by oscar wilde - Universidad de Cuenca

UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
RESUMEN
Ante todo, queremos decir que realmente disfrutamos
investigando sobre Oscar Wilde. Fue una experiencia
hermosa en la cual aprendimos muchas cosas sobre este
gran hombre. Para lograr nuestro propósito, dividimos
nuestra investigación en cuatro capítulos:
En el capítulo uno, nos referimos a la vida de Wilde
desde su comienzo, personalidad, matrimonio y cómo su
visión de la vida cambió cuando “descubrió” su inclinación
sexual verdadera. El Esteticismo fue un movimiento que
gobernaba la forma de pensar y estilo de hombres como
Wilde. Su utopía era conseguir una sociedad socialista, él
expresaba sus ideas y deseos a través de sus poemas
políticos.
1
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
En el capítulo dos, incluimos un estudio profundo de la
época Victoriana, a la misma Reina Victoria, los eventos
extraordinarios que ocurrieron, y las clases sociales en que
la sociedad fue empujada después de la Revolución
Industrial; nuestro estudio incluye también científicos
famosos y sus descubrimientos, la homosexualidad durante
el periodo victoriano y el lugar que Wilde ocupó en la
sociedad.
En el capítulo tres, hacemos un análisis breve de las
obras mejor conocidas de Wilde: “El Príncipe Feliz”, “El
Gigante Egoísta”, “El Retrato de Dorian Gray”, y “La Balada
de la Cárcel de Reading.”
El capítulo cuatro discute la influencia del periodo
victoriano en las obras de Wilde, y presenta una pequeña
descripción de esa época y el papel que Oscar
desempeñaba en ella; estudiamos su personalidad y la
2
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
huella que dejó. Hablamos también sobre el movimiento “El
Arte
por
socialismo,
El
y
Arte,”
política.
sobre
homosexualidad,
Resaltamos
la
poesía,
influencia
del
mencionado movimiento en la sociedad actual.
PALABRAS CLAVES
Vida
Época Victoriana
Homosexualidad
El Príncipe Feliz
El Retrato de Dorian Gray
La Balada de la Cárcel de
Reading
El Gigante Egoísta
Influencia del Período
Victoriano
3
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
INDEX
OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME
INTRODUCTION
I
CHAPTER ONE
OSCAR WILDE, BIOGRAPHY
1. LIFE AND WORKS
2. WORKS
2.1 POEMS
2.2 PLAYS
2.3 PROSE
2.4 ESSAYS
2.5 A SMALL DESCRIPTION OF SOME WORKS
3. PERSONALITY
4. MARRIAGE
5. HOMOSEXUALITY
5.1 WILDE’S HOMOSEXUALITY: THE OTHER
FACE OF HIS LIFE
5.2 OSCAR AND BOSIE
5.3 QUEENSBURY RULES
5.4 SCANDAL
5.5 PRISON
4
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
5.6 AFTER PRISON
6. AESTHETICISM
6.1 AESTHETICISM IN ENGLAND
6.2 OSCAR WILDE, STYLE
7. SOCIALISM
7.1 THE SOCIALISM OF OSCAR WILDE
7.2 POLITICS
8. AFTER HIS DEATH
II
CHAPTER TWO
VICTORIAN AGE
1. EPOCH
2. YOUNG QUEEN VICTORIA
3. VICTORIAN ENGLAND, EVENTS
4. SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS
5. VICTORIAN LONDON
6. VICTORIAN MORALITY
7. HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
8. SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND DISCOVERY
9. HOMOSEXUALITY AND LAW IN ENGLAND
10.
WILDE’S PLACE IN SOCIETY
5
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
III
CHAPTER THREE
ANALISIS OF SELECTED WORKS
1. “THE HAPPY PRINCE”
1.1 ANALYSIS AND COMMENTS
2. “THE SELFISH GIANT”
2.1 ANALYSIS AND COMMENTS
3. THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY
3.1 ANALYSIS AND COMMENTS, CHAPTER XX
4. “THE BALLAD OF THE READING GAOL”
4.1 CREATION OF THE POEM
4.2 STRUCTURE OF “THE BALLAD”
4.3 ANALYSIS AND COMMENTS
4.4 AN OPPOSING VIEW
IV
CHAPTER FOUR
THE INFLUENCE OF THE VICTORIAN AGE ON WILDE’S
WORKS
1. VICTORIAN ENGLAND
2. OSCAR WILDE IN VICTORIAN ENGLAND
3. WILDE AND HIS CREATIVE PERSONALITY
6
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
4. WILDE´S STAMP ON VICTORIAN SOCIETY
5. ART IN MEN´S LIFE
6. PURPOSES OF ART
7. OSCAR WILDE AND "ART FOR ART'S SAKE"
8. A
DEEP
VIEW
INTO
WILDE´S
HOMOSEXUALITY
9. POETRY AND SOCIALISM IN VICTORIAN
PERIOD
10.
WILDE’S SOCIAL VIEWS
11.
OSCAR WILDE IN MODERN POPULAR
CULTURE
CONCLUSION
BIBLIOGRAPHY
7
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
All the content of this thesis is the exclusive responsibility of
its authors.
8
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
It is our desire to thank God for allowing Mt.
Katherine Youman to guide us in this investigative
work. We are totally convinced of the Lord’s
wisdom, since we can say with all security that he
placed
us
under
her
tutorship.
He
knew
beforehand she is a wonderful person and a
dedicated professional.
For this reason and for many others we want
to express our deepest gratefulness to Mt.
Katherine Youman for the precious time that she
has dedicated to us and to our thesis. In spite of
the serious accident that she suffered, she did not
leave us alone at any moment. Her steadfastness
reiterates her qualities of strength and loyalty that
we mentioned before.
9
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
DEDICATION
First of all, I wish to dedicate this thesis to my Almighty
God, since without his help no part of this work would have
been possible. He has blessed me along my life and in the
development of this thesis, too.
I want to dedicate this work to my family. They have
supported and encouraged me at all times.
I also wish to dedicate this thesis to my friends who
have traveled the same road as I. They know very well how
hard it is to accomplish the goals we set for ourselves,
especially when we try to do thing correctly.
10
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
DEDICATION
This thesis is dedicated to my Precious God because he
has been the reason and support behind my work. He has
prepared this day to complete one more stage of my life.
Thanks to him I have completed it successfully.
To my beloved husband, Braulio Álvarez: from the time
you began to be
with me everything has been easier
because I have had your love, support, and tenderness;
but the most important is that we are together and God
gives us strength. Thanks for your comprehension.
To my father, José Adolfo Chuchuca Orellana; to his
memory since he encouraged and helped me all the time.
11
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
His wise words taught me to go on even when I wanted to
give up. Although you will not be here, this is for you, dear
father. Thanks so much for being the best.
To my mother, Carmelina Astudillo, because she helped me in
precise moments even when I thought I could not do more;
she was always there paying attention to all my needs.
Thanks for the patience and love you always gave me.
Inspired by Romans 8:37-39
12
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
ABSTRACT
First of all, we want to say that we really enjoyed
investigating about Oscar Wilde. It was a beautiful
experience in which we learned a lot about many things
related to that great man.
In order to reach our goals, we
divided our investigation into four chapters.
In chapter one we refer to Oscar Wilde´s life from its
very beginning, his personality, his marriage and how his
view of life changed when he “discovered” his real sexual
disposition. Aestheticism was a movement which ruled the
thinking and the style of men like Wilde. A socialistic society
was the utopia convinced of by Wilde; he expressed his
ideas desires through his political poems.
In chapter two, we include a deep study of the
Victorian Age. This includes Queen Victoria herself, the
remarkable events that happened during her reign, and the
social institutions into which society was pushed after the
Industrial Revolution; also, our study includes famous
13
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
scientists and their discoveries, homosexuality during the
Victorian period and Wilde´s place in that society.
In Chapter three we make a brief analysis of three of
the well known works of Wilde: “The Happy Prince,” “The
Selfish Giant,” “The Picture of Dorian Gray,” and “The
Ballad of the Reading Gaol.”
Chapter four discusses the influence of the Victorian
period on Wilde´s woks, and presents a little description of
that time and the role that Wilde played in it; we study his
personality and the stamp he left on his society. We also
talk about the movement of “Art for art’s sake,” about
homosexuality, poetry, socialism, and politics. We point out
the influence of the aforementioned movement on current
society.
14
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
INTRODUCTION
Oscar Wilde was twenty when he began to enjoy a
deserved reputation as a young classical scholar of great
promise. His whole academic career was full of success.
Wilde had spent three years in Trinity College, Dublín,
where he came out with high grades in classics, with
“Honors.”
He became an aesthete, a playwright, a novelist, and a
poet
thanks to the powerful influences of the English
Romantic poets, the Pre-Raphaelite poets and painters, his
Medieval Art professors and, of course, his creativity and
imagination. He reached heights and depths in his works
and reputation, and he was recognized as an eminent
writer. He wrote poems, essays, novels, and plays of
comedy and tragedy.
15
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
His four comedies earned him a great deal of money,
and that was the reason that Wilde turned to the stage. He
had “immeasurable ambitions;” however, he was playing a
dangerous game. His lucrative drama was financing a
double life. His letters from his days at Oxford and his early
life in London revealed his familiarity with homosexuality,
despite his apparently stable marriage.
Wilde´s sinister double life is reflected in one of his
masterpieces, The Picture of Dorian Gray. The story is
more relevant to the author’s own condition than to the main
characters themselves. Wilde was in the novel no more
than creatively consistent with his own aesthetic theories,
but he jeopardized and destabilized his wonderful career
through his work.
Wilde had met a man in Chelsea called Lord Alfred
Douglas, “Bosie” ,who was 15 years his younger. Oscar was
16
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
fascinated by the arrogant, elegant and intelligent young man
and began the passionate and stormy relationship which
consumed and ultimately destroyed him when Wilde was
convicted and sentenced to two years of hard labor in
Reading Gaol by Bosie’s father, The Marquis of Queensbury,
because of his homosexual relationship with “Bossie.”
Homosexuality had been illegal in Britain from the 16th
century to the early 1800s. Homosexuality was a capital
crime, though the crime was rarely punished so severely as
when it was applied to Wilde.
Oscar Wilde never truly assimilated himself into London
society although he tried to escape from his homosexuality
after his release from prison; he remained an outsider until
his death.
17
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
On May 14, 1897, Wilde was given his freedom. After
his imprisonment, he changed his name to Sebastian
Melmoth. In December of the same year, Lord Alfred
Douglas abandoned him and because of that Wilde moved to
Paris. On April 7, his ex-wife, Constance Lloyd, died in
Génova, Italy. On November 30, 1900, one of the greatest
poets died.
18
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
I
CHAPTER ONE
OSCAR WILDE, BIOGRAPHY
9. LIFE AND WORKS
10.
WORKS
2.1 POEMS
2.2 PLAYS
2.3 PROSE
2.4 ESSAYS
2.5 A SMALL DESCRIPTION OF SOME WORKS
11.
PERSONALITY
12.
MARRIAGE
13.
HOMOSEXUALITY
5.1 WILDE’S HOMOSEXUALITY: THE OTHER
FACE OF HIS LIFE
5.2 OSCAR AND BOSIE
5.3 QUEENSBURY RULES
5.4 SCANDAL
5.5 PRISON
5.6 AFTER PRISON
14.
AESTHETICISM
19
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
6.1 AESTHETICISM IN ENGLAND
6.2 OSCAR WILDE, STYLE
15.
SOCIALISM
7.1 THE SOCIALISM OF OSCAR WILDE
7.2 POLITICS
16.
AFTER HIS DEATH
20
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
I
CHAPTER ONE
OSCAR WILDE
OSCAR WILDE, BIOGRAPHY
1. LIFE AND WORKS
Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde was a poet,
playwright, novelist, literary critic and essayist. He was one of
the most brilliant writers in the Victorian Age and of Universal
Literature. He was born on October 16, 1854, in Dublin, Ireland.
His family was respectful, liberal, but protestant; Wilde was the
second of three children: Isola, Oscar, and Willie. In June of
1855, Wilde moved to Merrion Square, a residential area in
fashion at that time.
His mother, Jane Francesca Elgee, was well known in
Dublin as a graceful writer of verse and prose, under the pen21
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
name of “Speranza.” She was a very strong leader of the
Women’s Movement. She did her best in order to get Ireland’s
independence. She translated Dumas, wrote verses, and
organized literary meetings attended by Oscar. On February 7,
1896, she died in London while her son was in prison. Lady
Wilde was an enormous influence on Oscar. She was a very
ostentatious society figure. After Sir William Wilde died she
came to London in very forced circumstances, but she and
Oscar were incredibly close.
Wilde’s father, Sir William Robert Wills Wilde, a famous
Irish surgeon, also had
literary uneasiness. He was a
distinguished man of wide scientific interests, including Natural
History, Ethnology and Irish Antiquarian Topography, who had
been knighted by Queen Victoria. He died on April 19, 1876,
when Oscar was at Magdalen College, Oxford.
Oscar was instructed at home until the age of nine. In
1864, he became a member of The Portora Royal School in
22
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
Enniskillen, Ireland. He studied there up to 1871. Isola, Oscar’s
sister, died on February 23, 1867. The premature death
inspired Wilde to write “Requiescat,” a delicate poem.
In October 1871, he entered Trinity College, Dublin,
where he studied Classics until he quit in 1874. Three years
later, because of his outstanding performance, Oscar won “The
Berkeley Golden Medal,” the biggest prize for the students of
that college. Wilde won the prize because of his work in Greek
about Greek poets.
Thanks to a scholarship of £ 95 annually, on October
17, 1874, he entered Magdalen College, Oxford. At the age of
twenty, he won “The Berkeley Golden Medal” again; also
because of his Greek works about Greek poets. Two years
later, he received the first prize for Greek and Latin Literature
and published the version of Aristophanes Clouds.
23
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
Oscar moved to London followed by his widowed
mother and his brother Willie. He found that many people in the
city
were
uncomfortable
with
his
non-Englishness,
his
flamboyant style and his willingness to challenge the English
society.
At
Oxford,
he
adopted
what
to
undergraduates
appeared the effeminate pose of transmitting disdain mainly on
sports, wearing his hair long, decorating his room with peacock
feathers, lilies, sunflowers, blue china, and other objects of art,
which he declared it his desire to “live up to.” He was always
affecting an apathetic manner, and professing intense emotions
on the subject of “art for art’s sake;” then a new original doctrine
which J.M. Whistler was bringing into prominence. Wilde made
himself an apostle of this cult. He continued his studies up to
1878. His poem “Ravenna” allowed him to be awarded the
“Oxford Newdigate Prize” in June 1878. In November of the
same year, he got the degree of Bachelor of Arts. He was very
24
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
original when writing and his style is shown in masterpieces
such as The Picture of Dorian Gray.
He was always the student who got the highest grades.
He spent several years with his lover, the painter Frank Miles,
whom he met in 1876. In order to handle the society of that
time, they decided to keep their relationship secret.
In 1882, Wilde settled in Paris, the French capital, and
later in London. He was one of the biggest artistic and literary
personages at that place and at that time. People admired him,
but later the same people would condemn him because of the
terrible sin he committed.
It was in France that he finished his first Dramas Vera or
the Nihilists, and The Duchess of Padua. In 1895, he presented
for the first time An Ideal Husband and The Importance of Being
Earnest. Afterwards, he was accused of Sodomy by the
25
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
Marquis of Queensbury whose son was Wilde’s lover. Later,
Oscar would be condemned to two years of hard labor in jail.
(http://www.booksfactory.com/writers/wilde_es.htm )
2. WORKS
2.1 POEMS
“The Ballad of Reading Gaol”
“Hélas”
“Ave Impatrix”
“Requiescat”
“The Burden of Itys”
“Charmides“
“Symphony in Yellow”
“The Harlot’s House”
2.2 PLAYS
Vera; or, The Nihilists (1880).
Lady Windermere's Fan (1892).
26
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
A Woman of No Importance (1893).
Salome (1894).
An Ideal Husband (1895).
The Importance of Being Earnest (1895).
2.3 PROSE
The Canterville Ghost (1887).
Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories (1887).
The Happy Prince and Other Stories (1888).
The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890).
Intentions (1891).
A House of Pomegranates (1892).
De Profundis (1905).
2.4 ESSAYS
"The Decay of Lying" (1889).
"The Critic as Artist" (1890).
“The Soul of Man Under Socialism” (1891).
27
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
2.5 A SMALL DESCRIPTION OF SOME WORKS
The Picture of Dorian Gray was more than a literary
device. It was a gay version of medieval polite behavior, when a
knight pledged his love for an inaccessible lady in platonic form.
Lady Windermere's Fan dealt with a blackmailing
divorcee driven to self-sacrifice by maternal love.
A Woman of No Importance; an illegitimate son is torn
between his father and mother.
An Ideal Husband dealt with blackmail, political
corruption and public and private honor.
The Importance of Being Earnest was a comedy of
manners. John Worthing (who prefers to call himself Jack) and
28
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
Algernon
Moncrieff
(Algy)
are
two
fashionable
young
gentlemen. John says that he has a brother called Ernest, but in
town John himself is known as Ernest and Algernon also
pretends to be the extravagant brother Ernest.
The Happy Prince and Other Tales are fairy-stories
written for his two sons.
De Profundis is a dramatic monolog and autobiography,
which was addressed to Alfred Douglas. Although married and
the father of two children, Wilde's personal life was open to
rumors. His years of triumph ended dramatically when his
intimate association with Alfred Douglas led to his trial on
charges of homosexuality (then illegal in Britain). He was
sentenced to two years of hard labor for the crime of sodomy.
Wilde was first in Wandsworth prison, London, and then in
Reading Gaol.
29
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
The Ballad of Reading Gaol revealed his concern for
inhumane prison conditions. He wrote it after his release in
1897.
The Soul of
Man Under Socialism; Wilde takes an
optimistic view of the road to a socialist future. He rejects the
Christian ideal of self-sacrifice in favor of joy.
3. PERSONALITY
Oscar Wilde himself was a man determined to follow his
nature despite the almost universal opposition of Victorian
society. Given the chance to run away and avoid arrest, he
stayed, spoke up and was imprisoned and ruined for the “crime”
of being himself. No less brave was his wife, Constance, who
stood by her husband and who recognized Oscar's moral
courage when it would have been easier to follow the advice of
her friends and to turn her back on his fight.
30
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
Wilde was a great listener; he was not somebody who
dominated. He made everybody around the room feel more
intelligent for being there, and he did not weigh them down with
the speed of his mind. He opened his mind to things around
him. He had the very rare mix of a perfect verbal ear and a
beautiful color sense. Wilde was also proud and selfish. He
stuck to the idea that his genius placed him above the law and
that he was subject to different rules of morality.
In literature, the pursuit of forbidden love often has
tragic consequences. For Oscar Wilde, a prolific literary genius
and social critic who was at the peak of his success in the late
19th century, those consequences were all too real. His fall
from grace, like that of a classic tragic hero, was fast and
complete.
31
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
In many ways Wilde was ahead of his time. As an
aesthete, one who believed that art must be judged only as art
and not by contemporary morality, he had forward-thinking
views on censorship and obscenity; he refused to acknowledge
that books could be moral or immoral. To him a book was either
well written or poorly written.
According to people, Wilde had a strange way of
thinking which was reflected in his works. He believed in great
odds. Wilde fought tenaciously for the opposite view: that the
decisive role in life was played by the creative personality. His
famous dictum that life and nature imitated art is easy enough
to dismiss, but one might consider its implications before doing
so.
(http://www.oscarwilde.com)
32
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
4. MARRIAGE
After graduating from Magdalen, Wilde returned to
Dublin, where he met and fell in love with Florence Balcome.
She in turn became affianced to Bram Stoker. On hearing of her
engagement, Wilde wrote to her stating his intention to leave
Ireland permanently. He left in 1878 and returned to his native
country only twice, for brief visits. The next six years were spent
in London, Paris and the United States where he traveled to
deliver lectures. In 1884, Oscar Wilde returned to London; he
was full of talent, passion and, most of all, full of himself.
33
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
In London, he met Constance Lloyd, daughter of
wealthy Queen's Counsel, Horace Lloyd. She was visiting
Dublin in 1884 when Oscar was in the city to give lectures at
the Gaiety Theatre. He proposed to her and they married on
May 29, 1884, in Paddington, London.
Constance's income of £250 allowed the Wildes to live
in relative luxury. Although they had a son and they did not get
along well, they had another child. Their names were Cyril
(1885) and Vivyan (1886).
After
her
husband’s
fall,
Constance
was
very
understanding and she did her best to behave very well,
although hundreds of people around her were telling her she
should just cut Oscar off. Meanwhile, Oscar used to tell
Constance what she should wear. He got her involved in dress
reform and in various women's organizations.
34
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
Oscar was a loving father and husband. He showed
devotion to his wife, Constance, and to his sons, Cyril and
Vivyan. In Vivyan Holland's book, Son of Oscar Wilde, he
describes his father as being enchanting, mending his sons’
toys and telling stories. Oscar's marriage to Constance was
extremely important to him.
Oscar was very kind and generous with his family. Also
he gave them the importance they deserved, despite his
apparent neglect of them. He did not abandon them in the
sense of leaving them although he was imprisoned. His wife
died and her relatives insisted, through a lawyer, that he would
not be allowed to see his children again. And that was the
single thing that broke his heart in the whole catastrophe.
After Oscar's downfall, Constance took the lastname
Holland for herself and the boys. She died in 1898 following
spinal surgery and was buried in Staglieno Cemetery in
35
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
Genova, Italy. Cyril was killed in France in World War I. Vyvyan
survived the war and went on to become an author and
translator. He published his autobiography in 1954. His son,
Merlin Holland, edited and published several works about his
grandfather. Oscar Wilde's niece, Dolly Wilde, was involved in a
prolonged lesbian affair with the writer Natalie Clifford Barney.
(Op. Cit.)
5. HOMOSEXUALITY
Homosexuality had been illegal in Britain for hundreds
of years and was prosecuted to varying degrees by different
monarchs. From the 16th century to the early 1800s,
homosexuality was a capital crime, though the crime was rarely
punished so severely. Beginning in the 1830s, imprisonment
36
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
was the penalty for practicing sodomy, defined as any kind of
non-reproductive sexual contact, in spite of gender.
A sexual morality and social improvement movement in
the 1880s resulted in strong legislation against pedophilia, as
well as sodomy. The Criminal Law Amendment Act of 1885
(The Criminal Law Amendment Act 1885 or "An Act to make
further provision for the Protection of Women and Girls, the
suppression of brothels, and other purposes") raised the age of
consent from 13 to 16 and section 11 of the act made "gross
indecencies" punishable by imprisonment as a misbehavior.
