Morrissey & the Oscar Wilde Influence

[helen661]

Win a cool Oscar Wilde T-Shirt!

http://www.opendemocracy.net/ourkin...democracy+(openDemocracy)&utm_content=Twitter

Competition open until 31st January.

I actually know the answer that haha!!! ok, I know It's easy enough, but it shows that I'm paying attention

 

[goinghome]

I actually know the answer that haha!!! ok, I know It's easy enough, but it shows that I'm paying attention

Hi helen661, wouldn't it be nice if one of us won? If not, and people still would like one, they're available, according to the acknowledgement email, here - www.philosophyfootball.com - as is "our complete range of 'dissenter' designs".

Another interesting, and not so well known, fact about Oscar Wilde is that, while a young student, he was engaged briefly to the woman who left him to marry Bram Stoker. I'm almost sure a lock of her hair that he'd kept with him was on display in a little 'dracula' museum that was open till last year in Fairview, Dublin. This link - http://www.neatorama.com/2008/12/29/relationships-between-10-classic-authors/ - spills the beans not just on this trio, but on the complex relationship threads of other famous writers as well.

For a time, Oscar Wilde lived off Merrion Square with which he is closely associated. A playful statue of him graces a corner of it. Just in the past week or two, an internet campaign has been started to re-name the park Oscar Wilde Park instead of its rarely-used official name Archbishop Ryan Park, as a protest against how badly child abuse scandels in the Irish church were handled. Oscar never liked hypocrisy or cruelty, and actions like this show how his memory lives on vibrantly : - http://www.herald.ie/national-news/...from-park-replace-him-with-wilde-2008483.html

 

[helen661]

Hi helen661, wouldn't it be nice if one of us won? If not, and people still would like one, they're available, according to the acknowledgement email, here - www.philosophyfootball.com - as is "our complete range of 'dissenter' designs".

Another interesting, and not so well known, fact about Oscar Wilde is that, while a young student, he was engaged briefly to the woman who left him to marry Bram Stoker. I'm almost sure a lock of her hair that he'd kept with him was on display in a little 'dracula' museum that was open till last year in Fairview, Dublin. This link - http://www.neatorama.com/2008/12/29/relationships-between-10-classic-authors/ - spills the beans not just on this trio, but on the complex relationship threads of other famous writers as well.

For a time, Oscar Wilde lived off Merrion Square with which he is closely associated. A playful statue of him graces a corner of it. Just in the past week or two, an internet campaign has been started to re-name the park Oscar Wilde Park instead of its rarely-used official name Archbishop Ryan Park, as a protest against how badly child abuse scandels in the Irish church were handled. Oscar never liked hypocrisy or cruelty, and actions like this show how his memory lives on vibrantly : - http://www.herald.ie/national-news/...from-park-replace-him-with-wilde-2008483.html

Hi goinghome, yes wouldn't that be good if one of us won the T-shirt, we are not close enough to turn it into a tug of war though, not like at a Morrissey gig, I've still never come close to grabbing hold of a piece of his shirt, I'd be more than happy to go home with just a button one of these days

Aw, that's a little tug at the heart strings, the story about Oscar Wilde keeping a lock of his lost love's hair, very sweet, he obviously felt great affection for the girl, sounds like she broke his heart, with him writing her a letter saying he wouldn't return to Ireland again. How sad.

Yeah, you would have thought that the park would have already been named after Oscar Wilde, especially if there is already a statue of him sat outside it.

Why did Oscar Wilde on his deathbed change his religion from Protestant to Catholic? or is this not the case? I'm reading all sorts about him at the moment and getting a bit jumbled up with all haha!! I might just take a deep breath and start again

 

[goinghome]

Hi goinghome, yes wouldn't that be good if one of us won the T-shirt, we are not close enough to turn it into a tug of war though, not like at a Morrissey gig, I've still never come close to grabbing hold of a piece of his shirt, I'd be more than happy to go home with just a button one of these days

Aw, that's a little tug at the heart strings, the story about Oscar Wilde keeping a lock of his lost love's hair, very sweet, he obviously felt great affection for the girl, sounds like she broke his heart, with him writing her a letter saying he wouldn't return to Ireland again. How sad.

