath.

'An Ideal Husband' is much more serious and presented here deliciously by the great Margaret Leighton at the height of her powers playing the over-coiffed blackmailer.

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by Anonymousreply 70November 11, 2018 4:25 AM

I agree with r15, Neil McKenna certainly got the sex life right. I also admit that his documentation was lacking in scholarly rigor. For instance, every book admits homosexuality was rife in British public schools, yet everyone but McKenna concludes Robby was Oscar’s first gay sex partner. Another point is that after the fact Bosie claimed to be a Top only. Just a few years back a letter in Austria came to light where Bosie claims he wants to be Maurice Schwabe’s little “wife” or “bitch.”

I love that Alfred Taylor, his co-defendent was a proto-Tranz. He was busted owning drags.

by Anonymousreply 71November 11, 2018 5:04 AM

Bosie Letters to Schwabe:

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by Anonymousreply 72November 11, 2018 5:11 AM

R67 I'm all for class warfare but in this instance I'd give Wilde a pass .Wilde led the pampered life of his class for sure ,until his ruin, but he was brilliant and made invaluable contributions to the world. If you are so ( rightly ) angry about the idle rich, there are many of them, talent free, obscenely privileged taking advantage of our world now who are much more deserving of your scorn and the treatment he got, and he got it for being gay! However posh he was, do you think the punishment fit the crime? Whatever kind of cakewalk you imagine Victorian prison was, and however many perks you feel he got, it left Wilde broken in ways that should suffice the most bitterly vindictive. Your posts ridiculing his downfall are vindictive . For you he seems a la-di-da pussy who couldn't take his punishment, his punishment was horrendous ( I dare say the most salt-of-the-earth navvy would have struggled ) and he was being punished for being gay. Why his station in life riles you more than the grotesque institutionalized homophobia that killed him is baffling, but your attitude would make the Scarlet Marquis' day.

by Anonymousreply 73November 11, 2018 3:00 PM

Some of the boys Wilde has sex with were under-aged then and would be under age now - he would have gone to prison today, though not with the hard labor.

by Anonymousreply 74November 11, 2018 3:26 PM

R67, hard labour in a British prison did not equate to a regular day's work, it was punitive (see link below). Utility was a secondary consideration. People were broken by a few years of the regime. It could be prescribed for petty crimes, and Wilde wrote a pamphlet about the cruelties to which children in prison were subjected. Many suffragists became campaigners for prison reform after they had served prison sentences; the middle class were generally sheltered from the realities of prison life.

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by Anonymousreply 75November 11, 2018 3:28 PM

There was no such thing as underage gay sex then R74 gay sex was illegal entirely, sodomy was punishable by death, and none of those called as witnesses for the prosecution during his trial were underage by today's standards.

by Anonymousreply 76November 11, 2018 5:04 PM

Very interesting R15 . The same with King Ludwig II of Bavaria. All the historians and biographers bashfully remained silent about his homosexuality or claimed he only adored men in a romantic and non-sexual way - while there are actually very explicit (and hilarious) sources about his sexual behaviour.

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by Anonymousreply 77November 11, 2018 5:59 PM

Has anyone read Oscar: A Life by Matthew Sturgis?

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by Anonymousreply 78November 11, 2018 6:19 PM

The room where Oscar died. The wallpaper has gone.

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by Anonymousreply 79November 12, 2018 5:12 AM

^ That wallpaper is 'outré'.

by Anonymousreply 80November 13, 2018 1:44 AM

Such a relief to see an Oscar thread without G'a wheedling.

by Anonymousreply 81November 13, 2018 1:49 AM

Trial testimony reveals that Oscar was a top.

CHARLES PARKER: Subsequently Wilde said to me. "This is the boy for me! Will you go to the Savoy Hotel with me?" I consented, and Wilde drove me in a cab to the hotel. Only he and I went, leaving my brother and Taylor behind. At the Savoy we went first to Wilde's sitting room on the second floor.

PROSECUTOR GILL: More drink was offered you there?

PARKER: Yes, we had liqueurs. Wilde then asked me to go into his bedroom with him.

GILL: Let us know what occurred there?

PARKER: He committed the act of sodomy upon me.

by Anonymousreply 82November 17, 2018 6:39 PM

....

by Anonymousreply 83June 22, 2019 5:42 AM

Tasteful friends, here's your chance to own a piece of gay history.

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by Anonymousreply 84October 2, 2020 8:41 PM

"the pink elephant in the room" @R15

Oh, dear!

by Anonymousreply 85October 2, 2020 8:59 PM

R76, that’s not the case. Wilde was convicted of Gross Indecency, the punishment for which was imprisonment. Gross Indecency replaced the laws convicting men to death, although the last men put to death for buggery were in the 1830s.

by Anonymousreply 86October 3, 2020 4:23 AM
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