OSCAR WILDE

Oscar Fingall O Flahertie Wills Wilde.

His family was from Roscommon, Ireland.
He was born in Dublin on October 16^th 1854.

His father, Sir William Robert Wills Wilde received a knighthood from Queen Victoria for his work in medicine and for his remarkable work on the census of Ireland and its treasures.

His mother Jane Francesca Elgee, Lady Wilde, was an Irish nationalist even though her family background was Protestant and conservative.
She wrote under the pseudonym of Speranza about the folklore of Ireland. People in the streets of Dublin cheered when she passed in her carriage because of her courageous defense of all things Irish.

'She was welcomed by dreamers and workers.'

So Oscar Wilde's parents were very remarkable and extremely talented too.

He was born in Dublin and with his brother William, went to Portora Royal School in Enniskillen in Northern Ireland.

He read Latin and Greek at Trinity College Dublin and at Oxford University England with great success.
He was an Irish Protestant from a highly respected family.
From his mother he learned the social impact of the written word.
In 1879 after her husband died she went to live in London with her two sons.
As a master craftsman of the English language, the enchantment of Oscar Wilde and his work hold their appeal still today.

In our shared readings last year he introduced us to the magical world of his children's stories, to the homes of the élite and to the darkness of prison life.

We enjoyed reading his work firstly because of the beauty of the language but also because he is very clever, very witty, very fresh, very provocative, very funny, very relevant and irreverent.

Also it is worth mentioning his love of beauty, beautiful manners, beautiful objects, beautiful surroundings, physical beauty and natural beauty.

To quote from Lady Windermere's Fan:

'So devoted to sunsets! Shows such refinement of feeling does it not? After all there is nothing like nature, is there?'

His plays became very successful and his fame spread across the Atlantic and he spent a year touring America and giving conferences.

He married Constance Lloyd and they soon had two sons, Cyril 1885 and Vyvyan in 1886.
His is a universal name that bridges many different worlds

He went from fame to infamy and suffered the humiliation of imprisonment for his homosexuality in 1895. Two years of hard labour in Reading Gaol. The worst punishment that he was to suffer was never to be allowed to see his children again. His best work is widely considered to be The Ballad of Reading Gaol. Society turned its back on him but his wife was kinder. His mother asked to see him before she died but permission was denied.

He had poor health when he left prison and died in Paris on 30^th November 1900 at the age of 46.

By naming the association after Oscar Wilde we raise our hats to this gentle giant.

How many of us who have read his Art would have liked to  have been the stranger who did just that, the one man among the crowd of people who raised his hat, as Wilde was being escorted to court from the prison cell handcuffed between two policemen, his head bowed?

From De Profundis

‘I store it in the treasure house of my heart. I keep it there as a secret debt that I can never possibly repay. That lovely little silent act of love.’