Yeah, you would have thought that the park would have already been named after Oscar Wilde, especially if there is already a statue of him sat outside it.

Why did Oscar Wilde on his deathbed change his religion from Protestant to Catholic? or is this not the case? I'm reading all sorts about him at the moment and getting a bit jumbled up with all haha!! I might just take a deep breath and start again

Hi helen661, I read somewhere else since that he also carried a lock of his sister's hair, who died aged only ten, all through his life. As it's been a few years since I visited the Bram Stoker Dracula Museum, which was full of horror effects, posters of the many films made on the theme, and paraphenalia belonging to those involved, I couldn't swear on Florence's hair but it seemed to leap out at me at the time. I don't know where the exhibits ended up after the place was sadly shut down.

It appears that conflicting accounts of the deathbed conversion do exist. One fairly close to the people who were present is here -
http://www.poetrymagazines.org.uk/magazine/record.asp?id=9404 . Have the tissues ready!

While you wouldn't quite advocate Oscar Wilde as a role model, who's more like a cautionary example, he pushed against all kind of barriers, and his life and works repay contemplation. His family in Ireland were highly regarded for their role in changing the history of the nation towards independence, and through his elite education in Trinity College Dublin and Oxford, he honed his talents to command the respect of the cultural world. Then, however inadvertantly, he let his power be absolutely dissipated to shed a light on the less priviledged plights of others in society, and on practices that people preferred to ignore, or didn't know about. It is an extraordinary story.

David Bret named one of his books about Morrissey 'The Scandal and The Passion' but Morrissey's scandals, rarely if ever about his behaviour, usually result from his art and his beliefs. These days too, perhaps less has scandal value. Like Oscar, I think he's very curious about life and people, and explores what he sees in a deep and sympathetic way.

 

[helen661]

Hi helen661, I read somewhere else since that he also carried a lock of his sister's hair, who died aged only ten, all through his life. As it's been a few years since I visited the Bram Stoker Dracula Museum, which was full of horror effects, posters of the many films made on the theme, and paraphenalia belonging to those involved, I couldn't swear on Florence's hair but it seemed to leap out at me at the time. I don't know where the exhibits ended up after the place was sadly shut down.

It appears that conflicting accounts of the deathbed conversion do exist. One fairly close to the people who were present is here -
http://www.poetrymagazines.org.uk/magazine/record.asp?id=9404 . Have the tissues ready!

While you wouldn't quite advocate Oscar Wilde as a role model, who's more like a cautionary example, he pushed against all kind of barriers, and his life and works repay contemplation. His family in Ireland were highly regarded for their role in changing the history of the nation towards independence, and through his elite education in Trinity College Dublin and Oxford, he honed his talents to command the respect of the cultural world. Then, however inadvertantly, he let his power be absolutely dissipated to shed a light on the less priviledged plights of others in society, and on practices that people preferred to ignore, or didn't know about. It is an extraordinary story.

David Bret named one of his books about Morrissey 'The Scandal and The Passion' but Morrissey's scandals, rarely if ever about his behaviour, usually result from his art and his beliefs. These days too, perhaps less has scandal value. Like Oscar, I think he's very curious about life and people, and explores what he sees in a deep and sympathetic way.

