In 1883, Irish-born Oscar Wilde returned to London bursting with
exuberance from a year long lecture tour of the United States and
Canada. Full of talent, passion and, most of all, full of himself,
he courted and married the beautiful Constance Lloyd.
A few years later, Wilde's wit, flamboyance and creative genius were
widely renowned. His literary career had achieved notoriety with the
publication of "The Picture Of Dorian Gray". Oscar and Constance now had two sons whom they both loved very much. But one evening, Robert Ross, a young Canadian houseguest, seduced Oscar and forced him finally to confront the homosexual feelings that had gripped him since his schooldays.
Oscar's work thrived on the realisation that he was gay, but his
private life flew increasingly in the face of the 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 undergraduate,
Lord Alfred Douglas, nicknamed "Bosie". Oscar was mesmerised by the
cocky, dashing and intelligent young man and began the passionate and
stormy relationship which consumed and ultimately destroyed him.
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.
And then the dragon awoke. Bosie's father, the violent, eccentric,
cantankerous Marquess of Queensberry, became aware that Bosie, whose
"unmanly" and careless behaviour he despised, was cavorting around
London with its greatest playwright, Oscar Wilde.
In 1895, days after the triumphant first night of "The Importance Of
Being Earnest", Queensberry stormed into Wilde's club, The Albemarle,
and finding him absent left a card with the porter, addressed "To
Oscar Wilde posing Somdomite" (...misspelling the insult). Bosie, who
hated his father, persuaded Oscar to sue the Marquess for libel. As
homosexuality was itself illegal, Queensberry 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.
Oscar lost the libel case against Queensberry and was arrested by the
crown. With essentially no credible defence against charges of
homosexual conduct, he was convicted and sentenced to two years hard
labour, the latter part in Reading Gaol. Unreformed Dickensian prison
conditions caused a calamitous series of illnesses and brought him to
death's door.
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 comply 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 combined however to defeat
prudence and discretion. Despite the certain knowledge that their
relationship was doomed, Oscar was unable to resist temptation and
he and Bosie were reunited, with disastrous consequences.
"In this world there are only two tragedies. One is not getting
what one wants, and the other is getting it."
- Oscar Wilde