Prior to the Criminal Law Amendment Act a sexual attack
against a child between 13 and 16 was not a criminal offence
and Parliament had intended section 11 to apply only to
pedophilia cases. Instead, conservative judges began to
consider
homosexual
sodomy
cases
under
the
gross
indecencies clause. (No lesbians were ever prosecuted at that
37
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
time.) Prosecution was still rare, however, and pursued only in
the most indiscreet cases.
For all the restrictions of the Victorian period, men could
in some respects be freer than in recent history in their attitudes
and behavior to one another. Men could be much more loving
and could be seen to be more affectionate, without causing
suspicion or insinuation. So much so, that even many of
Oscar's friends did not believe that he was homosexual until he
actually told them that he was.
There was no notion at all of a "gay man” but there was
a very strong sense of what constituted sin. Fornication was a
sin, adultery was a sin, sodomy was a sin; so indeed was
breach of promise to a fiancée. To commit the act of sodomy
reflected on an individual's morals, but did not imply a
psychological profile. That is to say, that there was not yet a
gay stereotype, that of "the homosexual" who because of his
38
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
sexuality had certain definable characteristics, dispositions, and
tastes.
No doubt, it was around Wilde's time that such
stereotyping was beginning. The psycho-analytic movement
was in its earliest stages but it was the Wilde scandal itself that
helped crystallize the stereotype. Everything about Wilde
himself, his wit, his self-confidence, his love of beauty, poetry,
affection for interior decoration, etc, built up the stereotype of a
gay.
(http://www.crimeanlibrary.com)
39
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
WILDE’S HOMOSEXUALITY, THE OTHER FACE OF
HIS LIFE
Oscar Wilde was a homosexual in a time when being
gay was a criminal offence. As a cover, Wilde was married with
two children and had an extraordinarily beautiful and loyal wife;
he was for the most part discreet in his homosexual activities.
His most popular work, The Picture of Dorian Gray,
caused a stir because of its not-so-subtle homosexual
references, but Wilde did not write Dorian Gray as a protest
piece.
One
evening,
Robert
Ross,
a
young
Canadian
houseguest, seduced Oscar and forced him finally to confront
the homosexual feelings that had obsessed him since his
schooldays. Oscar's work prospered on the realization that he
was gay, but his private life flew increasingly in the face of the
40
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
decidedly anti-homosexual conventions of late Victorian society.
As his literary career flourished, the risk of a huge scandal grew
ever larger.
In 1892, on the first night of his acclaimed play, Lady
Windermere's Fan, Oscar was re-introduced to a handsome
young Oxford student, Lord Alfred Douglas, nicknamed "Bosie".
Wilde had met him in Chelsea when Bosie was 22 and Wilde 15
years his elder. Oscar was fascinated by the arrogant, elegant
and intelligent young man and began the passionate and
stormy relationship which consumed and ultimately destroyed
him.
Bosie was a dropout at Oxford, a never-do-well who
was as loose with his morals as he was with his purse. He had
the temper of his family, which flared when he did not get his
way. Bosie knew of Wilde's affection for him early on and
succeeded in using it to his advantage. He relied on Wilde's
41
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
money when his own ran out and would show displeasure and
threaten self-injury when Wilde complained of his behavior or
criticized his literary skills. For the length of their relationship,
Lord Alfred used Oscar's love for him as a means to get what
he wanted.
While Oscar had eyes only for Bosie, he embraced the
promiscuous world that excited his lover, enjoying the company
of rent boys. In following the capricious and amoral Bosie,
Oscar neglected his wife and children, and suffered great guilt.
His flamboyant lifestyle, ego, and choice of romantic
partners had terrible consequences. Wilde was persecuted for
his art and for his love of another man. In some ways, his pride
and poor judgment in matters unrelated to art would cost him
everything. (Op. Cit.)
42
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
5.2 OSCAR AND BOSIE
Bosie’s real tragedy was that he was so like his father.
They were very similar and though he did love Oscar, his bad
behavior came from hatred of his father. When Oscar and Bosie
found themselves together, they found something in each other
which was really valuable and that was real love, full of passion
and madness.
There is a great citation about Oscar and Bosie: “the
over-loved meets the under-loved.” Oscar did have an
43
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
incredibly powerful relationship with his mother. After he lost the
defamation case, a lot of his friends were telling him to flee the
country. Speranza famously said “if you stay, even if you go to
prison, you will always be my son. But if you go, I will never
speak to you again.” The real influences on his life were his
mother, Bosie, and Robbie Ross.
For Wilde, who was much more modest about his
sexuality, it was a love-hate relationship, almost similar to the
moth and flame. He lusted for Lord Alfred, but he knew that
Bosie would only hurt him. His head told him the cost of Boise’s
love was too expensive; his heart considered it a deal.
Being Irish, being homosexual at that period meant
being a stranger, an observer of society and, of course, Oscar
was a parvenu. One of the cruelest things Bosie used to say
about him was that he was always writing about the upper
classes, but Oscar did not really know what they were like.
44
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
Later, during the '20s, that scandal became very fixed in
the British public's mind because many of the Oxbridge
generation of the '20s modeled themselves on Wilde. Oscar
Wilde was a prominent gay personality in that period. He was
also rare among artists and geniuses and he was an immensely
decent and kindhearted man.
At that time, the British ruling class was for a brief period
more homogeneous than it had ever been. For about fifty years
they all went to public schools, all went to the major universities,
they went to clubs, they married late and they were bachelors
for a long time. There was a great deal of homosexual activity
at public school, much more than there is now because the
boys had much less adult supervision within the boarding
houses. To that extent there was quite serious hypocrisy among
people then about Oscar Wilde, because at school, seeing
homosexual acts could not be avoided.
(http://www.law.umkc.edu)
45
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
5.3 QUEENSBURY RULES
Lord Alfred Douglas was the son of the Marquis of
Queensbury, John Sholto Douglas, a hot-headed Scotsman
who was prone to violence. It could have been because he
was drunk most of the time; Queensbury was a champion
boxer and created rules of boxing still in use today. He
tended to settle things by fist and gun. He was well known for
abusing his wife and children and had even fought openly
with one son in downtown London. The marquis was a
declared and aggressive atheist who saw nothing wrong with
disrupting services by shouting. Once he disrupted the
opening of a play that he felt was too religious, and in front of
46
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
the Prince of Wales attempted to whip a cabinet minister
because he feared the man was courting his oldest son.
Queensbury seemed obsessed with sex, perhaps because
his second wife had sought an annulment soon after
marriage. His first marriage had ended because of his
adultery. The marquis had difficulty getting along with his
son. The marquis could hardly stand to be in the same room
with Lord Alfred and the feeling was mutual.
Everything Queensbury was, Lord Alfred was not. Lord
Alfred was a poet and dreamer. He was handsome, weak and
fair, while Queensbury was windblown, tough and leathery.
The marquis was a fighter and Lord Alfred was a philosopher.
Queensbury loathed Lord Alfred's way of life and let him know
it in no uncertain terms. Lord Alfred once replied to one of the
marquis’s furies with, "What a funny little man you are.” In
normal circumstances, the marquis and his son would merely
avoid each other and travel in different circles. Upper class
47
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
London was small, but not so small that one could not live a
full life without encountering the other.
Queensbury suspected Wilde was a homosexual and
that he was bent on seducing Lord Alfred. The publication of
“Two Loves” proved it to him. The Marquis tried everything he
could to pull his son away from Wilde's control. He stalked the
men as they went about London and accosted any
restaurateur who served them. He threatened his son with
excommunication from the family. Still Lord Alfred and Oscar
remained close friends. "Your intimacy with this man, Wilde,
must either cease or I will disown you and stop all money
supplies," Queensbury threatened in 1893. He publicly
reprimanded his son and even showed up at Wilde's house
with a champion boxer to threaten the author. Wilde's
response was, "I do not know what the Queensbury rules are,
but the Wilde rules are to shoot on sight!" The dispute
between Queensbury and Wilde went on for several years and
48
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
came to climax as Wilde's play, The Importance of Being
Earnest, was set to premiere in London. Queensbury
threatened to disturb the premiere and ruin the performance.
Given that he had previously successfully carried out a similar
threat, Wilde took Queensbury seriously. He hired a cordon of
guards to stand outside the theater while the play was on. The
marquis tried to make good his threat but was frustrated. He
paced outside the theater with a bouquet of vegetables until
the performance was over. Queensbury wrote once more to
his son, following through on his threat to reject him. (Op. Cit.)
5.4 SCANDAL
Then the dragon awoke. Bosie's father, the violent,
eccentric, bad-tempered Marquis of Queensbury, became
aware that Bosie, whose "unmanly" and careless behavior he
detested, was playing around London with its greatest
playwright, Oscar Wilde.
49
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
In 1895, days after the triumphant first night of “The
Importance Of Being Earnest,” Queensbury stormed into
Wilde's club, “The Albemarle,” and finding him absent, left a
card with the porter, addressed "To Oscar Wilde posing
Sodomite" (...misspelling the insult). Bosie, who hated his
father, persuaded Oscar to sue the Marquis for defamation. As
homosexuality was itself illegal, Queensbury was able to
destroy Oscar's case at the trial by calling as witnesses rent
boys who would describe Wilde's sexual encounters in open
court.
Wilde felt he was left with no other choice but to defend
his honor and sue for criminal libel. Queensbury had been
stalking him, he had threatened his living and now insulted him
publicly. Friends recommended him not to sue, not to pay
attention to the insult and to move on, perhaps traveling to
America or the continent. But Wilde would have none of them.
50
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
He
brought
criminal
charges
against
Queensbury
and
demanded satisfaction. The marquis expected no less and was
prepared. In police court on Bow Street he made the statement
that not only had he called Wilde a sodomite; he had done so
for the good of the general public. This last statement was
important, because now if Wilde lost, the government would
have no choice but to pursue criminal charges for gross
indecency. To do otherwise would show favoritism for the elite.
Wilde expected the trial to be little more than a chance
to exhibit his clever repartee on the stand. After all, it was up to
Queensbury to prove the truth of his statements, not for Wilde
to disprove them. The courtroom might have been a place of
combat, but it was the type of combat that Wilde, not
Queensbury, could exploit. Wilde approached one of England's
most respectable lawyers, Edward Clarke, and asked him to
take the case for the prosecution. Clarke's reputation was one
of immense respectability and correctness.
51
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
He did not often take cases in which he suspected his
client was guilty and he demanded honesty from those he
represented. His previous experience with sodomy cases was
in the divorce court, where he represented abandoned wives. "I
can only take the case, sir," Clarke said, "if you assure me on
your honor as an English gentleman that there is not and never
has been any foundation for the charges that are made against
you." Wilde very firmly said that Queensbury's charges were
baseless and false and Clarke agreed to take the case.
Queensbury chose his defence counsel wisely. He
engaged Edward Carson (later Sir Edward), who had attended
Oxford with Wilde and had a competitive rivalry with Oscar
there. A thin, balding man, Carson was soft-spoken but had the
actor's command of voice that allowed him to lull a witness into
a false sense of security only to drill home a point with sonorous
rumblings. He was an implacable questioner who could seize a
52
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
weakness or contradictory statement and use it to destroy his
adversary.
Returning from a holiday on the continent, Wilde was
met by his family and friends, who urged him for the last time to
drop the charges. They pointed out that if he should lose, the
Crown would have no choice but to charge him with gross
indecency under the Criminal Law Amendment Act.
Bosie laid down an ultimatum. “It is them or me,” he told
Wilde; “walk out of the meeting.” Suddenly realizing the
enormous interests, Wilde could only shrug and say it was too
late to go back. On April 3, 1895, the trial opened in London. It
was a celebrated affair, for the men involved were of highest
English society and the testimony promised to be as
entertaining as any of the fictions Wilde had written. Sir Edward
Clarke opened the trial. In journeyman style he laid out the story
of the relationship among Wilde, Bosie and Queensbury. He
sought to dull the shock of the flowery language in the letters
53
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
Wilde wrote to Lord Alfred by introducing them himself, rather
than giving Carson the advantage.
The suit was condemned from the start, and Wilde's
closest friends knew it. The general feeling among those who
cared in London was that Wilde was gay and that Queensbury's
allegations were true. It was also commonly believed that no
jury would rule against Queensbury, for he could easily play the
desperate father trying to save his son from Wilde. But Lord
Alfred was inflexible that Wilde pursued the charges. His family,
which believed the men when they said nothing untoward was
going on between them, agreed to pay for the trial, taking away
Oscar's last escape route.
5.5 PRISON
Oscar lost the libel case against Queensbury and was
arrested by the crown. With essentially no credible defence
against charges of homosexual conduct, he was convicted and
54
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
sentenced to two years of hard labor in Reading Gaol.
Unreformed prison conditions caused a calamitous series of
illnesses and brought him to death's door.
5.6 AFTER PRISON
Oscar Wilde was never truly assimilated into London
society
although
he
tried
again
to
escape
from
his
homosexuality after his release from prison; he remained an
outsider until his death. Initially, it was his Irishness that set him
apart.
Constance fled the country with their children and
changed the family name, always hoping that Oscar would
return to his family and give up Bosie, now also living in exile.
When Oscar was released from prison in 1897, he tried to act in
55
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
accordance with Constance's wishes, sending Bosie a deeply
moving epic letter, "De Profundis," explaining why he could
never see him again.
Love, passion, obsession and loneliness had combined
to defeat prudence and discretion. Despite the certain
knowledge that their relationship was condemned, Oscar was
unable to resist temptation and he and Bosie were together
again, with disastrous consequences.
On May 14, 1897, Wilde was given his freedom. After
his imprisonment, he hid openly under the name of Sebastian
Melmoth. In December of the same year, Lord Alfred Douglas
abandoned him and because of that Wilde moved to Paris. On
April 7, his ex-wife, Constance Lloyd, died in Génova, Italy. On
November 30, 1900, he died of meningitis in d'Alsace Hotel, in
Paris, France. He was buried in the Cemetery of Père-Lachaise.
56
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
(http://www.booksfactory.com)
6. AESTHETICISM
At once a theory of art and an approach to living,
aestheticism emphasizes the absolute autonomy of works of
art, their total preeminence over other aspects of life, and their
independence
from
moral
and
social
conditions.
The
aestheticist movement took on extraordinary force at the end of
the nineteenth century, primarily in France and England, but
also in Italy, Germany, and to a lesser extent, in the United
States.
In histories of the movement, aestheticism is often
associated with the French l'art pour l'art movement, literary
decadence, and fin-de-siècle dandyism. Historically, it has been
linked to homosexuality, not only because of the implications of
57
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
its principles, but also because of the personal sexual tastes of
some of its key adherents.
Among its more important propagandists were, in
France,
Théophile
Gautier,
Charles
Baudelaire,
J.
K.
Huysmans, Paul Verlaine, Count Robert de Montesquiou,
Claude Debussy, Arthur Rimbaud, Stéphane Mallarmé, Jean
Cocteau, and Marcel Proust; and, in England, Algernon
Swinburne, George Moore, Walter Pater, Lionel Johnson,
Arthur Symons, William Butler Yeats, James McNiell Whistler,
John Addington Symonds, Edmund Gosse, and Oscar Wilde.
The variety of such an inventory should help indicate
how troublesome is any attempt to define aestheticism as,
strictly speaking, a homosexual enterprise. Yet there is little
question that the arguments of the aestheticist movement were
frequently
thinly
obscure
attempts
by
fin-de-siècle
homosexuals, particularly those educated at Oxford and
58
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
Cambridge, at justifying relations between members of the
same sex.
(http://www.glbtq.com/literature/aestheticism.html)
6.1 AESTHETICISM IN ENGLAND
In
England,
Swinburne,
Symonds,
and
Pater
established a tradition of English aestheticism that threatened
the Victorian belief, expressed most forcefully by Matthew
Arnold, in art's requisite ethical and social dimension.
At a time when nineteenth-century social thinkers were
establishing medical models for an understanding of same-sex
behavior, these writers looked back to Greek and Renaissance
civilizations for alternative historical examples of homosexual
affection that had been tolerated and even encouraged.
59
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
In earlier periods of high creative achievement, English
aesthetes insisted that artists of genius by definition defied
ordinary categories of correct masculine and feminine behavior,
implying that all moral distinction must be included in the search
for the beautiful. (Op. Cit.)
6.2 OSCAR WILDE, STYLE
Although Wilde did not pay attention to Pater's influence
on his work, Pater, Gautier, and Huysmans were of collective
importance in helping determine Wilde's special brand of
aestheticism.
Although Wilde is generally considered to be the fin-desiècle aesthete par excellence, looked at as a whole, his
writings on aestheticism reveal a far more complex and even
critical attitude toward a life devoted to artistic sensation.
60
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891), in portraying the
cruelty and disintegration of a young aesthete, is scarcely a
defence of aestheticism.
The true Wildean aesthete in Dorian Gray is Lord Henry,
who though married, is obsessed with Dorian and attempts to
attract him into a life devoted to art and hedonism. Dorian's fall
into crime is also an allegory of how Lord Henry's aesthetic
axioms, taken to extremes, negate life, even life devoted to art.
Identifying two basic energies of art, Wilde emphasizes
that artistic works exist in isolation from experience and that art
is soaked in images. Most important, Wilde insists that just as
form determined content, art dictates life.
In sum, Wilde had a terrific style. For him, style was a
moral attitude and people really respond to that. When he was
serious, he was very serious. The Soul of Man under Socialism
61
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
and The Critic as Artist are both profound examinations of lateVictorian society, which have a lot to say to us still.
7. SOCIALISM
The main advantage that could be obtained from
Socialism would be certainly that socialism would raise us
above the sordid necessity of working for others. Wilde
sustained that in socialism the individual's development would
become an extraordinary benefit for the whole community.
It was fundamental to offer to the individual ideal
conditions so that his or her expansion and growth as a human
being would be given without limitations of any kind. Wilde
never separated his dream of the possible construction of
socialism from the independence of his country.
62
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
These ideas caused him some problems with the
Victorian literary critics. The Industrial Revolution had created in
him the false feeling of the infallibility of the bourgeois project of
civilization, and because of it the Victorian canon was lubricated
from top to bottom with the belief that all the towns of the planet
deserved unconditional delivery.
Wilde used to say that the two big changes of his life
had taken place when his parents sent him to Oxford and when
society sent him to prison. We cannot say that these two events
were decisive landmarks in his discreet confrontation with the
Victorian bourgeoisie, but they were decisive in the design of
his profile as poet and writer. The material that both
experiences supplied facilitated in him a better knowledge of
himself and of course the creation of that personal literary world
in which the only visible hero was himself.
63
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
(http://wilde.thefreelibrary.com/Soul-of-Man-underSocialism)
7.1 THE SOCIALISM OF OSCAR WILDE
On November 30, 1900, Oscar Wilde died in a cheap
Paris hotel, ruined and alone except for his two closest friends.
How is it that a man, who was once the darling of London
society with two hit plays in the West End and all the wealth that
this brings, could end his days in such miserable surroundings?
This was in fact the last contradiction in a life full of
contradictions. When most people think of Oscar Wilde they
either bring to mind an image of an excellent writer, a fop, or a
pedantic person. Or, of a man who wrote several good plays
and invented some witty phrases before gaining notoriety by
being imprisoned for apparent acts of homosexuality. He was,
in fact, never arrested actually committing such an act, but the
fact of being accused was enough.
64
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
Interestingly,
Lord
Douglas
Hamilton
was
never
arrested, not even convicted, despite being cited in the same
evidence that was used to convict Wilde. Oscar did write
several excellent plays and is remembered for his witticisms,
but he also wrote brilliant essays, short stories, children’s
stories, and poems. (Op. Cit. )
7.2 POLITICS
Wilde spent most of his adult life surrounded by the
upper class of London society but cruelly satirized and parodied
it in his plays. He surrounded himself with all the decorations
that his fame and wealth gave him, but complained about the
poverty that afflicted all societies. He seemed on the surface a
man committed to the wealth and privileges afforded to someone
in his circumstances, but he was in regular contact with many of
the most important radicals of his days, and in February 1891
65
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
wrote an essay entitled “The Soul of Man under Socialism.”
Wilde first came into contact with radicals and radical ideas
when he moved to London after graduating from Oxford. Around
1880 he had regular contact with Mrs. Margaret Hunt, a novelist
and wife of Alfred Hunt, a painter and radical. It is clear from his
letters that he spent a lot of time in the company of the Hunts,
discussing politics.
At this time, he tried his hand at some political poems of
his own. They are, as to be expected, of a young man being
exposed to such ideas for the first time, full of passion and
sentiment but lacking in any real understanding, or development
of those ideas. “Quantum Mutata” (How much has changed) for
example, and other political poems written at this time such as
“Sonnet To Liberty,” “Libertatis Sacra Fames” (Sacred Hunger
for Liberty) express his enthusiasm for the socialist cause. “Ave
Imperatrix,” another of his political works, in the last stanza,
prophesies the end of England’s imperialism by the birth of a
66
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
republic. 1880 also saw the publication of Wilde’s first play Vera
or The Nihilists which in truth is not better than his better-known
plays. It does, however, despite the overtly romantic ending,
contain many political sentiments, to the extent that it was
refused permission by the Lord Chamberlain to be produced in
England.
8. AFTER HIS DEATH
.
Wilde was a man undone by trying to lead a double life,
but one who however found the courage to be true to himself.
Wilde worried that his prohibited plays would be forgotten, but
they are constantly revived, their place in world literature secure.
Nearly a century after his death, he is remembered even more
than they - and as a hero.
67
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
II
CHAPTER TWO
THE VICTORIAN AGE
11.
EPOCH
12.
YOUNG QUEEN VICTORIA
13.
VICTORIAN ENGLAND, EVENTS
14.
SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS
15.
VICTORIAN LONDON
16.
VICTORIAN MORALITY
17.
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
18.
SCIENCE,
PHILOSOPHY
AND
DISCOVERY
19.
HOMOSEXUALITY AND LAW IN ENGLAND
10. WILDE’S PLACE IN SOCIETY
68
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
Manchester Town Hall
69
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
II
CHAPTER TWO
THE VICTORIAN AGE
1. EPOCH
Queen Victoria had the longest reign in British history.
The cultural, political, economic, industrial and scientific
changes that occurred during her reign were remarkable.
When Victoria ascended to the throne, Britain was
essentially agrarian and rural; after her death, the country
was highly industrialized and connected by an expansive
railway network.