Hi goinghome, Yes that is a sad read, some say he did become Catholic and some say he never, still the lock of hair story is hard to beat on an emotional level for me, that's far too sad if it was his young Sisters hair that he kept and carried around with him, Aw, Bless

Thanks for the links GH

 

[goinghome]

I was looking for Ellman's biography the other day and, as it wasn't in stock, I chose another biography written in 2000, called "The Unmasking of Oscar Wilde' by Joseph Pearce. It corrects some errors in Ellmann's and other's accounts. One of the main ideas is this book is that Wilde's life-long thwarted interest in the church is critical to understanding him. Wilde's mother, it seemed on a whim, got him and his brother baptised as Catholics when they were children but she didn't pursue it anymore. His father William was so much against him becoming a Papist that he threatened to disinherit his son in Trinity and Oxford when he sounded out the temptation of a conversion, something which had become fashionable at the time.

Also, the family took great pains to underplay the fact that a relation on William's side, a Dutch colonel, had fought with William of Orange and Oliver Cromwell to brutally subdue the Irish, but really, despite Speranza's patriotic fervour, there was no getting away from their fortunate social position as members of the wealthy Anglo-Irish ruling aristocracy who generally looked down on, and employed the peasants as servants, farm-labourers etc, most of whom were Catholic.

Another major event in his young life described in the book occured when he was 10. -
"In 1864, Wilde [Oscar's father] was knighted, but his reputation suffered when Mary Travers, a long-term patient of his and the daughter of a colleague, claimed that he had seduced her two years earlier[2]. She wrote a pamphlet crudely parodying Wilde and Lady Wilde as Dr and Mrs Quilp, and portraying Dr Quilp as the rapist of a female patient anaesthetized under chloroform. She handed these out outside the building where Wilde was about to give a public lecture. Lady Wilde complained to Mary's father, Robert Travers, which resulted in Mary bringing a libel case against her. Mary Travers won her case but was awarded a mere farthing in damages by the jury. Legal costs of £2000 were awarded against Lady Wilde. The case was the talk of all Dublin, and Wilde's refusal to enter the witness box during the trial was widely held against him as ungentlemanly behaviour." - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Wilde

As if predicting drama, Oscar and his brother had been shipped off to boarding school in the county of Fermanagh before the case came to court, but years later, when Oscar entered Trinity, a popular lewd song about the rumoured scandel was still to be heard and wouldn't have gone unnoticed. The first verse was -
"An eminent oculist lives in the Square.
His skill is unrivalled, his talent is rare.
And if you will listen I'll certainly try,
To tell how he opened Miss Traver's eye"
(which reminds me slightly of 'What She Said')
I think that's quite a spooky episode in his background, given what was to transpire in his own life. Trouble loved him.

 

[I am a Ghost]

I was looking for Ellman's biography the other day and, as it wasn't in stock, I chose another biography written in 2000, called "The Unmasking of Oscar Wilde' by Joseph Pearce. It corrects some errors in Ellmann's and other's accounts. One of the main ideas is this book is that Wilde's life-long thwarted interest in the church is critical to understanding him. Wilde's mother, it seemed on a whim, got him and his brother baptised as Catholics when they were children but she didn't pursue it anymore. His father William was so much against him becoming a Papist that he threatened to disinherit his son in Trinity and Oxford when he sounded out the temptation of a conversion, something which had become fashionable at the time.

Also, the family took great pains to underplay the fact that a relation on William's side, a Dutch colonel, had fought with William of Orange and Oliver Cromwell to brutally subdue the Irish, but really, despite Speranza's patriotic fervour, there was no getting away from their fortunate social position as members of the wealthy Anglo-Irish ruling aristocracy who generally looked down on, and employed the peasants as servants, farm-labourers etc, most of whom were Catholic.

