Surely we can do better by now
It seems that every time someone gets involved in the Oscar fandom these days, itās the same thing over and over again, and itās really just brain-numbingly frustrating at this point, after years of seeing it happen.
Wilde (1997) is a beautiful and beloved film and does a wonderful job of giving a sense of Oscar and his story. But it is just that: a sense. It should not need to be said, but apparently, it must be: you cannot use a film as a piece of historical fact. It is not possibleĀ to convey the complexity and nuance of something such as the life of Oscar Wilde in two short hours.
In the same vein, you cannot use De Profundis as a piece of historical fact, either. As a primary document? Yes. An insight into Oscarās mind at a specific time? Yes. As an objective observation of fact? No! Coming from two people with degrees involving history-- when do we everĀ use documents such as De ProfundisĀ objectively in any other piece of academic work? And the Richard Ellmann biography, published in the 1960s -- how many inaccuracies is that known to contain? How much has scholarship advanced in sixty years?
Ah, and werenāt Robbie and Bosie such rivals, as shown in Wilde, and The Happy Prince? Nope-- it was not until many years later that their friendship fell apart.
Their common secrets, and a mutual love of the world of art as revealed by Wilde, created a fast intimacy between Robbie and Bosie. Robbie had never known his father and Bosie had been disappointed and hurt by his. Both had chosen a new father figure in the person of Oscar. They were brothers. (Laura Lee, Oscarās Ghost)
The funeral fight is a myth, too; Bosie and Robbie were āon terms of great friendshipā at the time. Additionally, Oscar and Robbie were not some perfect ācoupleā to be pitted against Bosie. Oscar was in love with Bosie. Robbie had a distinct life away from Oscar; why do we not discuss that? Why do we not admire Robbieās actual long-term relationships with other men? He had a fifteen-year partnership with More Adey, for example-- another friend of Oscarās. And, after prison, Oscar used Robbie as he needed; he wrote letters saying one thing to him, whilst doing another. And yet those are the letters that have formed the accepted narrative.
Bosie, as well as Oscar, was a flawed man; but would Oscar have been in love with, and so inspired by, someone evil? Is it not a disservice to Oscar, to mindlessly criticise Bosie? He was a wonderful poet in his own right; he generously gave away clothes to rent boys (the letters WildeĀ suggests he left carelessly lying about were, in fact, stolen by Alfred Wood); before everything, even Constance had seemingly grown close to Bosieās mother, and she (and Oscar) visited her often; he never abandoned Oscar, and especially not financially-- he had both his mother, and his brother Percy, supporting Oscar financially during the trial, and after prison, Bosie himself continued to support Oscar, with he and Percy providing a substantial allowance for him; Bosie bought Oscar lovely gifts in return (a silver cigarette case still exists today to attest to this); even in 1903, Bosie paid off an outstanding debt of Oscarās amounting to 600 francs.
Is it also not worth considering that throughout the years they were together, there are only specific instances dragged up over and over again? Oscar was not some passive spectator in his own life.
Wilde was not a martyr to Victorian morality: he was its enemy, and he was hardly the passive victim of his contemporariesā prejudices [ā¦] According to Lord Alfred Douglas, Wilde retained in his last yearsĀ āan extraordinarily buoyant and happy temperament, a splendid sense of humour, and an unrivalled faculty for enjoyment of the moment.ā Douglas has frequently been disparaged because of the self-aggrandizing strains to the numerous accounts of Wilde he published in the decades before his death in 1945, but he knew and loved Wilde more intimately than any other individual in the period with which we are concerned, and there is more than a hint of truth to his observations [ā¦] (Nicholas Frankel, Oscar Wilde: The Unrepentant Years)
This is not a post excusing any behaviour that truly occurred-- but it is a plea for people to read a damn book before they start making nasty and/or uninformed posts. There shouldnāt be such a thing as a āBosie-apologistā, or whatever else people are labelled. Historians put aside their biases (or they ought to, in consideration of some of Oscarās biographers). Itās time some people here started to do the same.
