The Washington Times
  • Subscribe
  • Times News Services
  • RSS
  • Mobile Headlines
  • e-edition
  • E-MAIL ALERTS
  • REGISTER
  • LOG IN
  • E-MAIL ALERTS
  • WELCOME
  • Your Profile
  • Log Out
  • Front Page Image
  • Classifieds
  • Autos
  • Real Estate
  • Jobs
  • Special Sections
  • Customer Service
  • Home
  • News
  • Opinion
  • Sports
    • NFL
    • NBA/WNBA
    • MLB
    • NHL
    • Tennis
    • Golf
    • Motorsports
    • Soccer
    • NCAA
    • Olympics
    • Outdoors
    • Other
  • Culture
    • Home & Living
    • Family & Kids
    • Fashion
    • Food
    • Travel
    • Health
    • Washington Visitors
    • Books
    • Military History
    • Life
    • Auto
    • TV Listings
    • Movie Listings
    • Death Notices
    • Entertainment
  • Themes
  • Communities
  • Shopping
    • Stores
    • Coupons
    • Daily Double
    • Promotion
    • How It Works
  • Videos
    • Two Guys
    • Birnbaum on Washington
    • Liz Glover
    • Amanda Carpenter
    • Morning Briefing
    • Documentaries
    • Joe Giganti
    • Video Game Minute
  • Podcasts
    • About Headlines
    • Audio and Radio
    • America's Morning News
  • National

    VAN CLEAVE: A Thanksgiving message from Russia's spy agency

  • National

    HOLMES: Behind Obama's overseas allure

  • World

    Thailand seeks U.S. help battling insurgents

  • Politics

    Obama taking emissions goal to summit

  • Business

    Retailers bank on post-holiday Black Friday

  • World

    Corruption stain puts Pakistan leader at risk

  • Politics

    Courage the turkey escapes Obama's plate

Saturday, June 26, 2004

OSCAR WILDE, moralist

Rate this story

Average 0.00
after 0 votes
Login or register to rate this story

  • Font Size -+
  • Print
  • Email
  • Comment
  • Tweet this!
  • Share
  • Article
  • Comments ()
  • Click-2-Listen
  • Videos

More Stories

  • IAEA: Iran investigation at 'dead end'
  • Swiss court grants Polanski bail
  • Couple skirts security to crash state dinner
  • Courage the turkey escapes Obama's plate

By

Over a century after his death amid poverty and great notoriety in a shabby Parisian hotel in 1900, Oscar Wilde is world-famous, which would probably have delighted him, but perhaps not for long.

Look, for example, at the prices now paid for mementoes, however insignificant they might be, which have some connection with Wilde, however tenuous. Recently an otherwise unimpressive questionnaire filled out by the future author of "The Importance of Being Earnest" while still a student at Oxford sold for over $40,000.

Would not the flamboyant Wilde -- who basked in the fame and wealth his talents brought him in the early 1890s -- relish the glory that is now his? No, or at least not without great qualification, answers Joseph Pearce in his groundbreaking biography "The Unmasking of Oscar Wilde" (published four years ago in Britain and now appearing in the United States).

On many occasions, Wilde let friends and admirers know that he wanted to be remembered for the quality and scope of his art, which he called "the real passion of my life; the love to which all other loves [are] as marsh-water to red wine."

Instead of his art, his current fame rests largely on his great wit -- everyone who loves Wilde has his favorite saying ("To love oneself is the beginning of a life-long romance," for example, always elicits a chuckle from this reviewer) -- and on his status as a major gay icon, a martyr, who dared flaunt his homosexuality in the face of repressed Victorian England and paid a heavy price for it: imprisonment and hard labor for the crime of sodomy.

True, Wilde's plays -- especially "The Importance of Being Earnest," "A Woman of No Importance" and "An Ideal Husband" -- are staged regularly by theater companies great and small throughout the world. There are popular film versions of the comedies, some of recent vintage such as director Oliver Parker's 2002 "The Importance of Being Earnest."