During the first decades of Victoria's reign a series of
epidemics-typhus and cholera- crop failures, and economic
collapses
happened.
There
were
disturbances
over
enfranchisement and the repeal of the Corn Laws, which
70
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
had been established to protect British agriculture during
the Napoleonic Wars in the early part of the 19th century.
Discoveries by Charles Lyell and Charles Darwin
began to question centuries of suppositions about man and
the world, about science and history, and about religion and
philosophy. As the country grew increasingly connected by
an expansive network of railway lines, small isolated
communities became more and more accessible, so that
entire economies shifted.
The mid-Victorian period also showed significant social
changes. An evangelical revival occurred alongside a series
of legal changes in women's rights. While women were not
enfranchised during the Victorian period, they did gain the
legal right on their property upon marriage through the
Married Women's Property Act, the right to divorce, and the
right to fight for custody of their children upon separation.
71
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
The period is often characterized as a long period of
peace and economic, colonial, and industrial consolidation,
temporarily broken by the Crimean War, although Britain
was at war every year during this period. Towards the end
of the century, the policies of New Imperialism led to
increasing colonial conflicts and eventually to the Boer War.
Domestically, the agenda was increasingly liberal with a
number of shifts in the direction of gradual political reform
and the widening of the franchise.
In the early part of the era the British House of
Commons was dominated by the two parties, the Whigs
and the Tories. From the late 1850s onwards the Whigs
became the Liberals. Many prominent statesmen led one or
other of the parties. The unsolved problems relating to Irish
Home Rule played a great part in politics in the later
72
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
Victorian
era,
particularly
in
view
of
Gladstone's
determination to achieve a political treat.
(http://www.booksfactory.com/writers/wilde_es.htm)
In May of 1857, the Indian Mutiny, a widespread revolt
in India against the rule of the British East India Company,
was started by sepoys, native Indian spies/soldiers, in the
Company's army. The rebellion, involving not just sepoys
but many sectors of the Indian population as well, was
largely ended after a year. In response to the Mutiny, the
East India Company was abolished in August 1858 and
India came under the direct rule of the British crown,
beginning the period of the British Raj.
In January 1858, the Prime Minister Lord Palmerston
responded to the Orsini plot against French emperor
Napoleon III, the bombs for which were bought in
73
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
Birmingham, by attempting to make such acts a crime, but
the resulting disturbances forced him to resign.
In July 1866, an angry crowd in London, protesting
Rusell’s resignation as prime minister, was dispersed from
Hyde Park by the police; they tore down iron railings and
trampled the flower beds. Disturbances like this convinced
Derby and Disraeli of the need for further parliamentary
reform.
During 1875, Britain bought Egypt's shares in the Suez
Canal as the African nation was forced to raise money to
pay off its debts.
In 1882, Egypt became a protectorate of Great Britain
after British troops occupied land surrounding the Suez
Canal to secure the vital trade route, and the passage to
India.
74
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
In 1884 the Fabian Society was founded in London by
a group of middle-class intellectuals, including Quaker
Edward Pease, Havelock Ellis, and Edith Nesbit, to promote
socialism. George Bernard Shaw and H.G. Wells would be
among many famous names who later joined this society.
On November 13, 1887, tens of thousands of people,
many of them socialists or unemployed, gathered in
Trafalgar Square to demonstrate against the government.
Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Charles Warren
ordered armed soldiers and 2,000 police constables to
respond. Rioting broke out, hundreds were injured and two
people died. This event was referred to as Bloody Sunday.
(http://www.pubs.socialistreviewindex.org.uk/sr224/charlton.
htm)
(http://www.vialarp.org/GD/background_2_victorian_culture.
html)
75
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
2. YOUNG QUEEN VICTORIA
Victoria,
the
daughter of the
Duke of Kent and Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg, was
born in 1819. She inherited the throne of Great Britain at
the age of eighteen, upon the death of her uncle, William IV
in 1837, and reigned until 1901, granting her name upon
her age.
She married her mother's nephew, Albert (1819-1861),
Prince of Saxe-Coburg Gotha, in 1840, and until his death
he remained the focal point of her life; she bore him nine
children.
76
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
Albert replaced Lord Melbourne, the Whig Prime
Minister who had served her as her first personal and
political tutor and instructor, as Victoria's chief advisor.
Albert was moralistic, conscientious and progressive, if
rather
hypocrital,
sanctimonious,
and
intellectually
superficial, and with Victoria initiated various reforms and
innovations.
He organized the Great Exhibition of 1851 which was
responsible for a great deal of the popularity later enjoyed
by the British monarchy. In contrast to the Great Exhibition,
housed in the Crystal Palace and viewed by proud
Victorians as a monument to their own cultural and
technological achievements, we may remember that the
government presided by Victoria and Albert had, in the
midst of the potato famine of 1845, continued to permit the
export of grain and cattle from Ireland to England while over
a million Irish farmers starved to death.
77
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
(http://www.victorianstation.com/palace.html)
After Albert's death in 1861 a desolate Victoria
remained in self-imposed seclusion for ten years. Her
genuine but obsessive mourning, which would occupy her
for the rest of her life, played an important role in the
evolution of what would become the Victorian mentality.
Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha,
Prince Consort
Thereafter, she lived at Windsor or Balmoral, travelling
abroad once a year, but making few public appearances in
78
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
Britain itself. Although she maintained a careful policy of
official political neutrality, she did not get on at all well with
Gladstone (William Gladstone, British Prime Minister)
However, she succumbed to the flattery of Disraeli,
and permitted him to have her crowned Empress of India in
1876. She tended as a rule to take an active dislike of
British politicians who criticized the conduct of the
conservative regimes of Europe, many of which were run by
her relatives.
By 1870 she was not as popular as at the beginning.
At the time the monarchy cost the nation £400,000 per
annum, and many wondered whether the largely symbolic
institution was worth the expense. Costs increased
constantly thereafter until Victoria’s death.
79
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
Her golden aniversary in 1887 was a Grand National
celebration, as was her diamond aniversary in 1897. She
died, a venerable old lady, at Osborne on January 22,
1901, having reigned for sixty-four years.
(http://www.scholars.nus.edu.sg/victorian/vn/victor6.html)
3. VICTORIAN ENGLAND, EVENTS.
80
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
Victoria supervised England at the height of its
overseas power. The British Empire was established in her
reign, and it reached its greatest extension under her.
Things did not start off smoothly, however.
The Chartist movement began in 1839 with demands
for electoral reform and universal male suffrage. The
movement was taken over by radical reformers and was
dealt with very severely by the authorities.
The Anti Corn Law League was another voice for
social reform. Reformers advocated total free trade, but it
was not until 1846 that the Corn Laws were completely
repealed.
81
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
The Great Exhibition. Victoria's husband, Prince
Albert, was the main sponsor of the 1851 Great Exhibition.
That was the first "world's fair," with exhibits from most of
the world's nations. The exhibition was held in Hyde Park,
and the showpiece was the Crystal Palace, a prefabricated
steel and glass structure like a gigantic greenhouse, which
housed the exhibits. The Crystal Palace was disassembled
after the Exhibition and moved to Sydenham, in South
London, where it was completely destroyed in 1936.
The Crimean War. Overseas England became
involved in the Crimean War (1854), which was notable only
in that it provided evidence of military incompetence and the
material for the poem, "The Charge of the Light Brigade", by
Alfred Tennyson. One positive point that came out of the
war was the establishment of more humane nursing
practices under the influence of Florence Nightingale, the
brave “Lady with the Lamp.”
82
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
The Indian Mutiny. A few years later (1857) saw the
Indian Mutiny. India had been administered by the East
India Company with government co-operation. The spark
for the Mutiny was provided when the army introduced new
rifle cartridges which were rumoured to have been greased
with lard. Any Hindu who bit off the end of the cartridge,
which was essential practice when loading a gun, was
committing sacrilege. The army rebelled and massacred
many British officers, administrators, and families. After the
Mutiny was put down, the administration of India was taken
over by the government of Britain.
4. SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS
Prior to the industrial revolution, Britain had a very rigid
social structure consisting of three distinct classes: the
Church and aristocracy, the middle class, and the working
poorer class.
83
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
The top class was known as the aristocracy. It
included the Church and nobility and had great power and
wealth. This class consisted of about two percent of the
population, who were born into nobility and who owned the
majority of the land. It included the royal family, lords
spiritual and the clergy, great officers of state, and those
above the degree of baronet. These people were privileged
and avoided taxes.
The middle class consisted of the bourgeoisie, the
middle working class. It was made up of factory owners,
bankers, shopkeepers, merchants, lawyers, engineers,
businessmen, traders, and other professionals. These
people could be sometimes extremely rich, but in normal
circumstances they were not privileged, and they especially
resented this. There was a very large difference between
the middle class and the lower class.
84
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
The British lower class was divided into two sections:
“the working class” (laborers), and “the poor” (those who
were not working, or not working regularly, and were
receiving public charity). The lower class contained men,
women, and children performing many types of labor,
including factory work, seamstressing, chimney sweeping,
mining, and other jobs. Both the poorer class and the
middle class had to pay large amounts of taxes. This third
class consisted of about eighty-five percent of the
population but owned less than fifty percent of the land.
Industrialization
changed
the
class
structure
dramatically in the late 18th century. Hostility was created
between the upper and lower classes. As a result of
industrialisation, there was a huge increase of the middle
and working class. As the Industrial Revolution progressed
there was further social division. Capitalists, for example,
employed industrial workers, who were one component of
85
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
the working classes but beneath the industrial workers was
a submerged "under class" sometimes referred to as the
"sunken people," which lived in poverty. The under class
was more susceptible to exploitation and was therefore
exploited.
The
government
consisted
of
a
“constitutional
monarchy” headed by Queen Victoria. Only the royalty
could rule. Other politicians came from the aristocracy. The
system was criticized by many as being in favor of the
upper classes, and during the late eighteenth century
philosophers and writers began to question the social status
of the nobility.
5. VICTORIAN LONDON
86
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
Big Ben
The Victorian city of London was a city of surprising
contrasts. New buildings and affluent development went
hand in hand with horribly overcrowded slums where people
lived in the worst conditions imaginable. The population
surged during the 19th century, from about 1 million in 1800
to over 6 million a century later. This growth far exceeded
London's ability to look after the basic needs of its citizens.
A combination of coal-fired stoves and poor sanitation
made the air heavy and the smell was disgusting. Immense
amounts of raw sewage were poured straight into the
Thames River. Even royals were not immune from the stink
of London. When Queen Victoria occupied Buckingham
Palace her apartments were ventilated through the common
87
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
sewers, a fact that was not discovered until some 40 years
later.
Upon this scene entered an unlikely hero, an engineer
named Joseph Bazalgette. Bazalgette was responsible for
the building of over 2,100 km of tunnels and pipes to divert
sewage outside the city. This made a drastic impact on the
death rate, and outbreaks of cholera dropped dramatically
after Bazalgette's work was finished. Bazalgette also was
responsible for the design of the Embankment, and the
Battersea, Hammersmith, and Albert Bridges.
Before the engineering triumphs of Bazalgette came
the architectural triumphs of George IV's favorite designer,
John Nash. Nash designed the broad avenues of Regent
Street, Piccadilly Circus, Carlton House Terrace, and
Oxford Circus, as well as the prolonged transformation of
Buckingham House into a palace worthy of a monarch.
88
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
(http://www.infomat.net/1/class_room/worksheets/history/7_
11/Victorians/vic_1.htm)
In 1829 Sir Robert Peel founded the Metropolitan
Police to handle law and order in areas outside the City
proper. These police became known as "Bobbies" after their
founder.
Just behind Buckingham Palace the Grosvenor family
developed the aristocratic Belgrave Square. In 1830 land
just east of the palace was cleared of the royal stables to
create Trafalgar Square, and the new National Gallery
sprang up there just two years later.
The early part of the 19th century was the golden age
of steam. The first railway in London was built from London
Bridge to Greenwich in 1836, and a great railway boom
followed. Major stations were built at Euston (1837),
Paddington (1838), Fenchurch Street (1841), Waterloo
(1848), and King's Cross (1850).
89
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
In 1834 the Houses of Parliament at Westminster
Palace burned down. They were gradually replaced by the
triumphant mock-Gothic Houses of Parliament designed by
Charles Barry and A.W. Pugin.
The clock tower of the Houses of Parliament, known
erroneously as Big Ben, was built in 1859. The origin of the
name Big Ben is in some dispute, but there is no argument
that the moniker refers to the bells of the tower, NOT to the
large clock itself.
In 1848 the great Potato Famine struck Ireland. What
has this to do with the history of London? Plenty. Over
100,000 impoverished Irish fled their native land and settled
in London, making at one time up to 20% of the total
population of the city.
As we mentioned before, Prince Albert, consort of
Queen Victoria was largely responsible for one of the
defining moments of the era that bears his wife's name; the
90
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
Great Exhibition of 1851. This was the first great world's
fair. The Exhibition was held in Hyde Park, and the
centerpiece was Joseph Paxton's revolutionary iron and
glass hall, reproduced as the "Crystal Palace."
The exhibition was an immense success, with over
200,000 visitors. After the event, the Crystal Palace was
moved to Sydenham, in South London, where it stayed until
it was burned to the ground in 1936. The proceeds from the
Great Exhibition went towards the founding of two new
permanent exihibitions, which became the Science Museum
and the Victoria and Albert Museum.
The year 1863 saw the completion of the very first
underground railway in London, from Paddington to
Farringdon Road. The project was so successful that other
lines soon followed.
91
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
The expansion of transport was not limited to dry land.
The Thames was full of ships from all over the world, and
London had more shipyards than anyplace on the globe.
For all the economic expansion of the Industrial
Revolution, living conditions among London's poor were
horrible. Children as young as 5 were often set to work
begging or sweeping chimneys. Campaigners like Charles
Dickens did much to make the condition of the poor in
London known to the literate classes through his novels,
notably Oliver Twist. In 1870 those efforts bore some fruit
with the passage of laws providing compulsory education
for children between the ages of 5 and 12.
(http://www.infomat.net/1/class_room/worksheets/history/7_
11/Victorians/vic_1.htm)
6. VICTORIAN MORALITY
92
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
Victorian morality was the result of the moral views of
people living at the time of Queen Victoria in particular, and
to the moral climate of Great Britain throughout the 19th
century in general. It was not tied to this historical period
and can describe any set of values that exposed sexual
repression, low tolerance of crime, and a strong social ethic.
Historians regarded the Victorian era as a time of
many contradictions. Plenty of social movements concerned
with improving public morals co-existed with a class system
that permitted harsh living conditions for many people. The
apparent contradiction between the widespread cultivation
93
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
of an outward appearance of dignity and restraint and the
prevalence of social phenomena that included prostitution
and child labor were two sides of the same coin. Various
social reform movements and high principles arose from
attempts to improve the harsh conditions.
Victorian prudery sometimes went so far as to think it
improper to say "leg" in mixed company; instead, the
preferred euphemism “limb” was used. Those going for a
swim in the sea at the beach would use a bathing machine.
However, historians Peter Gay and Michael Mason both
pointed out that we often confuse Victorian etiquette for a
lack of knowledge. For example, despite the use of the
bathing machine, it was also possible to see people bathing
nude.
Another
example
of
the
gap
between
our
preconceptions of Victorian sexuality and the facts is that
contrary to what we might expect Queen Victoria liked to
94
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
draw and collect male nudes and even gave her husband
one as a present.
(http://www.victoriaperiod.org/Oscar_Wilde)
Verbal or written communication of emotion or sexual
feelings was also often excluded so people instead used
the language of flowers. However they also wrote explicit
erotica, perhaps the most famous being the racy tell-all, My
Secret Life by Henry Spencer Ashbee, who wrote under the
pseudonym Walter. Victorian erotica also survives in private
letters archived in museums and even in a study of
women's orgasms. Some current historians now believe
that the myth of Victorian repression can be traced back to
early twentieth-century views such as those of Lytton
Strachey, a member of the Bloomsbury Group (It was an
English group of artists and scholars of "Bohemian"
disposition that existed from around 1905 until around
World War II.) who wrote Eminent Victorians.
95
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
Victoria ascended to the throne in 1837, only four
years after the abolition of slavery in the British Empire. The
anti-slavery movement had campaigned for years to
achieve the ban, succeeding with a partial abolition in 1807
and the full ban on slave trade, but not slave ownership, in
1833. It had taken so long because the anti-slavery morality
was exposed against a powerful capitalist element in the
empire which claimed that their businesses would be
destroyed if they were not permitted to exploit slave labor.
Eventually, plantation owners in the Caribbean received
£20 million in compensation.
In Victoria's time the British Royal Navy patrolled the
Atlantic Ocean, stopping any ships that it suspected of
trading African slaves to the Americas and freeing any
slaves found. The British had set up a Crown Colony in
West Africa, Sierra Leone, and transported freed slaves
96
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
there. Freed slaves from Nova Scotia founded and named
the capital of Sierra Leone "Freetown." Thus, when Victoria
became Queen the British occupied a high moral ground as
the nation that stood for freedom and decency. Many
people living at that time argued that the living conditions of
workers in English factories seemed worse than those
endured by some slaves.
In the same way, throughout the Victorian Era,
movements for justice, freedom and other strong moral
values opposed greed, exploitation and cynicism. The
writings of Charles Dickens in particular observed and
recorded these conditions.
97
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
Charles Dickens
7. HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
The
term
Victorian
has
acquired
a
range
of
connotations, including that of a particularly strict set of
moral standards, which were often applied hypocritically.
This stems from the image of Queen Victoria and her
husband, Prince Albert, perhaps even more so as
innocents, unaware of the private habits of many of her
respectable subjects; this particularly relates to their sexual
lives. This image is mistaken: Victoria’s attitude toward
sexual morality was a consequence of her knowledge of the
corrosive effect of the loose morals of the aristocracy in
98
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
earlier reigns upon the public’s respect for the nobility and
the Crown.
Two hundred years earlier the Puritan republican
movement, which led to the installment of Oliver Cromwell,
had temporarily overthrown the British monarchy. During
England’s years as a republic, the law imposed a strict
moral code on the people.
When the monarchy was restored, a period of loose
living and debauchery appeared to be a reaction to the
earlier repression. The two social forces of Puritanism and
Libertinism continued to motivate the collective psyche of
Great Britain from the restoration onward. This was
particularly significant in the public perceptions of the later
Hanoverian monarchs who immediately preceded Queen
Victoria. For instance, her uncle George IV was commonly
perceived as a pleasure-seeking playboy, whose behavior
in office was the cause of a lot of scandals.
99
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
By the time of Victoria, the interaction between
cultured morals and vulgarity was thoroughly included in
British culture.
(http://www.home.comcast)
8. SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND DISCOVERY
The interest in older works of literature led the
Victorians much further afield to find new old works with a
great interest in translating of literature from the farthest
corners of their new empire and beyond. Arabic and
Sanskrit literature were some of the richest bodies of work
to be discovered and translated for popular consumption.
The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam is one of the best of these
works, translated by Edward FitzGerald who introduced
much of his own poetic skill into a free adaptation of the
11th century work. The explorer Richard Francis Burton
also translated many exotic works from beyond Europe
100
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
including The Perfumed Garden, The Arabian Nights and
Kama Sutra
Charles Darwin's work On the Origin of Species
affected society and thought in the Victorian era, and still
does today.
The Victorian era was an important time for the
development of Science and the Victorians had a mission to
describe and classify the entire natural world. Much of this
writing does not rise to the level of being regarded as
literature but one book in particular, Charles Darwin's On
the Origin of Species, remains famous. The theory of
evolution contained within the work shook many of the
ideas the Victorians had about themselves and their place
in the world and although it took a long time to be widely
accepted it would change, dramatically, subsequent thought
and literature.
101
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
Other important non-fiction works of the time are the
philosophical writings of John Stuart Mill covering logic,
economics, liberty and utilitarianism.
(http://www.victorianperiod.org/Victorian_literature)
9. HOMOSEXUALITY AND LAW IN ENGLAND
Sodomy first became a civil offence, punishable by
death, in 1533 when Henry VIII issued a formal decree on the
subject, the Statute of 1533. Except for a short period in the
1500s, sodomy remained a capital offence in England until
1828. Throughout the remainder of the 1800s the act of
sodomy was a felony punishable by imprisonment.
In the 1600s and into the 1700s, the term "sodomite"
applied to a practitioner of any form of non-reproductive sex,
whether between members of the same sex or not. Despite
the threat of the death penalty, sexual acts between adult
102
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
males
and
adolescent
males
and
females
were
commonplace during the 1600s and socially accepted.
About 1700, gender lines and cultural expectations regarding
sexual preferences became more rigid.
In the 1880s "the social purity movement” set as its
goal the containing of male lust in all its many forms, from
adultery to prostitution to pornography. In 1885, “the social
purity movement” succeeded in pushing through a major
revision of England's laws regulating sexual behavior.
The main focus of the legislation was not on same-sex
relationships, but on protecting adolescent girls. Prior to
1885, indecent assaults on persons over the age of thirteen
were not punishable.
Section 11 of the Criminal Law
Amendment Act of 1885 revised the age of consent for girls
from thirteen to sixteen.
Henry Labouchere, M. P., sought to make any
indecent assault punishable by proposing an amendment
103
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
that would make "gross indecencies"--regardless of the age
of the victim--punishable as a misdemeanor. The vague
words chosen by Labouchere were later interpreted more
broadly than his intended purpose to apply them to
consensual same-sex acts between adults. In 1895, a
London jury found Oscar Wilde guilty of violating Section 11
of the Criminal Law Amendment Act. For his crime, Wilde
spent two years in prison.
Private consensual acts between adults, including
same-sex sodomy, were decriminalized in England in 1967.
(http://www.english.uwosh.edu/roth/VictorianEngland.htm)
10.
WILDE’S PLACE IN SOCIETY
During
the
Victorian
era,
homosexuality
was
a
dangerous theme. The Victorian era was about progress. It was
an attempt aimed at cleaning up society and setting a moral
standard. The Victorian era was a time of relative peace and
104
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
economic stability. Victorians did not want anything "unclean" or
"unacceptable" to interfere with their idea of perfection.
Oscar Wilde moved to London followed by his widowed
mother and his brother Willie. He found that many people in the
city
were
uncomfortable
with
his
non-Englishness,
his
flamboyant style and his willingness to challenge the English
society.
Wilde became well known for his less-than-manly
gestures
and
poses.