Another major event in his young life described in the book occured when he was 10. -
"In 1864, Wilde [Oscar's father] was knighted, but his reputation suffered when Mary Travers, a long-term patient of his and the daughter of a colleague, claimed that he had seduced her two years earlier[2]. She wrote a pamphlet crudely parodying Wilde and Lady Wilde as Dr and Mrs Quilp, and portraying Dr Quilp as the rapist of a female patient anaesthetized under chloroform. She handed these out outside the building where Wilde was about to give a public lecture. Lady Wilde complained to Mary's father, Robert Travers, which resulted in Mary bringing a libel case against her. Mary Travers won her case but was awarded a mere farthing in damages by the jury. Legal costs of £2000 were awarded against Lady Wilde. The case was the talk of all Dublin, and Wilde's refusal to enter the witness box during the trial was widely held against him as ungentlemanly behaviour." - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Wilde

As if predicting drama, Oscar and his brother had been shipped off to boarding school in the county of Fermanagh before the case came to court, but years later, when Oscar entered Trinity, a popular lewd song about the rumoured scandel was still to be heard and wouldn't have gone unnoticed. The first verse was -
"An eminent oculist lives in the Square.
His skill is unrivalled, his talent is rare.
And if you will listen I'll certainly try,
To tell how he opened Miss Traver's eye"
(which reminds me slightly of 'What She Said')
I think that's quite a spooky episode in his background, given what was to transpire in his own life. Trouble loved him.

The Ellmann is really the gold standard of Wilde biographies. Ditto his Joyce.

 

[goinghome]

The Ellmann is really the gold standard of Wilde biographies. Ditto his Joyce.

Pearce makes the point that someone like Ellman's scholarly credentials disinclines people to question what is written, which might have the opposite effect in a different arena e.g. Gavin Hopps' book on Morrissey! Were there some outstanding revelations you noted after reading the book, I am a Ghost?

Soon this year in Dublin we'll have Oscar Wilde coming out our ears, as Dublin City Council has nominated The Picture of Dorian Gray as their theme book for 2010 which means related events about the author and his works will be run regularly (see events panel on left) - http://www.dublinonecityonebook.ie/

 

[I am a Ghost]

Pearce makes the point that someone like Ellman's scholarly credentials disinclines people to question what is written, which might have the opposite effect in a different arena e.g. Gavin Hopps' book on Morrissey! Were there some outstanding revelations you noted after reading the book, I am a Ghost?

Soon this year in Dublin we'll have Oscar Wilde coming out our ears, as Dublin City Council has nominated The Picture of Dorian Gray as their theme book for 2010 which means related events about the author and his works will be run regularly (see events panel on left) - http://www.dublinonecityonebook.ie/

Not any particularly amazing revelations, but the sheer attention to detail and scholarly acumen of Ellmann make it a riveting read. And his analysis of the times Wilde lived in and his exegesis of the works are wonderful.

Wasn't aware that Dorian Gray was the book for 2010. Great choice.

 

[goinghome]

Not any particularly amazing revelations, but the sheer attention to detail and scholarly acumen of Ellmann make it a riveting read. And his analysis of the times Wilde lived in and his exegesis of the works are wonderful.

Wasn't aware that Dorian Gray was the book for 2010. Great choice.

Does Ellman expand on these deductions? -

Oscar Wilde was raised in a libertinarian, forthright family accustomed to individual entitlement and fulfillment. He studied the Classics in depth, which considered aesthetic sensuality central to the good life. He would have been taught non-judgementally about such historical practices as this:
"Those scholars who prefer the historical approach are convinced that pederasty originates in Dorian initiation rites. The Dorians were the last tribe to migrate to Greece, and they are usually described as real he-men with a very masculine culture. According to the proponents of this theory, pederasty came to being on the Dorian island Crete, where grown-up men used to kidnap adolescents. It is assumed that this practice spread from Crete to the Greek mainland. In the soldiers' city Sparta, it was not uncommon when a warrior took care of a recruit and stood next to him on the battlefield, where the two men bravely protected each other. Especially in aristocratic circles, pederasty is believed to have been common." - http://www.livius.org/ho-hz/homosexuality/homosexuality.html

In the time of the ancients, and more often than not, despite the public discourse, in England then, domestic stability and the companionship of women were seen as poor if not ridiculous substitutes to extra-curricular gymnastic games for the ruling classes.