But what has been ignored in the celebration of Wilde's wit and his sexuality, Mr. Pearce shows in this well-written biography, is the essential Wilde, the Wilde whose novel, plays, and marvelous stories all carry very strong -- and very traditional -- moral messages. And it is this morality that is central to Wilde's vision of the world, Mr. Pearce argues, not his flamboyance or his naughtiness.

In itself, this isn't a particularly new spin on Wilde. Other commentators have taken note of the moral lessons offered in his work. Where Mr. Pearce moves into groundbreaking territory is the extent to which he presents Wilde as a profoundly religious man, for whom Roman Catholicism had great appeal his whole life long, culminating in his deathbed conversion.

This is a Wilde we haven't seen much of, but Mr. Pearce convincingly creates him out of a very close reading of the complete works and letters, taking Wilde at his word when he writes passionately about religious faith and moral concerns, rather than assuming, as other biographers have, that these are irrelevant to understanding who the man really was.

Mr. Pearce's Wilde is prodigiously talented and brilliant -- how could he be otherwise? But he is also a tormented and relentlessly self-destructive man at war with inner demons that allow him little peace, even though the face he shows the world is of a supremely self-satisfied bon vivant, in control of everything.

123Next »

Post a comment

There are comments on this article, submit your opinion!

Commenting is disabled for this entry.
If you feel there is still something worth mentioning about this entry please contact the author or the site admin.

Ask a Question

You Report

Do you have another point of view, photos, audio, video or more information about a story?

Top Stories

Most Read

  1. EDITORIAL: Hiding evidence of global cooling
  2. Top Republican lawmakers not attending State Dinner
  3. Fenty trails Gray in D.C. poll
  4. Conservatives seek test for RNC funds
  5. Food snobs fork over $225 for taste of heritage turkey
More Top Stories »
  1. D.C. sports icon, Wizards owner Pollin dies
  2. List of W.H. state dinner guests
  3. PRUDEN: Obama's due process doctrine
  4. Climate 'czar' says hacked e-mails don't change anything
  5. EDITORIAL: Obama's sacked inspector general

Most Shared

  1. EDITORIAL: Hiding evidence of global cooling
  2. Climate 'czar' says hacked e-mails don't change anything
  3. EDITORIAL: Kennedy vs. Catholicism
  4. 'Boutique' patients pay for better access to doctors
  5. EDITORIAL: Obama's sacked inspector general
More Top Stories »
  1. The global-cooling cover-up
  2. Climate czar rejects doctored data claims
  3. PULLEN: GOP came unmoored in last decade – it hurt
  4. Ego of 'O': It's all about him
  5. Food snobs fork over $225 for taste of heritage turkey

Most Commented

  1. EDITORIAL: Hiding evidence of global cooling
  2. Climate 'czar' says hacked e-mails don't change anything
  3. Top Republican lawmakers not attending State Dinner
  4. Conservatives seek test for RNC funds
  5. PRUDEN: Obama's due process doctrine
More Top Stories »
  1. Ky. hanging, ruled a suicide, leaves bloggers at loss for words
  2. EDITORIAL: Obama's sacked inspector general
  3. A-listers, fundraisers at W.H. state dinner
  4. Obama to attend Denmark climate summit
  5. EDITORIAL: Kennedy vs. Catholicism

Listen to Washington Times Radio

  • America's Morning News

    with John McCaslin and Melanie Morgan

Blogs & Columns

  • Hot Button Blog

    RNC: Breast cancer recommendations may lead to 'rationing'

  • Belief Blog

    Evangelicals OK civil disobedience

  • Out of Context

    Foods that might kill libido

  • On the Fly

    United lifts some 'award' blocking

  • Technology

    Facebook wins round against phishing spammer

  • Redskins 360

    Gray coy about job

  • SNOBlog

    Beyond 'Woody'

Videos

Advertising Links
TWT Store
  • e-edition
  • Print Edition
  • Weekly Washington Times
TWT Affiliates
  • Middle East Times
  • Golf
  • UPI
  • Arbor Ballroom
  • Washington Times Global
  • About TWT
  • Press Room
  • F.A.Q.
  • Work for TWT
  • Advertise
  • Sponsors
  • Contact Us
  • Privacy Policy
  • Site Map

All site contents © Copyright 2009 The Washington Times, LLC.