In
1879
Wilde
began
to
write
professionally in London and to draw much attention from his
scandalous dress. In a velvet coat edged with braid, kneebreeches, black silk stockings, a soft loose shirt with a wide
turn-down collar, and a large flowing tie he repeatedly raised
the rage of the conservative middle class around him. He also
carried a jewel-topped cane and lavender-colored gloves, and
105
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
he is also well-known for wearing a button hole flower dyed
green.
Wilde was obsessed with the perfect image. Although
he dressed more flamboyantly than the contemporary dress, it
was to create an image of himself. Wilde was terrified of
revealing his homosexuality because he knew that he would be
alienated and ostracized from the society. Through his works,
Oscar Wilde implicitly reflected his homosexual lifestyle
because he feared the repercussions from the conservative
Victorian era in which he lived.
Oscar was easily the most notorious homosexual of the
Puritanical Victorian era. His openness and subsequent trials
exposed the conservative society to extreme scrutiny. Despite
the negative discussions, the confusion created by Wilde
helped to feed a later movement towards tolerance of which
Wilde could only have dreamed.
106
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
His homosexuality and his socialist ideas were two
definitive ingredients so that the whole weight of the Victorian
disciplinary canon fell above him. Beside these elements, he
made fun of the whole bourgeois morality. This represented him
in all moments of serious ethical, political, aesthetic and social
problems. Wilde had a clear idea that the monarchy was the
most destructive instrument of all.
Wilde’s homosexuality seemed to have two problematic
dimensions full of risks. We can say that he was the first victim
of the bourgeois homophobia. The bourgeois rationality will
never accept homosexuality since this is against all its
principles of the family, for example, for the health of which
reproduction is necessary. Morose and mechanical sexuality
does not recognize the importance of male and female bodies
in their natural role.
107
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
(http://www.victoriaspast.com/OscarWilde/OscarWilde.htm)
III
CHAPTER THREE
ANALISIS OF SELECTED WORKS
5. “THE HAPPY PRINCE”
1.1 ANALYSIS AND COMMENTS
6. “THE SELFISH GIANT”
2.1 ANALYSIS AND COMMENTS
7. THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY
3.1 ANALYSIS AND COMMENTS, CHAPTER XX
8. “THE BALLAD OF THE READING GAOL”
4.1 CREATION OF THE POEM
4.2 STRUCTURE OF “THE BALLAD”
4.3 ANALYSIS AND COMMENTS
108
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
4.4 AN OPPOSING VIEW
109
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
III
CHAPTER THREE
ANALYSIS OF SELECTED WORKS
1. “THE HAPPY PRINCE”
“THE HAPPY PRINCE”
High above the city, on a tall column, stood
the statue of the Happy Prince. He was
gilded all over with thin leaves of fine gold, for
eyes he had two bright sapphires, and a large
red ruby glowed on his sword-hilt.
He was very much admired indeed. ‘He is as
beautiful as a weathercock,’ remarked one of
the Town Councillors who wished to gain a
reputation for having artistic tastes; ‘only not
quite so useful,’ he added, fearing lest people
110
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
should think him unpractical, which he really
was not.
‘Why can’t you be like the Happy Prince?’
asked a sensible mother of her little boy who
was crying for the moon. ‘The Happy Prince
never dreams of crying for anything.’
‘I am glad there is some one in the world who
is quite happy,’ muttered a disappointed man
as he gazed at the wonderful statue.
‘He looks just like an angel,’ said the Charity
Children as they came out of the cathedral in
their bright scarlet cloaks, and their clean
white pinafores.
‘How do you know?’ said the Mathematical
Master, ‘you have never seen one.’
‘Ah! but we have, in our dreams,’ answered
the children; and the Mathematical Master
frowned and looked very severe, for he did
not approve of children dreaming.
One night there flew over the city a little
Swallow. His friends had gone away to Egypt
111
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
six weeks before, but he had stayed behind,
for he was in love with the most beautiful
Reed. He had met her early in the spring as
he was flying down the river after a big yellow
moth, and had been so attracted by her
slender waist that he had stopped to talk to
her.
‘Shall I love you?’ said the Swallow, who liked
to come to the point at once, and the Reed
made him a low bow. So he flew round and
round her, touching the water with his wings,
and making silver ripples. This was his
courtship, and it lasted all through the
summer.
‘It is a ridiculous attachment,’ twittered the
other Swallows, ‘she has no money, and far
too many relations;’ and indeed the river was
quite full of Reeds. Then, when the autumn
came, they all flew away.
After they had gone he felt lonely, and began
to tire of his lady-love. “She has no
conversation,” he said, ‘and I am afraid that
112
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
she is a coquette, for she is always flirting
with the wind.’ And certainly, whenever the
wind blew, the Reed made the most graceful
curtsies. ‘I admit that she is domestic,’ he
continued, ‘but I love travelling, and my wife,
consequently, should love travelling also.’
‘Will you come away with me?’ he said finally
to her; but the Reed shook her head, she was
so attached to her home.
‘You have been trifling with me,’ he cried, ‘I
am off to the Pyramids. Good-bye!’ and he
flew away.
All day long he flew, and at night-time he
arrived at the city. ‘Where shall I put up?’ he
said;
‘I
hope
the
town
has
made
preparations.’
Then he saw the statue on the tall column. ‘I
will put up there,’ he cried; ‘it is a fine position
with plenty of fresh air.’ So he alighted just
between the feet of the Happy Prince.
113
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
‘I have a golden bedroom,’ he said softly to
himself as he looked round, and he prepared
to go to sleep; but just as he was putting his
head under his wing a large drop of water fell
on him. “What a curious thing!’ he cried,
“there is not a single cloud in the sky, the
stars are quite clear and bright, and yet it is
raining. The climate in the north of Europe is
really dreadful. The Reed used to like the
rain, but that was merely her selfishness.”
Then another drop fell.
“What is the use of a statue if it cannot keep
the rain off?” he said; “I must look for a good
chimney-pot,” and he determined to fly away.
But before he had opened his wings, a third
drop fell, and he looked up, and saw - Ah!
what did he see?
The eyes of the Happy Prince were filled with
tears, and tears were running down his
golden cheeks. His face was so beautiful in
the moonlight that the little Swallow was filled
with pity.
114
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
‘Who are you?’ he said.
“I am the Happy Prince.”
“Why are you weeping then?” asked the
Swallow; “you have quite drenched me.”
“When I was alive and had a human heart,”
answered the statue, “I did not know what
tears were, for I lived in the palace of SansSouci, where sorrow is not allowed to enter.
In the daytime I played with my companions
in the garden, and in the evening I led the
dance in the Great Hall. Round the garden
ran a very lofty wall, but I never cared to ask
what lay beyond it, everything about me was
so beautiful. My courtiers called me the
Happy Prince, and happy indeed I was, if
pleasure be happiness. So I lived, and so I
died. And now that I am dead they have set
me up here so high that I can see all the
ugliness and all the misery of my city, and
though my heart is made of lead yet I cannot
choose but weep.”
115
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
“What, is he not solid gold?” said the Swallow
to himself. He was too polite to make any
personal remarks out loud.
“Far away,” continued the statue in a low
musical voice, “far away in a little street there
is a poor house. One of the windows is open,
and through it I can see a woman seated at a
table. Her face is thin and worn, and she has
coarse, red hands, all pricked by the needle,
for she is a seamstress. She is embroidering
passion-flowers on a satin gown for the
loveliest of the Queen’s maids-of-honour to
wear at the next Court-ball. In a bed in the
corner of the room her little boy is lying ill. He
has a fever, and is asking for oranges. His
mother has nothing to give him but river
water, so he is crying. Swallow, Swallow, little
Swallow, will you not bring her the ruby out of
my sword-hilt? My feet are fastened to this
pedestal and I cannot move.”
“I am waited for in Egypt,” said the Swallow.
“My friends are flying up and down the Nile,
and talking to the large lotus-flowers. Soon
116
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
they will go to sleep in the tomb of the great
King. The King is there himself in his painted
coffin. He is wrapped in yellow linen, and
embalmed with spices. Round his neck is a
chain of pale green jade, and his hands are
like withered leaves.”
“Swallow, Swallow, little Swallow,” said the
Prince, “will you not stay with me for one
night, and be my messenger? The boy is so
thirsty, and the mother so sad.”
“I don’t think I like boys,” answered the
Swallow. “Last summer, when I was staying
on the river, there were two rude boys, the
miller’s sons, who were always throwing
stones at me. They never hit me, of course;
we swallows fly far too well for that, and
besides, I come of a family famous for its
agility; but still, it was a mark of disrespect.”
But the Happy Prince looked so sad that the
little Swallow was sorry. “It is very cold here,”
he said; “but I will stay with you for one night,
and be your messenger.”
117
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
“Thank you, little Swallow,” said the Prince.
So the Swallow picked out the great ruby
from the Prince’s sword, and flew away with it
in his beak over the roofs of the town.
He passed by the cathedral tower, where the
white marble angels were sculptured. He
passed by the palace and heard the sound of
dancing. A beautiful girl came out on the
balcony with her lover. "How wonderful the
stars are,” he said to her, and “how wonderful
is the power of love!”
“I hope my dress will be ready in time for the
State-ball,” she answered; “I have ordered
passion-flowers to be embroidered on it; but
the seamstresses are so lazy.”
He passed over the river, and saw the
lanterns hanging to the masts of the ships.
He passed over the Ghetto, and saw the old
jews
bargaining
with
each
other,
and
weighing out money in copper scales. At last
he came to the poor house and looked in.
The boy was tossing feverishly on his bed,
118
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
and the mother had fallen asleep, she was so
tired. In he hopped, and laid the great ruby on
the table beside the woman’s thimble. Then
he flew gently round the bed, fanning the
boy’s forehead with his wings. “How cool I
feel,” said the boy, “I must be getting better;”
and he sank into a delicious slumber.
Then the Swallow flew back to the Happy
Prince, and told him what he had done. “It is
curious,” he remarked, “but I feel quite warm
now, although it is so cold.”
“That is because you have done a good
action,” said the Prince. And the little Swallow
began to think, and then he fell asleep.
Thinking always made him sleepy.
When day broke he flew down to the river
and had a bath. “What a remarkable
phenomenon,”
said
the
Professor
of
Ornithology as he was passing over the
bridge. “A swallow in winter!” And he wrote a
long letter about it to the local newspaper.
119
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
Every one quoted it, it was full of so many
words that they could not understand.
“To-night I go to Egypt,” said the Swallow,
and he was in high spirits at the prospect. He
visited all the public monuments, and sat a
long time on top of the church steeple.
Wherever he went the Sparrows chirruped,
and said to each other, “What a distinguished
stranger!” so he enjoyed himself very much.
When the moon rose he flew back to the
Happy Prince. “Have you any commissions
for Egypt?” he cried; “I am just starting.”
“Swallow, Swallow, little Swallow,” said the
Prince, “will you not stay with me one night
longer?”
“I am waited for in Egypt,” answered the
Swallow. “To-morrow my friends will fly up to
the
Second
Cataract.
The
river-horse
couches there among the bulrushes, and on
a great granite throne sits the God Memnon.
All night long he watches the stars, and when
the morning star shines he utters one cry of
120
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
joy, and then he is silent. At noon the yellow
lions come down to the water’s edge to drink.
They have eyes like green beryls, and their
roar is louder than the roar of the cataract.”
“Swallow, Swallow, little Swallow,” said the
prince, “far away across the city I see a
young man in a garret. He is leaning over a
desk covered with papers, and in a tumbler
by his side there is a bunch of withered
violets. His hair is brown and crisp, and his
lips are red as a pomegranate, and he has
large and dreamy eyes. He is trying to finish
a play for the Director of the Theatre, but he
is too cold to write any more. There is no fire
in the grate, and hunger has made him faint.”
“I will wait with you one night longer,” said the
Swallow, who really had a good heart. “Shall I
take him another ruby?”
“Alas! I have no ruby now,” said the Prince;
“my eyes are all that I have left. They are
made of rare sapphires, which were brought
out of India a thousand years ago. Pluck out
121
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
one of them and take it to him. He will sell it
to the jeweller, and buy food and firewood,
and finish his play.”
“Dear Prince,” said the Swallow, “I cannot do
that;” and he began to weep.
“Swallow, Swallow, little Swallow,” said the
Prince, “do as I command you.”
So the Swallow plucked out the Prince’s eye,
and flew away to the student’s garret. It was
easy enough to get in, as there was a hole in
the roof. Through this he darted, and came
into the room. The young man had his head
buried in his hands, so he did not hear the
flutter of the bird’s wings, and when he
looked up he found the beautiful sapphire
lying on the withered violets.
“I am beginning to be appreciated,” he cried;
“this is from some great admirer. Now I can
finish my play,” and he looked quite happy.
The next day the Swallow flew down to the
harbor. He sat on the mast of a large vessel
122
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
and watched the sailors hauling big chests
out of the hold with ropes. “Heave a-hoy!”
they shouted as each chest came up. “I am
going to Egypt!” cried the Swallow, but
nobody minded, and when the moon rose he
flew back to the Happy Prince.
“I am come to bid you good-bye,” he cried.
“Swallow, Swallow, little Swallow,” said the
Prince, “will you not stay with me one night
longer?”
“It is winter,” answered the Swallow, “and the
chill snow will soon be here. In Egypt the sun
is warm on the green palm-trees, and the
crocodiles lie in the mud and look lazily about
them. My companions are building a nest in
the Temple of Baalbec, and the pink and
white doves are watching them, and cooing
to each other. Dear Prince, I must leave you,
but I will never forget you, and next spring I
will bring you back two beautiful jewels in
place of those you have given away. The
123
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
ruby shall be redder than a red rose, and the
sapphire shall be as blue as the great sea.”
“In the square below,” said the Happy Prince,
“there stands a little match-girl. She has let
her matches fall in the gutter, and they are all
spoiled. Her father will beat her if she does
not bring home some money, and she is
crying. She has no shoes or stockings, and
her little head is bare. Pluck out my other
eye, and give it to her, and her father will not
beat her.”
“I will stay with you one night longer,” said the
Swallow, “but I cannot pluck out your eye.
You would be quite blind then.”
“Swallow, Swallow, little Swallow,” said the
Prince, “do as I command you.”
So he plucked out the Prince’s other eye, and
darted down with it. He swooped past the
match-girl, and slipped the jewel into the
palm of her hand. “What a lovely bit of glass,”
cried the little girl; and she ran home,
laughing.
124
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
Then the Swallow came back to the Prince.
“You are blind now,” he said, “so I will stay
with you always.”
“No, little Swallow,” said the poor Prince, “you
must go away to Egypt.”
“I will stay with you always,” said the
Swallow, and he slept at the Prince’s feet.
All the next day he sat on the Prince’s
shoulder, and told him stories of what he had
seen in strange lands. He told him of the red
ibises, who stand in long rows on the banks
of the Nile, and catch gold fish in their beaks;
of the Sphinx, who is as old as the world itself
and lives in the desert, and knows everything;
of the merchants, who walk slowly by the side
of their camels, and carry amber beads in
their hands; of the King of the Mountains of
the Moon, who is as black as ebony, and
worships a large crystal; of the great green
snake that sleeps in a palm-tree, and has
twenty priests to feed it with honey-cakes;
and of the pygmies who sail over a big lake
125
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
on large flat leaves, and are always at war
with the butterflies.
“Dear little Swallow,” said the Prince, “you tell
me of marvellous things, but more marvellous
than anything is the suffering of men and of
women. There is no Mystery as great as
Misery. Fly over my city, little Swallow, and
tell me what you see there.”
So the Swallow flew over the great city, and
saw the rich making merry in their beautiful
houses, while the beggars were sitting at the
gates. He flew into dark lanes, and saw the
white faces of starving children looking out
listlessly at the black streets. Under the
archway of a bridge two little boys were lying
in one another’s arms to try and keep
themselves warm. “How hungry we are!” they
said. “You must not lie here,” shouted the
Watchman, and they wandered out into the
rain.
Then he flew back and told the Prince what
he had seen.
126
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
“I am covered with fine gold,” said the Prince,
“you must take it off, leaf by leaf, and give it
to my poor; the living always thinks that gold
can make them happy.”
Leaf after leaf of the fine gold the Swallow
picked off, till the Happy Prince looked quite
dull and grey. Leaf after leaf of the fine gold
he brought to the poor, and the children’s
faces grew rosier, and they laughed and
played games in the street. “We have bread
now!” they cried.
Then the snow came, and after the snow
came the frost. The streets looked as if they
were made of silver, they were so bright and
glistening; long icicles like crystal daggers
hung down from the eaves of the houses,
everybody went about in furs, and the little
boys wore scarlet caps and skated on the ice.
The poor little Swallow grew colder and
colder, but he would not leave the Prince, he
loved him too well. He picked up crumbs
outside the baker’s door where the baker was
127
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
not looking, and tried to keep himself warm
by flapping his wings.
But at last he knew that he was going to die.
He had just strength to fly up to the Prince’s
shoulder
once
more.
“Good-bye,
dear
Prince!” he murmured, “Will you let me kiss
your hand?”
“I am glad that you are going to Egypt at last,
little Swallow,” said the Prince, “you have
stayed too long here; but you must kiss me
on the lips, for I love you.”
“It is not to Egypt that I am going,” said the
Swallow. “I am going to the House of Death.
Death is the brother of Sleep, is he not?”
And he kissed the Happy Prince on the lips,
and fell down dead at his feet.
At that moment a curious crack sounded
inside the statue, as if something had broken.
The fact is that the leaden heart had snapped
right in two. It certainly was a dreadfully hard
frost. Early the next morning the Mayor was
128
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
walking in the square below in company with
the Town Councillors. As they passed the
column he looked up at the statue: “Dear me!
How shabby the Happy Prince looks!” he
said.
“How
shabby
indeed!”
cried
the
Town
Councillors, who always agreed with the
Mayor, and they went up to look at it.
“The ruby has fallen out of his sword, his
eyes are gone, and he is golden no longer,”
said the Mayor; “in fact, he is little better than
a beggar!”
“Little better than a beggar” said the Town
councillors.
“And here is actually a dead bird at his feet!”
continued the Mayor. “We must really issue a
proclamation that birds are not to be allowed
to die here.” And the Town Clerk made a note
of the suggestion.
So they pulled down the statue of the Happy
Prince. “As he is no longer beautiful he is no
129
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
longer useful,” said the Art Professor at the
University.
Then they melted the statue in a furnace, and
the Mayor held a meeting of the Corporation
to decide what was to be done with the metal.
“We must have another statue, of course,” he
said, “and it shall be a statue of myself.”
“Of
myself,’
said
each
of
the
Town
Councillors, and they quarrelled. When I last
heard of them they were quarrelling still.
“What a strange thing!” said the overseer of
the workmen at the foundry. “This broken
lead heart will not melt in the furnace. We
must throw it away.” So they threw it on a
dust-heap where the dead Swallow was also
lying.
“Bring me the two most precious things in the
city,” said God to one of His Angels; and the
Angel brought Him the leaden heart and the
dead bird.
130
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
“You have rightly chosen,” said God, “for in
my garden of Paradise this little bird shall
sing for evermore, and in my city of gold the
Happy Prince shall praise me.”
(Aldington Richard, Weintraub Stanley, “The
Portable Oscar Wilde”)
ANALYSIS AND COMMENTS
Wilde's parents were both collectors of Irish folklore,
but the interest of Wilde in writing fairy tales was no doubt
because of his becoming a father. He told Richard Le
Gallienne it was the duty of every father to write fairy tales
for his children. In Son of Oscar Wilde, Wilde's son, Vyvyan
Holland, said that when Wilde grew tired of playing he
would keep his sons, Vyvyan and Cyril, quiet by telling them
fairy stories, or tales of adventure, of which he had a neverending supply. Those stories or adventures were adapted
by Wilde to the young minds of his sons.
131
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
Richard Ellmann notes that The Happy Prince was
originated as a story Wilde told his friends on a visit to
Cambridge even before Cyril was old enough to listen. The
story captivated the Cambridge students so Wilde wrote it
down. The spontaneity with which Wilde told his tales
suggests that they arose at least in part from unconscious
sources that even he was not aware of.
Fairy tales were not the only stories Wilde made up,
though most of his short stories have elements of fantasy or
fable in them; stories such as Lord Arthur Savile's Crime, a
sort of parody detective story, and The Canterville Ghost, a
comical ghost story. Christopher S. Nassaar calls these
two stories fairy tales, but they are fairy tales only in the
broadest definition of the genre.
The term "fairy tale" itself apparently comes from
France, from Madame d'Aulnoy's Contes des fées (1698)
published in English in 1699 as Tales of the Fairys (“tale of
132
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
enchantment.") By at least 1748 the term had appeared in
print, although it probably had been in use for a much
longer time. Fairy tales often do not contain fairies. They
are, however, "unbelievable" and "contain an enchantment
or other supernatural element that is clearly imaginary."
That still does not answer the question as to why Lord
Arthur Savile's Crime and The Canterville Ghost are not
fairy tales and the stories in The Happy Prince and Other
Tales and A House of Pomegranates (1891) are fairy tales.
The answer is that the stories in these two books were
meant for children or appear to be meant for children while
the other stories, even with their fantastic elements, are
aimed primarily at adults. Development of character is not
so important in fairy tales as is revelation of the marvellous,
whether there are fairies or not. We are in a world where
animals and plants and inanimate objects can talk, where
children are often the protagonists, where virtually anything
133
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
can happen and often does. The fact is Wilde himself
called the stories in the two volumes fairy tales, whereas
the others he referred to as “stories,” both in a letter and in
the title of the volume they appear in: Lord Arthur Savile’s
Crime and Other Stories (1891.)
As to whether Wilde’s fairy tales were written for
children, Wilde wrote to G. H. Kersley (June 1888) that The
Happy Prince and Other Tales were meant partly for
children, and partly for those who have kept the childlike
faculties of wonder and joy, and who find in simplicity a
subtle strangeness. In January 1889, Wilde sent what he
called his “fairy tales” to Amelie Rives Chanler, an American
novelist, playwright, and poet, telling her that the tales were
written, not for children, but for childlike people from
eighteen to eighty.
Taken together, Wilde’s act of telling and reading the
stories to his own children and his recorded comments
134
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
make clear the obvious: the tales are for both children and
adults. Their continuing popularity attests to this fact,
although the many children’s editions often abridge the text,
removing such passages as authorial comments not
necessary to propel the story. “No age group has ever had
an uncontested monopoly on fairy tales.” Because fairy
tales contain archetypes from the collective unconscious in
their most accessible forms, they can and do appeal to all
age groups.
(Maria Tatar, Grimm’s’ Fairy Tales, 21-22.)
