oscar wilde was not a white supremacist, his boyfriend was.
have a graduated english major/wilde enthusiast musing!ā
the reason people sayĀ āoscar wilde was a white supremacistā is because of something that his ex lover, lord alfred douglas, did many years after his death. douglas (known to wilde as bosie) is a pretty universally hated figure, called by modern historian douglas murrayĀ ā āa vicious, gold-digging, snobbish, anti-Semitic, untalented little horror for whom no good word can be said.ā
anyway, bosie essentially abandoned wilde during his trials (his father was the one to set the authorities on wilde, actually, but thatās another aspect of a wildly inappropriate relationship.) bosie and wilde were notoriously both toxic partners to the other, with wilde having a superiority complex and bosie beingā¦ well, essentiall, aĀ vicious, gold-digging, snobbish, anti-Semitic, untalented little horror for whom no good word can be said. wilde wrote de profundis @ bosie while in jail, and while much of it is dramatised and he portrays himself as completely the victim (which he wasnāt), he didnāt say anything untrue or slander bosie in any way. on the flipside, bosie spent YEARS after wildeās death publishing books slandering him. this is probably in part because he needed to disassociate with him, but itās still kinda shitty.
ANYWAY hereās the stuff that makes people think wilde is a white supremacist and why itās not the case
bosie, in 1920, which was 19 years after wilde had died in a horrible fashion, created a white catholic magazine called plain english. it was filled with antisemitic horrors in a time when europe was moving towards antisemitism and fascism anyway. this magazine published a series called āthe jewish perilā and said very fascist things. additionally, the magazine made statements likeĀ āthe uk needs its own kkk.āĀ
Ā it ran for 2 years until becoming another journal, the academy, which bosie also contributed to.Ā
because of wildeās association with bosie, he is also framed as a white supremacist. however, itās important to keep in mind that these issues were nowhere near as mainstream in 1901 when wilde (estranged from bosie) died in france as they were after ww1, during the growing rise of fascism. itās likely that he didnāt even know bosieās views on race or that, because of bosieās time in the limelight, they changed since wildeās death 19 years ago.
i also want to make it clear that, yes, wilde probably had some racist ideas, because it was the victorian era and all white brits were unwittingly assimilated into not-so-woke white british views. this still happens today- white people are ignorant, say ignorant/racist things, even when they arenāt racist people. this sucks and can be criticised, but itās a far cry from being a white supremacist like bosie was.
tl;dr, read the post because 20+ years of history canāt be explained in 2 sentences at the end of a tumblr post. wildeās life was extremely complex and he did do some bad shit, but he isnāt a fucking white supremacist.
I love history and had a ton of fun writing this lolol
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