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Oscar Wilde, An Ideal Husband

#Oscar Wilde #An Ideal Husband #quip #wit #Socrates #green carnation #Dorian Gray #Selfish Giant #The Importance of Being Earnest #De Profundis #Aesthetic movement #decadence #Salome

Oscar Wilde

(Oct. 16th 1854 - Nov. 30th 1900)

Brief Bio:

Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde was born in Ireland, the second son of Dublin socialites. Fluent in many languages, he excelled as a student at Trinity and Oxford (Magadalen College), where he became a Freemason. After university, when his childhood sweetheart married Bram Stoker, Wilde traveled to the United States to give a lecture tour on aestheticism, during which he met Walt Whitman. Famous in British society for his personality as much as his writing, he cultivated a growing reputation as a playwright and social oddity. In 1895 he sued his lover’s father for slander, thereby exposing the relationship, and getting himself prosecuted for “gross indecency” with men. He was sentenced to two years’ hard labor, after which he left for Paris, where he died of meningitis.

Notable Works:

The Happy Prince and Other Stories (1888 fairy stories)

Salome (1891 play)

The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891 novel)

The Importance of Being Earnest (1895 play)

The Ballad of Reading Gaol (1898 poem)

The Grave:

Oscar was initially buried in a pauper’s grave outside of Paris. Eventually his friends arranged for him to be moved to Pere Lachaise Cemetery. Wilde’s tomb features a modernist-style angel carven in a stone block. It was made by sculptor Sir Jacob Epstein at the request of Wilde’s literary executor, Robert Ross. Considered as controversial as Wilde himself, the phallus of the statue was removed by vandals and is currently missing. For years the grave was kissed by fans in reference to a love letter Wilde wrote to Lord Alfred Douglas, in which he described his “red rose-leaf lips.” Because cleaning off the lipstick was eroding the stone, the grave is now surrounded by a glass barrier. Ross’ ashes were interred in the tomb in 1950.

Pere Lachaise Cemetery

16 rue du Repos, 75020

Paris, France (Belleville / Père Lachaise)

Surrounding Area:

Fans of Oscar Wilde may also visit the hotel where he died on the Rue des Beaux-Arts. The building has been extensively remodeled. Oscar died in the little alcove across from the bar on the ground floor.

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