The Happy Prince is one of Wilde’s better known and
more popular fairy tales. The Happy Prince is the golden
statue of a prince of the city who died young. Before he
died he did not know the inhabitants of his city were
suffering. With the help of a Swallow, the Prince helped the
victims of the social system. The first person he helped
was the sick son of a seamstress who was embroidering a
135
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
beautiful gown for one of the Queen’s maids-of-honor
(Wilde here anticipates the similarly suffering weavers of
the king’s robe in “The Young King.”) He asked the
Swallow to bring the boy the ruby from his sword. Though
the weather was cold, the Swallow felt quite warm. The
Prince replied: “That is because you have done a good
action.”
The Prince, as a human who’s been made into a work
of art, would have to be older than the bird, who is
apparently of courting age. More important, the Prince
symbolized two attitudes or approaches to the personal and
social problems of the late Victorian era. While alive, as a
sheltered young man, he symbolized the ignorance and
laissez faire attitude of the upper class toward the less
fortunate. Through the archetype of transformation, he
changed into a self-sacrificing martyr who literally gave his
life for the suffering poor. Moreover, as Prince he had a
136
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
great personality, symbolic of the Self or the potential for
Selfhood, the wholeness of the healthy psyche, so that in
him we have a constellation of archetypes. He was by the
end of the story both puer and senex combined into a
complete whole, the Self.
The Prince helped out a struggling playwright by
sacrificing one of his eyes, which “were made of rare
sapphires.”
The second eye went, by means of the
reluctant Swallow, to a “little match-girl” whose matches had
fallen into the gutter and been ruined. The Swallow, then
quite emotionally attached to the Prince, promised to stay
with him because he was blind. He thus sacrificed himself
as had the Prince. His relationship with the Prince was an
example of male bonding and development of the Eros
principle
of
relatedness
and
connection.
This
relationship was far more important and meaningful to him
than his flirtation with the Reed who, the other swallows had
137
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
“twittered,” had “no money, and far too many relations.” It
was an example of the power of agape, a kind of love Wilde
is not often associated with. The Swallow was no longer
the “natural and capricious egotist.” (Op. Cit.)
The Swallow distributed the gold leaves that covered
the statue of the Prince to the starving and otherwise
suffering poor of the city, for, as the Prince tells the
Swallow, again playing the role of senex, “more fulfillment
than anything is the suffering of men and women. There is
no Mystery as great as Misery.” When the Swallow died,
the Prince’s leaden heart broke in two and it was the only
part of him that could not be melted down so that the
arrogant Mayor and Town Councillors could use the lead for
statues of themselves. The Prince and the Swallow were
united in heaven as “the two most precious things in the
city,” that God asked his angels to bring to him. The two
males
were
united,
despite
their
obvious
surface
138
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
differences, as senex and puer. (Wilde could easily have
made the swallow a female, as she is in the Greek myth
of Procne and Philomela.) What unites them is the Eros
principle, a surpassing love of each other and loving service
to others. As Hillman says of the senex, “the death which it
brings is not only bio-physical. It is the death that comes
through
perfection
and
order.
It
is
the
death
of
accomplishment and fulfillment . . .”
(H. Montgomery Hyde, Plays, Prose and Poems)
It has been suggested that the Swallow’s yearning for
Egypt was openly based on a poem by Théophile Gautier,
where the swallows nest in the Temple of Baalbec and at
the Second Cataract of the Nile (H. Montgomery Hyde,
Plays, Prose and Poems, 107.) It has been also suggested
that the swallow was a bird sacred to Isis and Venus (J. E.
Cirlot.) The Swallow, is a kind of puer and hence is
associated with the Great Mother, seen here in two
139
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
manifestations: the mother goddess of Egypt and the
Roman goddess of love. Cirlot also said the swallow was an
allegory of spring. The irony, of course, is that both the
Prince and the Swallow die in winter. The Happy Prince
himself, as a great personality, is symbolic of the Selfpsychic wholeness. But he does not achieve Selfhood until
he has been united and elevated to heaven with the
swallow. (Op. Cit.)
Although The Happy Prince began as a story Wilde
told to students at Cambridge, the published version
contains a reference to “Charity Children.” These are,
according to Hyde, “foundlings and orphans.” The story
also refers to “two little boys lying in one another’s arms
trying to keep themselves warm beneath a bridge. They
are hungry and chased out into the rain by a “Watchman.”
Here Wilde shows a concern for issues he would discuss in
“The Soul of Man Under Socialism.” He wrote during a time
140
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
when a large number of children were homeless and forced
to do adult work.
The authors of Oscar Wilde’s
London describe conditions in London’s East End: (Op. Cit.)
The degradations, and above all the overcrowding, of
the East End slums led to indiscriminate sexuality, incest,
and child abuse. Constantly fighting for their existence and
inured to pain and brutality, a shockingly large number of
women and even children became night house tarts,
courtesans, sailors’ whores, promiscuous servant girls, and
boy prostitutes.
Furthermore, London suffered worse working and
housing conditions than other British cities, largely because
its workers had few, if any, labor unions. With his match-girl
and his allusions to “the old Jews bargaining with each
other” in the Ghetto and “the poor house,” where the sick
boy who receives the Happy Prince’s first benefaction
dwells, Wilde must have had London in mind as the setting
141
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
for his story, for the descriptions match those of
contemporary London.
All we know, however, is that the Happy Prince stands
above a “great city” somewhere “in the north of Europe” and
that he had lived in Sans-Souci, the name of Frederick the
Great’s palace at Potsdam, an appropriate allusion to the
Prince’s previous carefree life and perhaps a hint that, like
Frederick the Great, the Prince may be homosexual, which
could be the foundation for his Platonic relationship with the
Swallow. It is typical of fairy tales not to identify their
specific locals: that makes them more universal and easier
to identify with. In any case, Wilde is portraying the shadow
side of contemporary civilization, its misery and propensity
for evil, and its sadistic materialism.
We also have negative aspects of the puer: its lack of
strength, wisdom, and status which make the child
142
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
vulnerable
to
all
kinds
of
victimization. The
story
demonstrates that these negative aspects can be overcome
through charity and the archetype of love, and specifically
that these very traits, charity and love, can bind two males
into a transcendent achievement of wholeness. The wider
implications for the age are that it needs these very qualities
Wilde portrays in the Prince and the Swallow.
(http://www.answers.com/topic/oscar-wilde)
2. “THE SELFISH GIANT”
“THE SELFISH GIANT”
EVERY afternoon, as they were coming from
school, the children used to go and play in
the Giant's garden.
It was a large lovely garden, with soft green
grass. Here and there over the grass stood
143
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
beautiful flowers like stars, and there were
twelve peach-trees that in the spring-time
broke out into delicate blossoms of pink and
pearl, and in the autumn bore rich fruit. The
birds sat on the trees and sang so sweetly
that the children used to stop their games in
order to listen to them. "How happy we are
here!" they cried to each other.
One day the Giant came back. He had been
to visit his friend the Cornish ogre, and had
stayed with him for seven years. After the
seven years were over he had said all that he
had to say, for his conversation was limited,
and he determined to return to his own
castle. When he arrived he saw the children
playing in the garden.
"What are you doing here?" he cried in a very
gruff voice, and the children ran away.
"My own garden is my own garden," said the
Giant; "any one can understand that, and I
will allow nobody to play in it but myself." So
144
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
he built a high wall all round it, and put up a
notice-board.
TRESPASSERS
WILL BE
PROSECUTED
He was a very selfish Giant.
The poor children had now nowhere to play.
They tried to play on the road, but the road
was very dusty and full of hard stones, and
they did not like it. They used to wander
round the high wall when their lessons were
over, and talk about the beautiful garden
inside. "How happy we were there," they said
to each other.
Then the Spring came, and all over the
country there were little blossoms and little
birds. Only in the garden of the Selfish Giant
it was still winter. The birds did not care to
sing in it as there were no children, and the
trees forgot to blossom. Once a beautiful
flower put its head out from the grass, but
when it saw the notice-board it was so sorry
145
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
for the children that it slipped back into the
ground again, and went off to sleep. The only
people who were pleased were the Snow and
the Frost. "Spring has forgotten this garden,"
they cried, "so we will live here all the year
round." The Snow covered up the grass with
her great white cloak, and the Frost painted
all the trees silver. Then they invited the
North Wind to stay with them, and he came.
He was wrapped in furs, and he roared all
day about the garden, and blew the chimneypots down. "This is a delightful spot," he said,
"we must ask the Hail on a visit." So the Hail
came. Every day for three hours he rattled on
the roof of the castle till he broke most of the
slates, and then he ran round and round the
garden as fast as he could go. He was
dressed in grey, and his breath was like ice.
"I cannot understand why the Spring is so
late in coming," said the Selfish Giant, as he
sat at the window and looked out at his cold
white garden; "I hope there will be a change
in the weather."
146
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
But the Spring never came, nor the Summer.
The Autumn gave golden fruit to every
garden, but to the Giant's garden she gave
none. "He is too selfish," she said. So it was
always Winter there, and the North Wind, and
the Hail, and the Frost, and the Snow danced
about through the trees.
One morning the Giant was lying awake in
bed when he heard some lovely music. It
sounded so sweet to his ears that he thought
it must be the King's musicians passing by. It
was really only a little linnet singing outside
his window, but it was so long since he had
heard a bird sing in his garden that it seemed
to him to be the most beautiful music in the
world. Then the Hail stopped dancing over
his head, and the North Wind ceased roaring,
and a delicious perfume came to him through
the open casement. "I believe the Spring has
come at last," said the Giant; and he jumped
out of bed and looked out.
What did he see?
147
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
He saw a most wonderful sight. Through a
little hole in the wall the children had crept in,
and they were sitting in the branches of the
trees. In every tree that he could see there
was a little child. And the trees were so glad
to have the children back again that they had
covered themselves with blossoms, and were
waving their arms gently above the children's
heads. The birds were flying about and
twittering with delight, and the flowers were
looking up through the green grass and
laughing. It was a lovely scene, only in one
corner it was still winter. It was the farthest
corner of the garden, and in it was standing a
little boy. He was so small that he could not
reach up to the branches of the tree, and he
was wandering all round it, crying bitterly.
The poor tree was still quite covere0d with
frost and snow, and the North Wind was
blowing and roaring above it. "Climb up! Little
boy," said the Tree, and it bent its branches
down as low as it could; but the boy was too
tiny.
148
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
And the Giant's heart melted as he looked
out. "How selfish I have been!" he said; "now
I know why the Spring would not come here. I
will put that poor little boy on the top of the
tree, and then I will knock down the wall, and
my garden shall be the children's playground
for ever and ever." He was really very sorry
for what he had done.
So he c0rept downstairs and opened the front
door quite softly, and went out into the
garden. But when the children saw him they
were so frightened that they all ran away and
the garden became winter again. Only the
little boy did not run, for his eyes were so full
of tears that he did not see the Giant coming.
And the Giant stole up behind him and took
him gently in his hand, and put him up into
the tree. And the tree broke at once into
blossom, and the birds came and sang on it,
and the little boy stretched out his two arms
and flung them round the Giant's neck, and
kissed him. And the other children, when they
saw that the Giant was not wicked any
149
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
longer, came running back, and with them
came the Spring. "It is your garden now, little
children," said the Giant, and he took a great
axe and knocked down the wall. And when
the people were going to0 market at twelve
o'clock they found the Giant playing with the
children in the most beautiful garden they had
ever seen.
All day long they played, and in the evening
they came to the Giant to bid him good-bye.
"But where is your little companion?" he said:
"the boy I put into the tree." The Giant loved
him the best because he had kissed him.
"We don't know," answered the children; "he
has gone away."
"You must tell him to be sure and come here
tomorrow," said the Giant. But the children
said that they did not know where he lived,
and had never seen him before; and the
Giant felt very sad.
150
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
Every afternoon, when school was over, the
children came and played with the Giant. But
the little boy whom the Giant loved was never
seen again. The Giant was very kind to all the
children, yet he longed for his first little friend,
and often spoke of him. "How I would like to
see him!" he used to say.
Years went over, and the Giant grew very old
and feeble. He could not play about any
more, so he sat in a huge armchair, and
watched the children at their games, and
admired his garden. "I have many beautiful
flowers," he said; "but the children are the
most beautiful flowers of all."
One winter morning he looked out of his
window as he was dressing. He did not hate
the Winter now, for he knew that it was
merely the Spring asleep, and that the
flowers were resting.
Suddenly he rubbed his eyes in wonder, and
looked and looked. It certainly was a
marvelous sight. In the farthest corner of the
151
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
garden was a tree quite covered with lovely
white blossoms. Its branches were all golden,
and silver fruit hung down from them, and
underneath it stood the little boy he had
loved.
Downstai0rs ran the Giant in great joy, and
out into the garden. He hastened across the
grass, and came near to the child. And when
he came quite close his face grew red with
anger, and he said, "Who hath dared to
wound thee?" For on the palms of the child's
hands were the prints of two nails, and the
prints of two nails were on the little feet.
"Who hath dared to wound thee?" cried the
Giant; "tell me, that I may take my big sword
and slay him."
"Nay!" answered the child; "but these are the
wounds of Love."
"Who art thou?" said the Giant, and a strange
awe fell on him, and he knelt before the little
child.
152
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
And the child smiled on the Giant, and said to
him, "You let me play once in your garden,
today you shall come with me to my garden,
which is Paradise."
And when the children ran in that afternoon,
they found the Giant lying dead under the
tree, all covered with white blossoms.
(Aldington Richard, Weintraub Stanley, “the
Portable Oscar Wilde, 6900-695”)
2.1 ANALYSIS AND COMMENTS
Wilde's mentor, Walter Pater, praised "The Selfish
Giant" as "perfect in its kind." As we have seen, the story
could move Wilde himself to tears, so that it must have
sprung from deep perso0nal as well as collective sources.
"The Selfish Giant" is the simplest of Wilde's fairy tales
and the first to exploit Wilde's favorite religious symbol:
Christ. The Giant had a lovely garden, with "twelve peach153
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
trees" and birds that sing "so sweetly … the children used
to stop their games in order to listen to them," exclaiming
how happy they were in the garden. After seven years of
visiting the Cornish ogre until his "limited" conversation ran
out, the Giant returned and selfishly expelled the children
from his garden and built a wall around it. As if in
punishment for his actions, winter descended perpetually on
the Giant's garden. When the children went back to the
garden through a hole in the wall, the spring returned and
there were heralds and music.
As he observed the fun the children were having, the
Giant had a change of his heart and felt sorry about his
former selfishness. Only in one corner of the garden was it
still Winter. That was because a little boy in the corner
could not climb the tree that indicated, "Climb up! Little
boy." The Giant gently put the boy on the tree, which
immediately
bloomed
and
attracted
birds
to
its
154
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
branches. The grateful boy hugged the Giant around the
neck and kissed him. The children, who had fled upon sight
of the Giant, returned when the Giant beckoned to them: "It
is your garden now, little children." And he knocked the
wall down. However, that was the last he saw of the little
boy, his favorite, until the boy returned years later as Christ,
with the stigmata, "the wounds of Love." Echoing Christ's
words on the cross to the thief, the boy told the Giant:
"today you shall come with me to my garden, which is
Paradise.” “Later the children found the Giant lying dead
under the tree, all covered with white blossoms.”
Obviously we have here again the prototype of
transformation, a frequent prototype in fairy tales. We have
also elements of the Hades-Persephone- Demeter myth.
The garden, according to Jung, is a feminine symbol which,
by his selfishness the Giant has devalued, rejecting the
Eros principle of warmth, connection, relatedness. Just as
155
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
the earth is left unproductive and uncared for after Hades
kidnaps Persephone and takes her to the Underworld while
her mother Demeter, vegetation goddess, grieves and
searches for her, so does the Giant's garden remain under
snow and frozen rain as long as the Giant refuses his
hospitality to the children.
The Giant's redemption is sealed, however, not by
relating specifically to a female figure, but rather by his
tenderness toward the boy. At first look, the boy might
seem to be a puer and the Giant, since he is so much older
and more powerful, a senex. Yet the boy functions more as
the unconscious teacher for the Giant. He functions as the
anima would function, introducing the Giant to previously
unconscious
dimensions
of
his
psyche--generosity,
relatedness with other people, and, most important, love.
Until recently the anima has always been considered the
feminine side of a man's psyche in Jungian thought and
156
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
been symbolized by a female. However, as Hopcke shows,
this concept comes out of Jung's patriarchal, heterosexual
frame of reference where women are made to carry the
weight of all the so-called feminine attributes such as the
Eros principle and relationship to the unconscious. As
Hopcke writes: patriarchal masculinity is never made whole
if femininity is located somewhere outside of a man's basic
masculine identity, in the others of men's external lives,
their wives, mothers, and sisters, or in the others of men's
dreams and fantasies, the female figure or psychological
constructs of femininity such as the anima.
(http://betsysschool.wordpress.com/literary-analysis)
Interestingly, Hopcke writes here in the context of a
discussion
of
the
Hades-Persephone-Demeter
myth.
Hades, he notes, never changes in this patriarchal myth.
Demeter, given Demophoon by his mother Metaneira in
157
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
order to compensate Demeter for her loss of her daughter
Persephone, fails in her attempt to grant Demophoon
immortality. "The goddess," says Hopcke, "cannot save
masculinity from itself within a patriarchal context." Hopcke
speculates the possibility of a "male anima" who functions
exactly as the anima has always functioned, as "guide to
the unconscious and to relatedness with others," and who,
again like the traditional anima, is "a figure of often
enormous erotic charge, all too frequently idealized and
projected out onto a man's object of love."
3. THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY
THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY
CHAPTER XX
It was a lovely night, so warm that he threw his coat
over his arm and did not even put his silk scarf round his
throat. As he strolled home, smoking his cigarette, two
158
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
young men in evening dress passed him. He heard one of
them whisper to the other, "That is Dorian Gray." He
remembered how pleased he used to be when he was
pointed out, or stared at, or talked about. He was tired of
hearing his own name now. Half the charm of the little
village where he had been so often lately was that no one
knew who he was. He had often told the girl whom he had
lured to love him that he was poor, and she had believed
him. He had told her once that he was wicked, and she had
laughed at him and answered that wicked people were
always very old and very ugly. What a laugh she had! Just
like a thrush singing. And how pretty she had been in her
cotton dresses and her large hats! She knew nothing, but
she had everything that he had lost.
When he reached home, he found his servant waiting
up for him. He sent him to bed, and threw himself down on
159
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
the sofa in the library, and began to think over some of the
things that Lord Henry had said to him.
Was it really true that one could never change? He felt
a wild longing for the unstained purity of his boyhood his
rose-white boyhood, as Lord Henry had once called it. He
knew that he had tarnished himself, filled his mind with
corruption and given horror to his fancy; that he had been
an evil influence to others, and had experienced a terrible
joy in being so; and that of the lives that had crossed his
own, it had been the fairest and the most full of promise that
he had brought to shame. But was it all irretrievable? Was
there no hope for him?
Ah! in what a monstrous moment of pride and passion
he had prayed that the portrait should bear the burden of
his days, and he keep the unsullied splendor of eternal
youth! All his failure had been due to that. Better for him
that each sin of his life had brought its sure swift penalty
160
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
along with it. There was purification in punishment. Not
"Forgive us our sins" but "Smite us for our iniquities" should
be the prayer of man to a most just God.
The curiously carved mirror that Lord Henry had given
to him, so many years ago now was standing on the table,
and the white-limbed Cupids laughed round it as of old. He
took it up, as he had done on that night of horror when he
had first noted the change in the fatal picture and with wild,
tear-dimmed eyes looked into its polished shield. Once,
some one who had terribly loved him had written to him a
mad letter, ending with these idolatrous words: "The world
is changed because you are made of ivory and gold. The
curves of your lips rewrite history." The phrases came back
to his memory, and he repeated them over and over to
himself. Then he loathed his own beauty, and flinging the
mirror on the floor, crushed it into silver splinters beneath
his heel. It was his beauty that had ruined him, his beauty
161
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
and the youth that he had prayed for. But for those two
things, his life might have been free from stain. His beauty
had been to him but a mask, his youth but a mockery. What
was youth at best? A green, an unripe time, a time of
shallow moods, and sickly thoughts. Why had he worn its
livery? Youth had spoiled him.
It was better not to think of the past. Nothing could
alter that. It was of himself, and of his own future, that he
had to think. James Vane was hidden in a nameless grave
in Selby churchyard. Alan Campbell had shot himself one
night in his laboratory, but had not revealed the secret that
he had been forced to know. The excitement, such as it
was, over Basil Hallward's disappearance would soon pass
away. It was already waning. He was perfectly safe there.
Nor, indeed, was it the death of Basil Hallward that weighed
most upon his mind. It was the living death of his own soul
that troubled him. Basil had painted the portrait that had
162
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
marred his life. He could not forgive him that. It was the
portrait that had done everything. Basil had said things to
him that were unbearable, and that he had yet borne with
patience. The murder had been simply the madness of a
moment. As for Alan Campbell, his suicide had been his
own act. He had chosen to do it. It was nothing to him.
A new life! That was what he wanted. That was what
he was waiting for. Surely he had begun it already. He had
spared one innocent thing, at any rate. He would never
again tempt innocence. He would be good.
As he thought of Hetty Merton, he began to wonder if
the portrait in the locked room had changed. Surely it was
not still so horrible as it had been? Perhaps if his life
became pure, he would be able to expel every sign of evil
passion from the face. Perhaps the signs of evil had already
gone away. He would go and look.
163
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
He took the lamp from the table and crept upstairs. As
he unbarred the door, a smile of joy flitted across his
strangely young-looking face and lingered for a moment
about his lips. Yes, he would be good, and the hideous
thing that he had hidden away would no longer be a terror
to him. He felt as if the load had been lifted from him
already.
He went in quietly, locking the door behind him, as was
his custom, and dragged the purple hanging from the
portrait. A cry of pain and indignation broke from him. He
could see no change, save that in the eyes there was a look
of cunning and in the mouth the curved wrinkle of the
hypocrite. The thing was still loathsome more loathsome, if
possible, than before and the scarlet dew that spotted the
hand seemed brighter, and more like blood newly spilled.
Then he trembled. Had it been merely vanity that had made
him do his one good deed? Or the desire for a new
164
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
sensation, as Lord Henry had hinted, with his mocking
laugh? Or that passion to act a part that sometimes makes
us do things finer than we are ourselves? Or, perhaps, all
these? And why was the red stain larger than it had been?