The schools he attended especially at Oxford were those of the aristocracy, about which Lord Douglas said; "I did with him and allowed him to do just what was done among boys at Winchester and Oxford... Wilde treated me as an older one does a younger one at school." http://wapedia.mobi/en/Oscar_Wilde#2.

During the later 19th century, the French Decadant school of purging oneself through enacting depraved deeds came to Oscar's attention, and like many artists, he embraced its fashionable style, basing The Secret Book in The Picture of Dorian Gray on Huysman's 'A Rebours'. All of these influences were normalising for him a kind of sexuality that the population in general was not exposed to, though he never fully belonged to any group.

When he was 23, Oscar wrote a letter to a friend Ward, admitting that, "I am too ridiculously easily led astray". Life strewed temptations in his path, and eventually he tasted most of them. Even after imprisonment, his wife Constance perceptively, if naively, wrote to a friend that his "punishment had not done him much good since it has not taught him the lesson he most needed, namely that he is not the only person in the world". Except in his art, he showed a blindspot for acknowledging the dilemma that indulging one's appetite can sometimes harm others - and even oneself. One of his most famous quips is, 'There are two great tragedies in life. One is not getting what you want. The other is getting what you want'. In prison, he confided that he found peace in acceptance of his fate, one way or the other.

In 1899, two years after his release a friend of his recently-deceased mother, Anna, Comtesse de Bremont, was visiting Paris and met him. She asked why he'd stopped writing. He said: "My time is short - my work is done - and when I cease to live, that work will begin to live. Ah! my work will live as long as men live to read it; my work will be my great monument!" Many of his fellow decadant writers had turned away in disgust from their old lives and sought solace in religion, as Wilde had often thought of doing. As his life had become more squalid and perverse, his written works showed heightened maturity. He was the pioneer feeling his way through without a predicated structure, letting himself be led in epicurean revelries and pleasures. He was a man of his time, and more. He'd tried to live up to everyone's expectations, which were many and conflicting. He also said to his mother's friend, that year before he died, "I was happy in prison...because I found my soul".

 

[goinghome]

Is any of us included on the winning list for the T-shirt?! -

"Congratulations! To Michael Coupar, Gianluca Eramo, Gary Peace, Amarina Sandhu, andAdline Warwick Thompson All winners of Oscar Wilde T-shirts in our January competition, also available from www.philosophyfootball.com"

- http://www.opendemocracy.net/ourkin...democracy+(openDemocracy)&utm_content=Twitter

 

[Raphael Lambach]

Do you mean that reading Oscar Wilde somehow led you to listen to The Smiths? Interesting.

Exactly this.

 

[goinghome]

Exactly this.

Oh, Oscar Fingal O'Flaherty Wills Wilde, so much to answer for!

 

[Oh my god. it's Robby!]

well, I do not know about all that
but listening to the Smiths, I am sure, likely influenced my early teen love for the works of Oscar Wilde, now that I am all grown up I prefer Byron

 

[goinghome]

well, I do not know about all that
but listening to the Smiths, I am sure, likely influenced my early teen love for the works of Oscar Wilde, now that I am all grown up I prefer Byron

I regret to inform you that both exhibited symptoms of a similar form of arrested development, according to one modern doctor - http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...-Byron-able-flourish-ADHD-research-finds.html

If you succeed in reading the full article, this means you don't suffer from ADHD.