It seemed to have crept like a horrible disease over the
wrinkled fingers. There was blood on the painted feet, as
though the thing had dripped blood even on the hand that
had not held the knife. Confess? Did it mean that he was to
confess? To give himself up and be put to death? He
laughed. He felt that the idea was monstrous. Besides,
even if he did confess, who would believe him? There was
no trace of the murdered man anywhere. Everything
belonging to him had been destroyed. He himself had
burned what had been below-stairs. The world would simply
say that he was mad. They would shut him up if he
persisted in his story.... Yet it was his duty to confess, to
suffer public shame, and to make public atonement. There
was a God who called upon men to tell their sins to earth as
165
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
well as to heaven. Nothing that he could do would cleanse
him till he had told his own sin. His sin? He shrugged his
shoulders. The death of Basil Hallward seemed very little to
him. He was thinking of Hetty Merton. For it was an unjust
mirror, this mirror of his soul that he was looking at. Vanity?
Curiosity? Hypocrisy? Had there been nothing more in his
renunciation than that? There had been something more. At
least he thought so. But who could tell?... No. There had
been nothing more. Through vanity he had spared her. In
hypocrisy he had worn the mask of goodness. For
curiosity's sake he had tried the denial of self. He
recognized that now.
But this murder was it to dog him all his life? Was he
always to be burdened by his past? Was he really to
confess? Never. There was only one bit of evidence left
against him. The picture itself that was evidence. He would
destroy it. Why had he kept it so long? Once it had given
166
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
him pleasure to watch it changing and growing old. Of late
he had felt no such pleasure. It had kept him awake at
night. When he had been away, he had been filled with
terror lest other eyes should look upon it. It had brought
melancholy across his passions. Its mere memory had
marred many moments of joy. It had been like conscience
to him. Yes, it had been conscience. He would destroy it.
He looked round and saw the knife that had stabbed
Basil Hallward. He had cleaned it many times, till there was
no stain left upon it. It was bright, and glistened. As it had
killed the painter, so it would kill the painter's work, and all
that that meant. It would kill the past, and when that was
dead, he would be free. It would kill this monstrous soul-life,
and without its hideous warnings, he would be at peace. He
seized the thing, and stabbed the picture with it.
There was a cry heard, and a crash. The cry was so
horrible in its agony that the frightened servants woke and
167
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
crept out of their rooms. Two gentlemen, who were passing
in the square below, stopped and looked up at the great
house. They walked on till they met a policeman and
brought him back. The man rang the bell several times, but
there was no answer. Except for a light in one of the top
windows, the house was all dark. After a time, he went
away and stood in an adjoining portico and watched.
"Whose house is that, Constable?" asked the elder of the
two gentlemen.
"Mr. Dorian Gray's, sir," answered the policeman.
They looked at each other, as they walked away, and
sneered. One of them was Sir Henry Ashton's uncle.
Inside, in the servants' part of the house, the half-clad
domestics were talking in low whispers to each other. Old
Mrs. Leaf was crying and wringing her hands. Francis was
as pale as death.
168
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
After about a quarter of an hour, he got the coachman
and one of the footmen and crept upstairs. They knocked,
but there was no reply. They called out. Everything was still.
Finally, after vainly trying to force the door, they got on the
roof and dropped down on to the balcony. The windows
yielded easily their bolts were old.
When they entered, they found hanging upon the wall
a splendid portrait of their master as they had last seen him,
in all the wonder of his exquisite youth and beauty. Lying on
the floor was a dead man, in evening dress, with a knife in
his heart. He was withered, wrinkled, and loathsome of
visage. It was not till they had examined the rings that they
recognized who it was…
(Aldington Richard, Weintraub Stanley, “The Portable
Oscar Wilde, 386-391”)
3.1 ANALYSIS AND COMMENTS
169
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
The novel is about Dorian, who wishes that the
painting his friend Basil Hallward paints of him will age
instead of himself. Dorian's wish is granted and he
maintains his youthful beauty for years to come, while the
painting bears the burden of age. However, the painting
takes on a deeper meaning because it becomes a
manifestation of his conscience. Each sin Dorian commits
causes the painting to grow more and more grotesque.
Perhaps Dorian would not have become so evil if not for the
corruptive influence of his friend, Lord Henry. Lord Henry
convinces Dorian to live his life with the main objective to
please his senses and give no thought to moral
consequences. It was even Lord Henry's influence that
inspired Dorian to make the wish in the first place because
Henry suggested that the most important thing in life was
physical beauty, which is almost always diminished with
age. This represents Wilde's own struggle to choose
170
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
between either a socially accepted lifestyle or the
supposedly wrong lifestyle of homosexuality.
As soon as the reader opens the book, he/she is
struck by the intense love that Basil feels for Dorian. Basil
explains, "I couldn't be happy if I didn't see him every day.
He is absolutely necessary to me" (story.) This was the
same feeling that Wilde felt for Bosie. Bosie had the same
hold on Wilde that Dorian had on Basil. Dorian ends up
destroying Basil's talent of art in the same way that Bosie
ruins Wilde's talent of writing. After Dorian discards Basil,
Basil can no longer paint masterpieces. Similarly, as soon
as Wilde goes to jail and is separated from Bosie, his
writing suffered greatly.
Before Dorian makes the wish for the painting to
accept the burden of aging and his sins, he represents
innocence. His innocence is ultimately corrupted by Lord
Henry's evil influence. Because Dorian falls in love with
171
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
Henry, his actions are totally controlled by Henry's decadent
influence. In this instance, Lord Henry represents Bosie,
and Dorian represents Wilde. Wilde was relatively innocent
before being introduced to the corruptive seduction of
Bosie's nature. After the two met, Wilde's life and
conscience were absolutely destroyed by Bosie in the same
way that Lord Henry destroyed Dorian's life. Bosie seduced
Wilde into a crazy style of living in the same way as Lord
Henry convinced Dorian to abandon all moral consideration.
As the story continues, the character's symbolism
interchanges yet again. Dorian falls in love with an actress,
Sibyl Vane. However, Dorian loves Sibyl for the characters
she brings to life, and not for the person that she is. To
Dorian, "Sibyl escapes time; she is full of mystery, sacred.
She is all the great heroines, never an individual." Once
Dorian promises Sibyl that he will marry her, he steals from
172
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
her the only talent that she possessed. Sibyl does not mind
the loss. She explains,
Before I knew you, acting was the only one reality in
my life. I thought it was all true. You freed my soul from
prison. You taught me what reality is. You made me
understand what love really is."
However, since Dorian never truly loved Sibyl for the
person she was, he was outraged by her loss of talent and
called off the marriage. To Dorian, Sibyl was merely a
collectible in the same way that Wilde's wife, Constance,
was to him. In other words, Constance was merely another
mask to hide Wilde's homosexuality. Dorian not only stole
from Sibyl her defining talent, but also her will to live after
he selfishly cast her aside after learning she would no
longer be able to act if they were together. Bosie did the
same thing to Wilde, stealing from him his talent to write,
and then leaving him to decay in a cell.
173
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
Once Dorian realizes that the painting will bear the
effects of his sins, he lives his life carelessly. He follows
Lord Henry's theory of pleasure over morals, and lives his
life with no consideration to the consequences of his
actions. He manages to drive a girl to suicide, destroy the
life of the girl's brother because his sister meant everything
to him, and even to kill the only person who truly loved him,
Basil. Similarly, Wilde separated his wife and family and
broke the law for mere physical pleasure. In the end, Dorian
is so disgusted with his painting, and therefore his soul, he
attempts to destroy it by ripping the picture with a knife.
Later that day, Dorian is found dead next to a painting of his
former beauty while his body is old and withered. Dorian
kills his conscience; thus he kills himself.
By the end of the novel, despite all of the torture
Dorian has endured, Lord Henry remains unchanged. He
expresses no guilt in having corrupted the purity that once
174
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
existed in Dorian, and having destroyed his life. In Wilde's
own life, Bosie also remained unchanged. He too never felt
ashamed or sorrowful for the corruption of Wilde that he
promoted. Dorian dies a bitter man, and this is perhaps the
same way Wilde felt at the end of his lifetime. The novel
acted as a window to allow the reader to discover Wilde´s
hidden homosexuality and tragedy of into Wilde's existence.
When the novel was first introduced into the
conservative Victorian society, it was referred to as
"mawkish and nauseous," "unclean," "effeminate" and
"contaminating." This was because "the homosexual
undertones of Wilde's development of his plot incited a
critical corruption." The people of this time period were not
ready for this type of controversy. However, "those who
rage and howl suffer from seeing their own savage faces
reflected in their artist's creation." In other words, the
society did not like this book because it forced them to look
175
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
inside themselves and face the imperfections that the
Victorian era was struggling to hide. This got in the way of
the Victorian society's image of perfection.
The people of the Victorian era were simply not ready
to confront the fact that there were ideas and concepts out
there that did not adhere to their image of perfection, but
could not be ignored. Wilde's novel was beneficial to
change. It brought to light a revelation the Victorian society
was trying to avoid. Wilde should have pressed this point
more in his novel; however, he lacked the courage that was
necessary. As James Joyce pointed out in a letter to his
brother, Wilde's literary error was that, "Wilde seems to
have good intentions in writing it- some wish to put himself
before the world- but the book is rather crowded with lies
and epigrams. If he had the courage to develop the
allusions in the book it might have been better." In other
words, Wilde feared self- revelation. He knew that he was
176
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
attempting to express his feelings in his novel; however, he
provided only minimal undertones of his feelings. Had he
had the courage to show in full what he fought so hard to
disguise with symbolism and epigrams? the novel probably
would have reached worldwide controversy, which is what
makes a story a classic.
During his trials, Wilde's own homosexual suggestions
in his writings, particularly in his novel, were used against
him and helped send him to jail. While in his cell, Wilde
devoted much of his time to self- examination, and thus
wrote a letter to Bosie, “De Profundis,” explaining why Wilde
could never see Bosie again. Due to the torturous love affair
between Bosie and Wilde, Oscar's writing had taken a turn
for the worse. However, this was Wilde's saving grace. The
letter was one of Wilde's most moving writings, and it was
the first time Wilde expressed his shame and guilt. A friend
of Wilde's, R.B. Cunninghame Graham, explained, "All
177
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
through the book there is a vein of tenderness, not that
false tenderness which sorrow sometimes gives, but real
and innate. The love of flowers, of children, of the trees, the
sun and moon and stars in their courses, call to us from this
crying voice, for pardon". According to Bosie, "he, a youthful
innocent was degraded by the worldly-wise, thirty-eight year
old
playwright."
However,
Wilde
mainly
blames
homosexuality for his suffering, rather than Bosie and his
actions by saying, "she (mother) and my father had given
me a name they had made noble and honored. I had
disgraced that name eternally." Wilde greatly regretted the
shame he had brought on himself and his family and made
a promise never to see Bosie again.
However, Oscar was unable to resist temptation. He
and Bosie were reunited with disastrous consequences.
During the time they spent together, "Wilde was plagued by
financial worries, his relationship with Douglas (Bosie) went
178
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
through a series of problems with short periods of delighted
reunion; he became paranoid about his friend's loyalty."
Wilde's life went downhill and for Wilde, final consolations
lay not in art, but in alcohol, boys and on his deathbed in a
seedy hotel room in 1900. Wilde's life had a tragic ending
similar to that of his title character in The Picture of Dorian
Gray. He died alone and bitter, wishing he could change the
past and amend the mistakes he made. It is almost scary
how much of a self-fulfilling prophesy Wilde's novel
became.
(www.victoriaspast.com/OscarWilde/OscarWilde.htm)
Wilde was an extraordinary writer who used his
homosexuality as an influence to take his writing to a higher
level. This is something a good author will do, take
something within himself or herself and use it to give
meaning to his/her writing. His fear of self- revelation forced
him to find other resources to channel his homosexuality
179
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
into, and he chose his writing. He was ahead of his time in
the sense that he challenged the society that he lived in to
explore regions of themselves that they were trying to hide.
His life was a tragedy and he was persecuted for revealing
his true life and for living the life that he felt was right for
him. The Victorian era was relentless in making him
ashamed of the way he was born, forcing him to hide who
he was, when he was, in fact, an amazing individual who
cleared a path for others to follow, to admit to themselves
and to their community who they were and to live in the way
they wished to live. Wilde should not be looked upon as the
corrupt Lord Henry in his novel, but as the tortured artist,
Basil, for:
"His joy of life, and all the sufferings which to such a
man those two fell years must have entailed, speak for him
to us, asking us now, after his death to pardon, and when
we speak of him, to call him by his name, to make no
180
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
mystery of his fall, and to regard him as a star which,
looking at its own reflection in some dank marsh, fell down
and smirched itself, and then became extinct ere it had time
to soar aloft again"
4. “THE BALLAD OF READING GAOL”
“THE BALLAD OF READING GAOL”
BY
OSCAR WILDE
I.
He did not wear his scarlet coat,
For blood and wine are red,
And blood and wine were on his hands
181
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
When they found him with the dead,
The poor dead woman whom he loved,
And murdered in her bed.
He walked amongst the Trial Men
In a suit of shabby grey;
A cricket cap was on his head,
And his step seemed light and gay;
But I never saw a man who looked
So wistfully at the day.
I never saw a man who looked
With such a wistful eye
Upon that little tent of blue
Which prisoners call the sky,
And at every drifting cloud that went
With sails of silver by.
I walked, with other souls in pain,
Within another ring,
And was wondering if the man had done
A great or little thing,
When a voice behind me whispered low,
"That fellows got to swing."
Dear Christ! the very prison walls
Suddenly seemed to reel,
And the sky above my head became
Like a casque of scorching steel;
And, though I was a soul in pain,
My pain I could not feel.
I only knew what hunted thought
Quickened his step, and why
He looked upon the garish day
182
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
With such a wistful eye;
The man had killed the thing he loved
And so he had to die.
Yet each man kills the thing he loves
By each let this be heard,
Some do it with a bitter look,
Some with a flattering word,
The coward does it with a kiss,
The brave man with a sword!
Some kill their love when they are young,
And some when they are old;
Some strangle with the hands of Lust,
Some with the hands of Gold:
The kindest use a knife, because
The dead so soon grow cold.
Some love too little, some too long,
Some sell, and others buy;
Some do the deed with many tears,
And some without a sigh:
For each man kills the thing he loves,
Yet each man does not die.
He does not die a death of shame
On a day of dark disgrace,
Nor have a noose about his neck,
Nor a cloth upon his face,
Nor drop feet foremost through the floor
Into an empty place
He does not sit with silent men
Who watch him night and day;
183
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
Who watch him when he tries to weep,
And when he tries to pray;
Who watch him lest himself should rob
The prison of its prey.
He does not wake at dawn to see
Dread figures throng his room,
The shivering Chaplain robed in white,
The Sheriff stern with gloom,
And the Governor all in shiny black,
With the yellow face of Doom.
He does not rise in piteous haste
To put on convict-clothes,
While some coarse-mouthed Doctor gloats, and notes
Each new and nerve-twitched pose,
Fingering a watch whose little ticks
Are like horrible hammer-blows.
He does not feel that sickening thirst
That sands one's throat, before
The hangman with his gardener's gloves
Comes through the padded door,
And binds one with three leathern thongs,
That the throat may thirst no more.
He does not bend his head to hear
The Burial Office read,
Nor, while the terror of his soul
Tells him he is not dead,
Cross his own coffin, as he moves
Into the hideous shed.
He does not stare upon the air
Through a little roof of glass;
He does not pray with lips of clay
184
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
For his agony to pass;
Nor feel upon his shuddering cheek
The kiss of Caiaphas.
II.
Six weeks the guardsman walked the yard,
In a suit of shabby grey:
His cricket cap was on his head,
And his step seemed light and gay,
But I never saw a man who looked
So wistfully at the day.
I never saw a man who looked
With such a wistful eye
Upon that little tent of blue
Which prisoners call the sky,
And at every wandering cloud that trailed
Its raveled fleeces by.
He did not wring his hands, as do
Those witless men who dare
To try to rear the changeling Hope
In the cave of black Despair:
He only looked upon the sun,
And drank the morning air.
He did not wring his hands nor weep,
Nor did he peek or pine,
But he drank the air as though it held
Some healthful anodyne;
With open mouth he drank the sun
As though it had been wine!
And I and all the souls in pain,
Who tramped the other ring,
Forgot if we ourselves had done
185
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
A great or little thing,
And watched with gaze of dull amaze
The man who had to swing.
For strange it was to see him pass
With a step so light and gay,
And strange it was to see him look
So wistfully at the day,
And strange it was to think that he
Had such a debt to pay.
For oak and elm have pleasant leaves
That in the spring-time shoot:
But grim to see is the gallows-tree,
With its adder-bitten root,
And, green or dry, a man must die
Before it bears its fruit!
The loftiest place is that seat of grace
For which all worldlings try:
But who would stand in hempen band
Upon a scaffold high,
And through a murderer's collar take
His last look at the sky?
It is sweet to dance to violins
When Love and Life are fair:
To dance to flutes, to dance to lutes
Is delicate and rare:
But it is not sweet with nimble feet
To dance upon the air!
So with curious eyes and sick surmise
We watched him day by day,
And wondered if each one of us
Would end the self-same way,
186
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
For none can tell to what red Hell
His sightless soul may stray.
At last the dead man walked no more
Amongst the Trial Men,
And I knew that he was standing up
In the black dock's dreadful pen,
And that never would I see his face
In God's sweet world again.
Like two doomed ships that pass in storm
We had crossed each other's way:
But we made no sign, we said no word,
We had no word to say;
For we did not meet in the holy night,
But in the shameful day.
A prison wall was round us both,
Two outcast men were we:
The world had thrust us from its heart,
And God from out His care:
And the iron gin that waits for Sin
Had caught us in its snare.
In Debtors' Yard the stones are hard,
And the dripping wall is high,
So it was there he took the air
Beneath the leaden sky,
And by each side a Warder walked,
For fear the man might die.
Or else he sat with those who watched
His anguish night and day;
Who watched him when he rose to weep,
And when he crouched to pray;
187
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
Who watched him lest himself should rob
Their scaffold of its prey.
The Governor was strong upon
The Regulations Act:
The Doctor said that Death was but
A scientific fact:
And twice a day the Chaplain called
And left a little tract.
And twice a day he smoked his pipe,
And drank his quart of beer:
His soul was resolute, and held
No hiding-place for fear;
He often said that he was glad
The hangman's hands were near.
But why he said so strange a thing
No Warder dared to ask:
For he to whom a watcher's doom
Is given as his task,
Must set a lock upon his lips,
And make his face a mask.
Or else he might be moved, and try
To comfort or console:
And what should Human Pity do
Pent up in Murderers' Hole?
What word of grace in such a place
Could help a brother's soul?
With slouch and swing around the ring
We trod the Fool's Parade!
We did not care: we knew we were
The Devil's Own Brigade:
188
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
And shaven head and feet of lead
Make a merry masquerade.
We tore the tarry rope to shreds
With blunt and bleeding nails;
We rubbed the doors, and scrubbed the floors,
And cleaned the shining rails:
And, rank by rank, we soaped the plank,
And clattered with the pails.
We sewed the sacks, we broke the stones,
We turned the dusty drill:
We banged the tins, and bawled the hymns,
And sweated on the mill:
But in the heart of every man
Terror was lying still.
So still it lay that every day
Crawled like a weed-clogged wave:
And we forgot the bitter lot
That waits for fool and knave,
Till once, as we tramped in from work,
We passed an open grave.
With yawning mouth the yellow hole
Gaped for a living thing;
The very mud cried out for blood
To the thirsty asphalte ring:
And we knew that ere one dawn grew fair
Some prisoner had to swing.
Right in we went, with soul intent
On Death and Dread and Doom:
The hangman, with his little bag,
Went shuffling through the gloom
And each man trembled as he crept
189
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
Into his numbered tomb.
That night the empty corridors
Were full of forms of Fear,
And up and down the iron town
Stole feet we could not hear,
And through the bars that hide the stars
White faces seemed to peer.
He lay as one who lies and dreams
In a pleasant meadow-land,
The watcher watched him as he slept,
And could not understand
How one could sleep so sweet a sleep
With a hangman close at hand?
But there is no sleep when men must weep
Who never yet have wept:
So we--the fool, the fraud, the knave-That endless vigil kept,
And through each brain on hands of pain
Another's terror crept.
Alas! it is a fearful thing
To feel another's guilt!
For, right within, the sword of Sin
Pierced to its poisoned hilt,
And as molten lead were the tears we shed
For the blood we had not spilt.
The Warders with their shoes of felt
Crept by each padlocked door,
And peeped and saw, with eyes of awe,
Grey figures on the floor,
And wondered why men knelt to pray
Who never prayed before.
190
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
All through the night we knelt and prayed,
Mad mourners of a corpse!
The troubled plumes of midnight were
The plumes upon a hearse:
And bitter wine upon a sponge
Was the savior of Remorse.
The cock crew, the red cock crew,
But never came the day:
And crooked shape of Terror crouched,
In the corners where we lay:
And each evil sprite that walks by night
Before us seemed to play.
They glided past, they glided fast,
Like travelers through a mist:
They mocked the moon in a rigadoon
Of delicate turn and twist,
And with formal pace and loathsome grace
The phantoms kept their tryst.
With mop and mow, we saw them go,
Slim shadows hand in hand:
About, about, in ghostly rout
They trod a saraband:
And the damned grotesques made arabesques,
Like the wind upon the sand!
With the pirouettes of marionettes,
They tripped on pointed tread:
But with flutes of Fear they filled the ear,
As their grisly masque they led,
And loud they sang, and loud they sang,
For they sang to wake the dead.
191
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
"Oho!" they cried, "The world is wide,
But fettered limbs go lame!
And once, or twice, to throw the dice
Is a gentlemanly game,
But he does not win who plays with Sin
In the secret House of Shame."
No things of air these antics were
That frolicked with such glee:
To men whose lives were held in gyves,
And whose feet might not go free,
Ah! wounds of Christ! they were living things,
Most terrible to see.
Around, around, they waltzed and wound;
Some wheeled in smirking pairs:
With the mincing step of demirep
Some sidled up the stairs:
And with subtle sneer, and fawning leer,
Each helped us at our prayers.
The morning wind began to moan,
But still the night went on:
Through its giant loom the web of gloom
Crept till each thread was spun:
And, as we prayed, we grew afraid
Of the Justice of the Sun.
The moaning wind went wandering round
The weeping prison-wall:
Till like a wheel of turning-steel
We felt the minutes crawl:
O moaning wind! what had we done
To have such a seneschal?
192
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
At last I saw the shadowed bars
Like a lattice wrought in lead,
Move right across the whitewashed wall
That faced my three-plank bed,
And I knew that somewhere in the world
God's dreadful dawn was red.
At six o'clock we cleaned our cells,
At seven all was still,
But the sough and swing of a mighty wing
The prison seemed to fill,
For the Lord of Death with icy breath
Had entered in to kill.
He did not pass in purple pomp,
Nor ride a moon-white steed.
Three yards of cord and a sliding board
Are all the gallows' need:
So with rope of shame the Herald came
To do the secret deed.
We were as men who through a fen
Of filthy darkness grope:
We did not dare to breathe a prayer,
Or give our anguish scope:
Something was dead in each of us,
And what was dead was Hope.
For Man's grim Justice goes its way,
And will not swerve aside:
It slays the weak, it slays the strong,
It has a deadly stride:
With iron heel it slays the strong,
The monstrous parricide!
193
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
We waited for the stroke of eight:
Each tongue was thick with thirst:
For the stroke of eight is the stroke of Fate
That makes a man accursed,
And Fate will use a running noose
For the best man and the worst.
We had no other thing to do,
Save to wait for the sign to come:
So, like things of stone in a valley lone,
Quiet we sat and dumb:
But each man's heart beat thick and quick
Like a madman on a drum!
With sudden shock the prison-clock
Smote on the shivering air,
And from all the gaol rose up a wail
Of impotent despair,
Like the sound that frightened marshes hear
From a leper in his lair.
And as one sees most fearful things
In the crystal of a dream,
We saw the greasy hempen rope
Hooked to the blackened beam,
And heard the prayer the hangman's snare
Strangled into a scream.
And all the woe that moved him so
That he gave that bitter cry,
And the wild regrets, and the bloody sweats,
None knew so well as I:
For he who live more lives than one
More deaths than one must die.
IV.
194
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
There is no chapel on the day
On which they hang a man:
The Chaplain's heart is far too sick,
Or his face is far to wan,
Or there is that written in his eyes
Which none should look upon.
So they kept us close till nigh on noon,
And then they rang the bell,
And the Warders with their jingling keys
Opened each listening cell,
And down the iron stair we tramped,
Each from his separate Hell.
Out into God's sweet air we went,
But not in wonted way,
For this man's face was white with fear,
And that man's face was gray,
And I never saw sad men who looked
So wistfully at the day.
I never saw sad men who looked
With such a wistful eye
Upon that little tent of blue
We prisoners called the sky,
And at every careless cloud that passed
In happy freedom by.
But their were those amongst us all
Who walked with downcast head,
And knew that, had each go his due,
They should have died instead:
He had but killed a thing that lived
Whilst they had killed the dead.
195
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
For he who sins a second time
Wakes a dead soul to pain,
And draws it from its spotted shroud,
And makes it bleed again,
And makes it bleed great gouts of blood
And makes it bleed in vain!
Like ape or clown, in monstrous garb
With crooked arrows starred,
Silently we went round and round
The slippery asphalte yard;
Silently we went round and round,
And no man spoke a word.
Silently we went round and round,
And through each hollow mind
The memory of dreadful things
Rushed like a dreadful wind,
And Horror stalked before each man,
And terror crept behind.
The Warders strutted up and down,
And kept their herd of brutes,
Their uniforms were spick and span,
And they wore their Sunday suits,
But we knew the work they had been at
By the quicklime on their boots.
For where a grave had opened wide,
There was no grave at all:
Only a stretch of mud and sand
By the hideous prison-wall,
And a little heap of burning lime,
That the man should have his pall.
196
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
For he has a pall, this wretched man,
Such as few men can claim:
Deep down below a prison-yard,
Naked for greater shame,
He lies, with fetters on each foot,
Wrapt in a sheet of flame!
And all the while the burning lime
Eats flesh and bone away,
It eats the brittle bone by night,
And the soft flesh by the day,
It eats the flesh and bones by turns,
But it eats the heart always.
For three long years they will not sow
Or root or seedling there:
For three long years the unblessed spot
Will sterile be and bare,
And look upon the wondering sky
With unreproachful stare.
They think a murderer's heart would taint
Each simple seed they sow.
It is not true! God's kindly earth
Is kindlier than men know,
And the red rose would but blow more red,
The white rose whiter blow.
Out of his mouth a red, red rose!
Out of his heart a white!
For who can say by what strange way,
Christ brings his will to light,
Since the barren staff the pilgrim bore
Bloomed in the great Pope's sight?
197
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
But neither milk-white rose nor red
May bloom in prison air;
The shard, the pebble, and the flint,
Are what they give us there:
For flowers have been known to heal
A common man's despair.
So never will wine-red rose or white,
Petal by petal, fall
On that stretch of mud and sand that lies
By the hideous prison-wall,
To tell the men who tramp the yard
That God's Son died for all.
Yet though the hideous prison-wall
Still hems him round and round,
And a spirit man not walk by night
That is with fetters bound,
And a spirit may not weep that lies
In such unholy ground,
He is at peace--this wretched man-At peace, or will be soon:
There is no thing to make him mad,
Nor does Terror walk at noon,
For the lampless Earth in which he lies
Has neither Sun nor Moon.
They hanged him as a beast is hanged:
They did not even toll
A requiem that might have brought
Rest to his startled soul,
But hurriedly they took him out,
And hid him in a hole.
198
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
The warders stripped him of his clothes,
And gave him to the flies;
They mocked the swollen purple throat
And the stark and staring eyes:
And with laughter loud they heaped the shroud
In which their convict lies.
The Chaplain would not kneel to pray
By his dishonored grave:
Nor mark it with that blessed Cross
That Christ for sinners gave,
Because the man was one of those
Whom Christ came down to save.
Yet all is well; he has but passed
To Life's appointed bourne:
And alien tears will fill for him
Pity's long-broken urn,
For his mourner will be outcast men,
And outcasts always mourn.
V.
I know not whether Laws be right,
Or whether Laws be wrong;
All that we know who lie in goal
Is that the wall is strong;
And that each day is like a year,
A year whose days are long.
But this I know, that every Law
That men have made for Man,
Since first Man took his brother's life,
And the sad world began,
But straws the wheat and saves the chaff
With a most evil fan.
199
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
This too I know--and wise it were
If each could know the same-That every prison that men build
Is built with bricks of shame,
And bound with bars lest Christ should see
How men their brothers maim.
With bars they blur the gracious moon,
And blind the goodly sun:
And they do well to hide their Hell,
For in it things are done
That Son of God nor son of Man
Ever should look upon!
The vilest deeds like poison weeds
Bloom well in prison-air:
It is only what is good in Man
That wastes and withers there:
Pale Anguish keeps the heavy gate,
And the Warder is Despair
For they starve the little frightened child
Till it weeps both night and day:
And they scourge the weak, and flog the fool,
And gibe the old and grey,
And some grow mad, and all grow bad,
And none a word may say.
Each narrow cell in which we dwell
Is foul and dark latrine,
And the fetid breath of living Death
Chokes up each grated screen,
And all, but Lust, is turned to dust
In Humanity's machine.
200
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
The brackish water that we drink
Creeps with a loathsome slime,
And the bitter bread they weigh in scales
Is full of chalk and lime,
And Sleep will not lie down, but walks
Wild-eyed and cries to Time.
But though lean Hunger and green Thirst
Like asp with adder fight,
We have little care of prison fare,
For what chills and kills outright
Is that every stone one lifts by day
Becomes one's heart by night.
With midnight always in one's heart,
And twilight in one's cell,
We turn the crank, or tear the rope,
Each in his separate Hell,
And the silence is more awful far
Than the sound of a brazen bell.
And never a human voice comes near
To speak a gentle word:
And the eye that watches through the door
Is pitiless and hard:
And by all forgot, we rot and rot,
With soul and body marred.
And thus we rust Life's iron chain
Degraded and alone:
And some men curse, and some men weep,
And some men make no moan:
But God's eternal Laws are kind
And break the heart of stone.
201
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
And every human heart that breaks,
In prison-cell or yard,
Is as that broken box that gave
Its treasure to the Lord,
And filled the unclean leper's house
With the scent of costliest nard.
Ah! happy day they whose hearts can break
And peace of pardon win!
How else may man make straight his plan
And cleanse his soul from Sin?
How else but through a broken heart
May Lord Christ enter in?
And he of the swollen purple throat.
And the stark and staring eyes,
Waits for the holy hands that took
The Thief to Paradise;
And a broken and a contrite heart
The Lord will not despise.
The man in red who reads the Law
Gave him three weeks of life,
Three little weeks in which to heal
His soul of his soul's strife,
And cleanse from every blot of blood
The hand that held the knife.
And with tears of blood he cleansed the hand,
The hand that held the steel:
For only blood can wipe out blood,
And only tears can heal:
And the crimson stain that was of Cain
Became Christ's snow-white seal.
VI.
202
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
In Reading gaol by Reading town
There is a pit of shame,
And in it lies a wretched man
Eaten by teeth of flame,
In burning winding-sheet he lies,
And his grave has got no name.
And there, till Christ call forth the dead,
In silence let him lie:
No need to waste the foolish tear,
Or heave the windy sigh:
The man had killed the thing he loved,
And so he had to die.
And all men kill the thing they love,
By all let this be heard,
Some do it with a bitter look,
Some with a flattering word,
The coward does it with a kiss,
The brave man with a sword!
The End
(Aldington Richard, Weintraub Stanley, “The
Portable Oscar Wilde, 667-689”)
4.1 CREATION OF THE POEM
“The Ballad of Reading Gaol” is a poem that just had
to be written, which derives from its precise biographical
context, and was completed relatively quickly. It is “the
product of a specific moment:” the first days of Oscar
203
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
Wilde´s freedom, embittered by the realization that his
family life had very possibly been destroyed forever.
On May 19, 1897, Oscar Wilde was released from
Reading Jail and within less than two weeks, after he had
moved to France, he was already at work on “The Ballad.”
The first draft was written quickly, but revision and
expansion took longer. Changes introduced after the first
draft seemed to have been designed to “strengthen the
didactism rather than to heighten the narrative and
dramatic effects.”
In late August he sent it to his publisher, saying it was
still unrevised, and only in October he was able to claim
that it was “finished at last.”
4.2 STRUCTURE OF “THE BALLAD”
204
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
Oscar Wilde’s ballad consists of 109 stanzas which
are grouped into six parts, indicated by numbers. Asterisks
refer to a further subdivision within the parts.
The poem starts off with Part I, consisting of 16
stanzas, which tells of a prisoner who murdered the woman
he loved and was sentenced to death for that crime. There
is a subdivision after the first six stanzas. Part I(a) only
focuses on the prisoner concerned; Part I(b), on the other
hand, takes a far wider perspective, reflecting about men in
general, who all kill “the thing they love” but who do not all
have to die. A description of the horrible conditions of
prison rounds off that part.
Part II consists of 13 verses and is built up similarly to
Part I. The first six stanzas, Part II(a), come back to the
condemned man; the remaining seven verses, Part II(b),
are focusing on a larger group, in this case the whole of the
prisoners and their life and death fears. The fate hanging
205
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
over the condemned man seems to be a threat to all of
them. Additionally, the life “outside”, where free people live,
love and dance, is contrasted to the life “inside” the prison
walls where prisoners sit out their sentence indifferently
and pass each other without a word or sign.
(http://pubs.socialistreviewindex.org.uk/sr224/charlton.
htm)
Part III is the longest one with 37 stanzas. Part III (a),
the first twelve verses, describes how the prisoners see the
condemned man for the last time noting the “yellow hole”
(III, 61), the grave which is already waiting for the corpse of
the man. Part III(b), consisting of only six stanzas, focuses
on the evening and gradual fall of the night. The whole
section climaxes in the 19 verses of Part III(c) with the
fellow prisoners’ complete identification with Woodridge
during the night preceding his execution. In this night the
prisoners have terrible dreams as if they themselves had
206
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
been condemned to death. Here, for the first time, one can
feel some of the common humanity, of the solidarity of the
prisoners, which Wilde experienced in prison. Part III(c)
closes with a vision of the execution. (Op. Cit)
Part IV, with its 23 verses, shows in detail how the
dead man’s punishment is extended even after death. Part
IV(a), consisting of six stanzas, features the man’s fellow
prisoners on the next morning united by now looking at
themselves “so wistfully” (IV, 18), a feature by which in Part
I(a) only Woodridge was characterized. Part IV(b), two
verses, is a short reference to the last night in Part III(c)
and is opposed by Part IV(c) which focuses on the warders
and the grave of burning lime. In the last 12 stanzas
making up Part IV(d), the corpse is buried in a great hurry
without a final prayer or a cross to mark the place. The
destruction of the prisoner, continuing even after his death,
clearly shows the inhumanity of man to man. (Op. Cit)
207
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
Part V is concerned with the abstract problem of
collective human and social guilt and starts off with a critical
remark concerning incarceration. In the first four stanzas,
Part V(a), the image of the ideal and united community of
prisoners is counterposed with the recognition that real life
can only happen outside and that the social goal of
rehabilitation with respect to the inmates is a joke. Prison
only intensifies the inmates’ isolation and aggression, as
Part V(b), and Part V(c), each consisting of four verses,
show. Part V(d), with its two stanzas, and Part V(e), with its
three stanzas, introduce the religious dimension of
execution and criticize the power some “men in red” (V, 91)
have over the life and death of people. (Op. Cit)
Part VI, finally, concludes the ballad in its three verses
by once more taking up the theme that “each man kills the
thing he loves” (I, 37), repeating almost word by word the
relevant verse in Part I(b). It combines the narrative base of
208
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
the poem, the execution of the prisoner, and its
philosophical center, the problem of guilt and the
responsibility of those who pass judgment. (Op. Cit)
4.3 ANALYSIS AND COMMENTS
In “The Ballad of Reading Gaol,” Oscar Wilde digests
his experiences in prison but it can also be understood as a
tribute to that original homosexual community of men which
provided the spectacle of their banishment from polite
society.
The factual background is the execution of Charles
Thomas Woodridge who had murdered his wife. His
execution took place in Reading Gaol during the time of
Wilde’s imprisonment. But for the ballad this background is
of no great importance since Wilde does not concentrate on
Woodridge’s last thoughts before the execution but rather
on the way his fellow prisoners feel about it. Besides, there
is a lot of criticism of the prison system at that time.
209
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
A poem can stir all of the senses, and the subject
matter of a poem can range from being funny to being sad.
In “The Ballad Of Reading Gaol” we find even more than
words but very sentimental lyrics.
4.4 AN OPPOSING VIEW
“The Ballad of Reading Gaol” can be analyzed from
many points of view, that is why the following analysis
defers from the other one. This analysis is very interesting
because it gives a Christian point of view of this poem. It
refers to a love between two people and also, the most
important of all, refers to the love between God and men, or
to
ones
own-self.
“Yet each man kills the thing he loves,
By each let this be heard,"
After all, not everyone kills the thing he loves.
210
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
However, according to Wilde, every man do..
"Some do it with a bitter look,"
This could easily refer to simply not showing love to
the thing you love. One possibility is typically the gruff old
man who simply does not approve or support anything the
other person does. A look can kill.
"Some with a flattering word,"
This is refering to “players”. Those who trick
someone into loving them. The played upon party will often
end up falling in love with the player, but if the player does
not love the played, than the love is destined to fail and the
played destined to die.
211
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
"The coward does it with a kiss,"
This one seems obvious. You can kill the thing
you love by kissing, or showing affection to, another thing.
This is not necessarily the meaning, however. The line
does not tell who is being kissed. It could be the thing you
love. One possible meaning could be Judas Iscariot, who
betrayed the love of Jesus with a kiss. Another possibility
would be smothering the thing you love too early on with
physical affection, essentially killing any chance of real love
developing
"The brave man with a sword!”
This has been taken by some to mean that it is
better to kill the one you love than to put that person
through the pain of killing the love with one of the items
above. Some people sabotage love, they kill it inadvertantly
212
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
and in a slow and painful manner. But the better man
breaks love off in one swift motion. The difference between
sabotaging a relationship, thus hurting your partner, and
breaking up with someone is a hug. The basic idea here is
that it is better to break something off yourself than to let
your actions do it. Another meaning, if the previous line is
meant in a biblical context, would be that Peter was using a
sword to try and save Jesus directly after Judas betrayed
Jesus with a kiss. The use of the sword went directly
against the teachings of Jesus, and thus could be seen as
killing in some manner. Peter was brave, and although he
had a brief lapse of cowardice shortly after this incident, he
died for his love, hung on a cross upside down. Judas, on
the other hand, hung himself directly after the events.
"The man who lives more lives than one,
more deaths than one must die."
213
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
It seems that this line sums up what Wilde felt of his
life. He had lived two lives, one married to a woman, and
one in love with a man. He separated the lives, and so had
to die to both of them; first to his family, and second to his
lover. Likewise, he had to die first to his audience (literary
death), and second to himself (physical death.)
Part one:
This poem was the work Oscar Wilde produced that
revealed his soul. Other poems have been changed to a
certain degree and have not really shown his original
thought. This poem, however, was written while Wilde was
imprisoned
for
being
a
homosexual.
“The man had killed the thing he loved,
And so he had to die.”
214
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
He was talking about the man who killed his wife and
therefore must be put to death. An eye for an eye, in the
eyes
of
Wilde’s
public
back
then.
“Yet each man kills the thing he loves,
By each let this be heard,
Some do it with a bitter look,
Some with a flattering word,
The coward does it with a kiss,
The brave man with a sword!”
We found that it can be interpreted in two ways:
He is talking about love saying that man will willingly
give up his initial motives or sacrifice in a manner whereby
he loses a bit of free will, through wars, under commands of
chiefs or other authority figures, or through mind and
thoughts by replacing every existing thought with their love.
215
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
Or he is talking about free will in a manner of choice
of personal values: indirectly caused by propriety or
deference to a higher-up or authority figure; the person will
diverge his/her original thoughts in order to please society.
Conformity, as it had a strict hold over us in society and bids
us
to
follow
the
code
of
civil
conduct
or
living.
“He does not sit with silent men
Who watch him night and day;
Who watch him when he tries to weep,
And when he tries to pray;
Who watch him lest himself should rob
The prison of its prey.”
Wilde is referring to the “free” man, on the outskirts of
the prison, who indeed is as condemned as those inside the
prison walls. He is comparing how people’s lives are judged
inside the walls by other cellmates. All things relative, the
216
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
men outside are imprisoned by society and the citizenship or
fellowship
of
their
town
or
country.
No man is truly free because, before every action, there will
always be a brief judgmental thought about how others will
view them afterwards. The self-conscious world Wilde is
talking
about
here
is
not
conscious
of
this
social
imprisonment.
(http://www.eliteskills.com)
IV
CHAPTER FOUR
THE INFLUENCE OF VICTORIAN AGE ON WILDE’S
WORKS
12.
VICTORIAN ENGLAND
13.
OSCAR WILDE IN VICTORIAN ENGLAND
14.
WILDE
AND
HIS
CREATIVE
PERSONALITY
217
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
15.
WILDE´S
STAMP
ON
VICTORIAN
SOCIETY
16.
ART IN MEN´S LIFE
17.
PURPOSES OF ART
18.
OSCAR WILDE AND "ART FOR ART'S
SAKE"
19.
A
DEEP
VIEW
INTO
WILDE´S
HOMOSEXUALITY
20.
POETRY AND SOCIALISM IN VICTORIAN
PERIOD
21.
WILDE'S SOCIAL VIEWS
22.
OSCAR WILDE IN MODERN POPULAR
CULTURE
218
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
219
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
IV
CHAPTER FOUR
THE INFLUENCE OF VICTORIAN AGE ON WILDE’S
WORKS
1. VICTORIAN ENGLAND
Victoria, the daughter of the Duke of Kent and
Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg, inherited the throne of
Great Britain at the age of eighteen, upon the death of her
uncle William IV in 1837, and reigned until 1901. The British
Empire was established in her reign, and it reached its
greatest extension under her. Things did not start off
smoothly, however.
Prior to the industrial revolution, Britain had a very rigid
social structure consisting of three distinct classes: the
Church and aristocracy, the middle class, and the working
poorer class.
220
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
The Victorian city of London was a city of surprising
contrasts. New buildings and affluent development went
hand in hand with horribly overcrowded slums where people
lived in the worst conditions imaginable. The population
surged during the 19th century, from about 1 million in 1800
to over 6 million a century later. This growth far exceeded
London's ability to look after the basic needs of its citizens.
Victorian morality was the result of the moral views of
people living at the time of Queen Victoria in particular, and
to the moral climate of Great Britain throughout the 19th
century in general. It is not tied to this historical period and
could describe any set of values that exposed sexual
repression, low tolerance of crime, and a strong social ethic.
Historians regard the Victorian era as a time of many
contradictions. Plenty of social movements concerned with
improving public morals co-existed with a class system that
permitted harsh living conditions for many people. The
221
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
apparent contradiction between the widespread cultivation
of an outward appearance of dignity and restraint and the
prevalence of social phenomena that included prostitution
and child labor were two sides of the same coin: various
social reform movements and high principles arose from
attempts to improve the harsh conditions.
During
the
Victorian
era,
homosexuality
was
a
dangerous theme. The Victorian era was about progress. It
was an attempt aimed at cleaning up the society and setting
a moral standard. The Victorian era was a time of relative
peace and economic stability. Victorians did not want
anything "unclean" or "unacceptable" to interfere with their
idea of perfection.
2. OSCAR WILDE IN VICTORIAN ENGLAND
In 1882, Wilde settled in Paris, the French capital,
and later in London. He was one of the biggest artistic and
222
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
literary personages at that place and at that time. People
admired him, but later the same people would condemn
him because of the terrible sin he committed.
Oscar Wilde moved to London followed by his widowed
mother and his brother Willie. He found that many people in
the city were uncomfortable with his non-Englishness, his
flamboyant style and his willingness to challenge the English
society.
Wilde became well known for his less-than-manly
gestures and poses. In 1879 Wilde began to write
professionally in London and to draw much attention from his
scandalous dress.
In London, he met Constance Lloyd, daughter of
wealthy Queen's Counsel, Horace Lloyd. He proposed to her
and they married on May 29, 1884, in Paddington, London.
Although they had a son and they did not get along well, they
223
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
had another child. Their names were Cyril (1885) and Vivyan
(1886).
Oscar was very kind and generous to his family. Also he
gave them the importance they deserved, despite his
apparent neglect of them. He did not abandon them in the
sense of leaving them, although he was imprisoned. His wife
died and her relatives insisted, through a lawyer, that he
would not be allowed to see his children again. And that was
the single thing that broke his heart in the whole catastrophe.