 

[helen661]

Is any of us included on the winning list for the T-shirt?! -

"Congratulations! To Michael Coupar, Gianluca Eramo, Gary Peace, Amarina Sandhu, andAdline Warwick Thompson All winners of Oscar Wilde T-shirts in our January competition, also available from www.philosophyfootball.com"

- http://www.opendemocracy.net/ourkin...democracy+(openDemocracy)&utm_content=Twitter

Oh I forgot about the competition, but my name isn't on the list so I didn't win
I 've dusted the cobwebs off my old Morrissey book 'In his own words' not looked through this in a long time and on reading I realised his favourite saying by Oscar Wilde is 'The artist must educate the critic' never realised that, he also says "As I get older the adoration increases, I'm never without him, its almost biblical, its like carrying your rosery around with you"

forgot what a funny little read this book is and I'm enjoying revisiting it and remembering some of his funny little quotes

 

[goinghome]

I don't have that book of quotes but I do remember thoroughly enjoying many of the quotes Mark Simpson used is his book, 'Saint Morrissey'. I'll look out for it, thanks Helen, and that chosen saying of Oscar's endures.

 

[goinghome]

A historic re-enactment of 'The importance of being Oscar', Micheál Mac Liammóir's one-man play about Oscar Wilde's work and life, bravely staged in the '60s given Wilde's as yet un-rehabilitated public image, is nigh:


- THE SPACE, THE HELIX, DUBLIN, IRELAND

Sat 5 & Sun 6 June 2010

Sat & Sun 8pm & 2pm Sun 6th
€15

Key performance of South Hill Park Arts Centre’s 25th Anniversary Celebration

Having played in 2009 to spectacular success, Original Theatre Company and Icarus Theatre Collective are acting on behalf of the original producers (South Hill Park Arts Centre) to tour this play in May/June 2010.

Production Style:

We present Micheál Mac Liammóir’s entertaining tribute to the theatrical luminary and flamboyant socialite, Mr. Oscar Wilde. Join us for a whistle-stop journey through the great man’s life: his work, pleasures, triumphs and troubles.

The one-man play toured the world in the sixties to critical exultation and popular adulation. Our revival is no less grand! Simply relax and enjoy excerpts from An Ideal Husband, The Picture of Dorian Gray, The Importance of Being Earnest, as well as Oscar’s delightful poetry and selections from his personal letters and diaries. It will be a magical evening and we eagerly anticipate the pleasure of your company.

‘An explosion of incomparable richness, boldness, passion and beauty’ DAILY EXPRESS
‘Understanding, critical insight and remarkably moving dramatic forcefulness’ NEW YORK POST

Produced by Original Theatre Company and Icarus Theatre Collective in association with South Hill Park Arts Centre.

By Micheál Mac Liammóir
Directed by Tom Neill
Performed by Alastair Whatley

Design by Victoria Spearing
Lighting by Alan Valentine
Costume by Fiona Davis -

Details at: http://www.thehelix.ie/2010Q1/TheimportanceofbeingOscar.htm

 

[helen661]

Wonder what that will be like? Something I wouldn't have minded going to see.

If I start walking now I might just catch Sunday's show ......albeit with a few sore toes poking out here and there

Are you going to any of them goinghome? Do tell all on your return if you are

 

[goinghome]

Wonder what that will be like? Something I wouldn't have minded going to see.

If I start walking now I might just catch Sunday's show ......albeit with a few sore toes poking out here and their

Are you going to any of them goinghome? Do tell all on your return if you are

The touring company, South Hill Park, is UK-based, in, of all place-names, Bracknell! Watch out for a stop near you.

I saw the play yesterday and it was charming. The extra descriptive passages about stages and events in Oscar Wilde's life, so intuitive and sympathetic, must be Micheál Mac Liammóir's words, whose life was quite remarkable in its own right. The current actor didn't presume such an equal filling of shoes, but recited fairly long sections of 'De Profundis' and 'Ballad' dramatically and movingly. It was an entertaining mix of Wilde's biography and art if not 100% factually correct or comprehensive, but close, definitely good enough, especially when you think it was composed 50 years ago when source material was very hard to come by. *Kum ba ya, my Lord, kum ba ya...*

'The Importance of Being Earnest' starring Stockard Channing, Rizzo from 'Grease', is on at the Gaiety in Dublin too - http://www.gaietytheatre.ie/index.php/whats-on-buy-tickets/calendar/importance-of-being-earnest/306