3. WILDE AND HIS CREATIVE PERSONALITY
In 1879 Wilde brought to London, according to Arthur
Ransom’s
early
critical
study,
"a
small
income,
a
determination to conquer the town, and a reputation as a
talker. He adopted a fantastic costume to emphasize his
personality, and, perhaps to excuse it, spoke of the ugliness
224
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
of modern dress." Within three years he became the butt of
caricatures "several times a month" in Punch, one of the
principal organs of British philistinism.
Oscar Wilde was one of the Victorian era's most
famous dandies, a wit whose good-humored disdain for
convention became less favored after he was jailed for
homosexuality.
Oscar Wilde himself was a man determined to follow
his nature despite the almost universal opposition of
Victorian society. Given the chance to run away and avoid
arrest, he stayed, spoke up and was imprisoned and ruined
for the “crime” of being himself.
In literature, the pursuit of forbidden love often has
tragic consequences. For Oscar Wilde, a prolific literary
genius and social critic who was at the peak of his success in
225
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
the late 19th century, those consequences were all too real.
His fall from grace, like that of a classic tragic hero, was fast
and complete.
Wilde wrote in Phrases and Philosophies for the Use
of the Young (1894), "life is to be as artificial as possible."
After leaving Oxford he expanded his cult. His iconoclasm
contradicted the Victorian era's easy pieties, but the
contradiction was one of his purposes. Another of his aims
was the glorification of youth.
(http://www.answers.com).
4. WILDE´S STAMP ON VICTORIAN SOCIETY
If Wilde's artistic work and criticism is read historically
and dialectically it reveals, above all, a belief, held onto in
the face of great odds, in the vast power of thought and the
thinking subject. In an age dominated by the concept that
art (and other intellectual activities) held up a passive mirror
226
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
to nature and life, Wilde fought tenaciously for the opposite
view: that the decisive role in life was played by the creative
personality. His famous dictum that life and nature imitated
art is easy enough to dismiss, but one might consider its
implications before doing so.
So too in politics Wilde rose far above the Fabians, his
contemporaries and supposed co-thinkers. In his deeply
humane and subversive essay, “The Soul of Man Under
Socialism,” Wilde, in fact, heaped scorn on piecemeal
approaches to the social ills produced by capitalism. Of the
reformers he said, "their remedies do not cure the disease:
they merely prolong it.... The proper aim is to try and
reconstruct society on such a basis that poverty will be
impossible."
Wilde reminds us forcefully that there is a visionary
component to socialist consciousness when he writes, "A
227
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
map of the world that does not include Utopia is not worth
even glancing at."
One might put the matter this way: Wilde expressed
many truths which, due to his class background, the nature
and tone of his times and, equally significantly, the
undeveloped, and somewhat unreceptive, state of socialism
in England, took the form of paradoxical quips, but which in
reality pointed toward critical intellectual issues of the
twentieth century. They could only make themselves known
to those acutely attuned to the broadest questions bound
up with the transformation of society.
Arthur Ransome remarks that when Wilde "was sent to
prison the spokesmen of the nineties were pleased to
shout, 'We have heard the last of him." Ransome added,
"To make sure of that they should have used the fires of
Savonarola as well as the cell of Raleigh. They should have
burnt his books as well as shutting up the writer."
228
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
Wilde insisted that life had to be remade along
aesthetic lines. “Now Art should never try to be popular,” he
wrote. “The public should try to make itself artistic.” The
modern world trusted “to Socialism and to Science as its
methods to do away with poverty, and the suffering that it
entails,” that when man had accomplished this task, "he will
be saner, healthier, more civilized, more himself."
5. ART IN MEN´S LIFE.
"Art never expresses anything but itself,"
Oscar Wilde
Marxists view art as an objective form of cognising
reality, and, moreover, as "an expression of man's need for
a harmonious and complete life, that is to say, his need for
those major benefits of which a society of classes has
deprived him." (Trotsky, Art and Politics in Our Epoch.)
229
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
Art, in other words, is not a mere means; it is an end,
and an end with enormous implications. When art is true to
its own distinct purposes it cuts a path that is the closest to
that of the social revolution.
6. PURPOSES OF ART
Art navigates freely between the inner and the outer
worlds, between the world dominated by the striving. Art is
very much bound up with the struggle, as old as human
consciousness, to shape the world, including human
relations, in accordance with beauty and the requirements
of freedom, with life as it ought to be. This naturally leads
the serious artist to reject the oppressive, antihuman
conditions of class society, to "the total negation of that
reality." (Breton, Marvellous versus Mystery).
230
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
The supreme task of art is to take part actively and
consciously in the preparation of the revolution. But the
artist cannot serve the struggle for freedom unless he
subjectively assimilates its social content, unless he feels in
his very nerves its meaning and drama and freely seeks to
give his own inner world incarnation in his art.
7. OSCAR WILDE AND "ART FOR ART'S SAKE"
Wilde entered Oxford and he came under the influence
of art critic and historian John Ruskin, and, more
thoroughly, Walter Pater, aesthete and author of Studies in
the History of the Renaissance (1873). Wilde inherited
tastes and principles, in the words of critic Edouard Roditi,
"which allowed him to progress to a doctrine of art for art's
sake which respected only perfection of workmanship and
allowed no ethical considerations to interfere in its
appreciations." It was at Oxford that he proclaimed his
desire to "live up to his blue china."
231
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
Oscar Wilde was part of the "art for art's sake"
movement in English literature at the end of the 19th
century. He is best known for his brilliant, witty comedies.
The worn-out phrase "Art for Art's Sake" is an
expression that is particular to the Petty Bourgeois of
society, where Art is seen without any deep significance,
where purpose in Art is cast aside for the sake of mild
leisure, where Art is simply feeding off Art.
Art provides opportunity for every individual who is
desperate for change in an oppressive society to contribute
towards such, to oppose a society which demands the
complete conformity and subservience of its "citizenry." If D.
Walsh is correct in his explanation of Wilde as being
“Socialist” with an artistic vision towards Utopia, then this
principle of “Art for Art's Sake” is a complete contradiction.
At
first
glance,
this
catch-phrase
seems
quite
antithetical to Marxism and indeed considered as the
232
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
historical rallying cry of definite artistic schools it has not
played a particularly wholesome role. No one is obliged to
agree with French writer Theophile Gautier (1811-72), one
of the popularizes of the slogan "l'art pour l'art," who praised
the poet Charles Baudelaire for having upheld "the absolute
autonomy of art and for not admitting that poetry has any
aim but itself, or any mission but to excite in the soul of the
reader the sensation of beauty, in the absolute sense of the
term" (Plekhanov, Art and Social Life).
Art is a relatively autonomous field of human activity,
with its own history and laws, and concerns. Art cannot be
reduced to the reformulation, in verse or on canvas, of
political and philosophical themes. It represents a distinct,
aesthetic approach to the world that has to be understood
on its own terms and its products have to "be judged by its
own law, that is, by the law of art" (Literature and
Revolution.)
233
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
As one of the most provocative apologists for the artfor-art's sake movement, Wilde had no doubt that "art" is in
every way superior to "life." The world portrayed to us by
the great artists is infinitely preferable to the drabness of our
everyday lives, and we can only be happy once we have
wholly immersed ourselves in the beautiful illusions of
literature, music and painting.
8. A DEEP VIEW INTO WILDE´S HOMOSEXUALITY.
Wilde's radical gay person was the result of a long and
arduous attempt to come to terms with his sexual
orientation. Wilde's main problem seems to have been a
homosexual equivalent of the Madonna /whore syndrome.
At first, tentatively exploring his homosexuality in the years
after arriving in Oxford in 1854, he found that he was
234
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
capable of falling passionately in love with the sort of
unblemished youths who sang in church choirs but not
really of desiring them. His sexual feelings were reserved
for much swarthier young men who came under the
heading of “rough trade.” At this early stage he regarded his
romantic longings as infinitely more noble than his sexual
cravings, while clinging to the belief that a conventional
marriage would eventually cure him of both.
There were probably two things which pushed him
towards a firmer acceptance of his sexuality. The first was
his reading in 1884 of Huysman's A Rebours, one of the
most scandalous documents of the French art-for-art's-sake
movement, whose debauched hero Des Esseintes provided
a model of amoral dandyism which Wilde found deeply
liberating. Equally important was his affair with the AngloCanadian aesthete Robert Ross, whom he met in 1885
when Ross was just seventeen. Ross was one of those
235
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
invigorating people who seem miraculously indifferent to the
standards of their age, and it was under his influence that
Wilde overcame his residual feelings of shame about a set
of impulses which he now regarded as largely biological in
origin.
(http://clogic.eserver.org/2004/bounds.html)
Wilde became a practicing homosexual in 1886. He
believed that his subversion of the Victorian moral code was
the impulse for his writing. He considered himself a criminal
who challenged society by creating scandal.
Before his conviction for homosexuality in 1895, the
scandal was essentially private. Wilde believed in the
criminal mentality. Lord Arthur Savile's Crime, from Lord
Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories (1891), treated
murder and its successful concealment comically. The
original version of The Picture of Dorian Gray in Lippincott's
Magazine emphasized the murder of the painter Basil
236
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
Hallward by Dorian as the turning point in Dorian's
disintegration; the criminal tendency became the criminal
act.
(http://www.answers.com)
The purpose of talking about the Secret Life of Oscar
Wilde is not simply to show that Wilde was gay but to show
that his entire way of life was a sort of technicolor exercise
in the politics of resistance. He was actually engaged in a
conscious attempt to celebrate homosexual desire in a way
that would challenge Victorian prejudice. Wilde might not
have written proselytizing tracts in favor of legal reform but
his ultimate goal was the abolition of all the laws which had
turned gay men into pariahs.
Something approaching orthodoxy about Victorian
attitudes to sex has emerged among radical historians over
the last 25 years. Victorian society might indeed have been
formidably puritanical in its sexual morality, or so, but this
237
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
does not mean that all reference to sexuality was banished
from the national culture.
What actually happened was that “discourses” about
sex began to proliferate; each of them intended to create
new identities that would justify the suppression of the erotic
impulse. As far as homosexuals were concerned, the
decisive
development
psychiatrisation
of
was
perverse
what
was
pleasure.”
called
Whereas
“the
a
propensity to commit homosexual acts had long been
regarded as deviant, it had not previously been interpreted
as a sign of irredeemable weakness of character; the
"sodomite" was simply an ordinary man with an unfortunate
and perhaps satanic aberration.
The big change in the Victorian period was the
emergence
of
a
“medical
model”
which
defined
homosexuality as the cornerstone of a diseased personality.
Homosexual acts were still seen as immoral but the men
238
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
who committed them were now regarded as ill. As countless
writers have recognized, Oscar Wilde's personal history
threw these developments into powerful relief. The identity
he forged was an alternative to the homophobic discourses
of the day. His trials were among the first major public
demonstrations of what the new discourses could lead to.
Wilde’s
homosexuality
seemed
to
have
two
problematic dimensions full of risks. We can say that he
was the first victim of the bourgeois homophobia. The
bourgeois rationality will never accept homosexuality since
this is against all its principals. The family; for example, for
the health of which reproduction is necessary. Morose and
mechanical sexuality does not recognize the importance of
male and female bodies in their natural role.
9. POETRY AND SOCIALISM IN VICTORIAN PERIOD.
There are some especially interesting remarks about
the central role of poetry in the homosexual subcultures of
239
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
the Victorian period. Poetry was the main medium through
which writers like Wilde, George Ives and Rennell Rodd
sought to challenge the prejudices of the age. The hallmark
of Uranian verse was an idealized appeal to the history of
Ancient Greece, whose tradition of paiderastia was
portrayed as the zenith of human sexual development. Not
only was the love of men for adolescent boys seen as an
exalting blend of the physical and spiritual but also as
inherently tragic since youthful beauty fades and only
memories remain.
Whole layers of Wilde's identity are submerged
beneath a frantic search for sexual significance. Salomé is
glossed as if it were simply an expression of gay misogyny.
The Picture of Dorian Gray is reduced to an allegory on the
self-divided nature of Wilde's erotic outlook, with Basil
Hallward seen as a symbol of love and Sir Henry Wotton as
a symbol of lust. The four "society comedies" of the 1890s
240
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
are largely seen as significant because of their focus on
scandal, blackmail and the need to lead a double life.
Yet it is surely Wilde's socialism, even more than his
sexuality, which makes him of relevance to the radical
politics of the early 21st Century. The extraordinary thing
about "The Soul of Man Under Socialism" is that it provides
a clear answer to one of the most pressing questions of our
media-obsessed age.
Wilde's genius was to recognize that the aesthete's
anti-social paradise can only be realized through social
action. He famously observed that the great problem with
capitalism is that its individualism is more apparent than
real. The poor are prevented from cultivating their inner
lives by the drudgery of their work and the misery of their
surroundings, while even the rich are constantly being
diverted from the pursuit of pleasure by the wretchedness of
everyone else.
241
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
The great virtue of socialism is that it conjures a higher
form of individualism on a collectivist base. By substituting
common ownership for the anarchy of the marketplace, it
creates a world of plenty in which we are at last "relieved of
that sordid necessity of living for others." (Oscar Wilde, The
Soul of Man Under Socialism and Selected Critical Prose,
London: Penguin, 2001, p 127) Only then does the prospect
of permanent residence in the palace of art become a
possibility for everyone.
A major goal of socialism is thus to do away with the
state, the board of management and the patriarchal family,
replacing them with a democratic free for all which protects
the artist in each of us from the critic in everyone else.
Although few modern socialists would endorse Wilde's stark
distinction between art and life, not least because they
would wish to see aesthetic significance restored to the
world of work, his vision of a new society speaks with
242
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
obvious power to the age of Baudrillard. It reminds us that
there can be no retreat to the hyper-real until we have
sorted out reality once and for all.
(http://clogic.eserver.org/2004/bounds.html)
10. WILDE'S SOCIAL VIEWS
Wilde's social outlook emerged from interplay of
influences: his Irish family background, his mother's radical
views and, above all, his epoch. "Of society's stratification
and conflicting class interests, Wilde was indeed as
conscious as any artist of his age," comments Roditi. The
same critic notes that Wilde was a dandy not of the 1850s
and 1860s, like Baudelaire, but of the 1890s. It was a
period of substantial and growing social tensions. An
estimated 2 million people in London lived in poverty. At the
end of the previous decade British workers had begun to
construct mass industrial unions. The Social Democratic
243
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
Federation, an avowedly Marxist organization, was founded
in 1884; the Independent Labor Party in January 1893.
Wilde's trial coincided with the anti-Semitic witch hunt
of Alfred Dreyfus in France. The need of the ruling class to
rally the petty-bourgeois masses around the defense of the
nation was increasingly a critical political fact of life in both
France and England. Wilde's artistic lifestyle and his
homosexuality were held up as exotic and degenerate
imports that threatened to unman the British Empire,
increasingly facing rivals in many parts of the globe.
If Wilde's avowal of extreme aestheticism, on the one
hand, and socialism, on the other, seems peculiar, it should
be noted that these were by no means considered mutually
exclusive intellectual tendencies either in England or on the
Continent in the 1890s.
In his work on Wilde, Roditi says, "As a conscientious
objector to the social order in which he lived, many a
244
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
nineteenth-century artist ... sought evidence of his own
integrity in his utter uselessness." Farther on he writes: "In
an ugly age, Wilde believed that art should not imitate life
but art." Wilde wrote, "To project one's soul into some
gracious form" is "perhaps the most satisfying joy left to us
in an age so limited and vulgar as our own, an age grossly
carnal in its pleasures, and grossly common in its aims."
He rejected an art of "moral uplift," practiced by a vast
array of Victorian writers, which amounted, in the final
analysis, to a legitimizing of existing institutions and
conditions. To defend himself and his work he was obliged
to state, and believe, that "Art never expresses anything but
itself." But few artists, paradoxically, have been more
consumed at such a deep level by moral and social
commitments. His best plays, An Ideal Husband, The
Importance of Being Earnest, as well as his novel, Dorian
Gray, in addition to demonstrating Wilde's renowned wit,
245
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
provide a devastating glimpse of the morals and mentality
of the ruling circles, among whom he circulated.
11. OSCAR WILDE IN MODERN POPULAR CULTURE
Wilde is an iconic figure in modern popular culture,
both as a wit and as an archetype of gay identity. Such
references to him include a Monty Python skit called "Oscar
Wilde and Friends" anachronistic inclusion in Todd Haynes'
1998 film Velvet Goldmine; Dorian, Will Self's 2004
reworking of Wilde's novel, set in 1981; and Melmoth, Dave
Sim's comic book, which retells the story of Wilde's final
months with the names and places slightly altered to fit the
world of Cerebus the Aardvark.
Many songs have alluded to Wilde or his works,
including The Smiths “Cemetery Gates” and the British
singer and songwriter James Blunt's "Tears and Rain"
(which mentions Dorian Gray). The Libertines sing about
how nice it would be to be “Dorian Gray, just for a day” in
246
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
their song “Narcissist” on their 2004 LP. "The Long
Voyage" from French producer Hector Zazou's 1994 album
Chanson des mers froides, on which Suzanne Vega and
John
Cale
recite
lyrics
based
on
Wilde's
poem
"Silhouettes". Given his brilliance of phrasing, his ability to
twist common axioms, and his biographical flourishes,
Wilde continues to provide material for venues such as
Uncyclopedia, a parody of Wikipedia.
(http://www.answers.com)
Oscar Wilde has been very much with us both as a
personality and a creator and critic of artistic work over the
course of the past century. Whether they have approved or
disapproved of him, it has proven difficult for artists and
intellectuals of the most diverse persuasions to ignore him.
247
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
There is something in his life and work that continues to
compel not merely interest, but partisanship. He is, so to
speak, an unresolved issue.
(http://www.wsws.org)
248
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
CONCLUSION
Working on this thesis has represented a great
blessing for us for many reasons: the selected topic has
proved interesting, our thesis director has supported us and
all the circumstances have been favorable. Aside from the
intellectual enrichment that the investigation has brought us,
the most important thing for us has been our working
together.
We feel completely pleased with the topic of our
investigation. Our delight is such that we have been totally
immersed in this work. We learnt a lot about the Victorian
period and its restrictions and our analysis of Oscar Wilde’s
works has given us a better understanding of the
personality and thinking of homosexuals.
249
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
In reality, Victorian Age was not an easy period in
which to live. Queen Victoria, in her desire to conquer more
territory, demanded of Englishmen chaste behavior in order
to present a model of an excellent nation in the eyes of the
subjugate people.
In order to obtain this purpose many
rules were imposed. England had to work perfectly
according to Queen Victoria, and if something did not fit,
she got rid of that threat.
Oscar Wilde became a threat to Queen Victoria since
he opposed the norms established by her. His poems and
works became a channel to express what he really thought
about the situation of the country, the restrictions of the era.
Once Wilde discovered his true sexuality his works were not
only a means of exposing his thoughts, but also of
expressing his deep love for Lord Alfred Douglas known as,
"Bosie."
250
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
As we can see, Oscar Wilde was really influenced by
the epoch because he expressed his disapproval of the
Victorian system by means of his works. His true wish was
to build up a socialist England. He did not like injustice and
did not agree with the standards of the bourgeoisie
although he belonged to that class of people.
Since Wilde was a threat to the Victorian ideal, society
thought to destroy him and it did. It is incredible to see how
the situation of a person like Wilde changed overnight.
Wilde was acclaimed by people in the whole world but
those very same people condemned him later.
In summary, we can say that Oscar Wilde was a figure
of such a magnitude that in addition to leaving a deep print
on his time, he influenced and still influences our current
society.
251
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
This research has helped us to learn a lot about
homosexuals, but this does not mean we agree with this
kind of “behavior,” or whatever society wants to call it, but
we do not condemn these people either. In fact, we learned
that Wilde had a deep knowledge of God, and he was filled
with kindness, pure love, and showed true friendship; he
knew how to be a good person but he did not know that by
refusing to be such a person he was not pleasing the
Almighty.
252
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Aldington, Richard, Weintraub, Stanley, “The Portable
Oscar Wilde”, Penguin Books, 1981.
Microsoft Corporation, “Microsoft Encarta 2005”.
“The New Encyclopaedia Britannica” Volume 19,
Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.
William Benton, Helen Hemingway Benton, Publisher
Chicago / London / Toronto / Geneva / Sydney / Tokyo /
Manila / Sea , 1973.
“Encyclopaedia Britannica” Volume 16, Encyclopaedia
Britannica, Inc.
William Benton, Publisher
Chicago / London / Toronto / Geneva, 1962.
“Compton’s” Encyclopaedia and Fact – Index, Volume 23
F. E. Compton C.O.
William Benton, Publisher
Chicago / Toronto / Rome / Sydney / Tokyo, 1962.
Internet:
http://www.oscarwilde.com
http://www.booksfactory.com
253
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
http://www.crimeanlibrary.com
http://www.answers.com
http://www.law.umkc.edu
http://www.wsws.org
http://www.oscariana.net
http://www.robotwisdom.com
http://www.bibliomania.com
http://www.glbtq.com/literature/aestheticism.html
http://www.wilde.thefreelibrary.com/Soul-of-Man-underSocialism
http://www.pubs.socialistreviewindex.org.uk/sr224/charlton.
htm
http://www.vialarp.org/GD/background_2_victorian_culture.
html
http://www.scholars.nus.edu.sg/victorian/vn/victor6.html
254
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel
UNIVERSIDAD DE CUENCA
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS, Y
CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
ESCUELA DE LENGUA Y LITERATURA INGLESA
TEMA: “OSCAR WILDE IN HIS TIME”
http://www.infomat.net/1/class_room/worksheets/history/7_
11/Victorians/vic_1.html
http://www.home.comcast.net/~spmsh/VictorianAgeUnit/Vic
torianAgebackground.doc
http://www.answers.com
http://www.clogic.eserver.org/2004/bounds.html
http://www.victoriaspast.com/OscarWilde/OscarWilde.htm
http://www.english.uwosh.edu/roth/VictorianEngland.htm
http://www.victorianstation.com/palace.html
http://www.proverbia.net/citasautor.asp?autor=1058
http://www.booksfactory.com/writers/wilde_es.htm
http://www.victoriaperiod.org/Oscar_Wilde
http://www.ucm.es/info/numero15/o_Wilde.html
http://www.online-literature.com/Wilde
http://www.wsws.org/arts/1997/jul1997/wilde1.shtml
http://www.irishclans.com/articles/famirish/wildeo.html
http://www.wsws.org/arts/1997/jul1997/wilde1.html
255
AUTORAS:
Diana Jaqueline Chuchuca Astudillo
María Elena Ramírez Procel