The Death of Oscar Wilde
He lost his final verbal joust — with the wallpaper
On 30th November 1900 the Irish-born playwright, poet and wit Oscar Wilde died in Paris, aged only 46. The direct cause of death was cerebral meningitis, but Wilde had really died from premature aging brought on by the disasters that befell him in his final years.
His glittering career had taken him to the highest ranks of literary London, enjoying huge success with plays that included “The Importance of Being Earnest” and “Lady Windermere’s Fan”. Another masterpiece was his only novel, “The Picture of Dorian Gray”.
Any worthwhile dictionary of quotations will contain several pages of Oscar Wilde witticisms, often said off the cuff (such as “I have nothing to declare but my genius” when passing through New York customs) and many containing truths stated in a memorable way (such as “All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That’s his.”)
Wilde’s downfall came about when he foolishly responded to the barbs of the Marquess of Queensberry to the effect that he was in a homosexual relationship with Queensberry’s son, Lord Alfred Douglas, which was true. By suing the Marquess for libel, Wilde was forced to admit his homosexual behaviour in court and, because homosexuality was then a crime, a criminal prosecution followed which resulted in Wilde being sent to jail for two years.
The jail sentence broke Oscar Wilde physically, although it did result in two remarkable works, the prose epistle “De Profundis” and Wilde’s greatest poem, “The Ballad of Reading Gaol”, which was composed after his release in 1897.
Wilde lived out his last years in France, ending his days in a Paris hotel in the appropriately named “Rue des Beaux Arts”. Whether or not he had rehearsed his “famous last words”, they do seem to summarise the man who uttered them — “Either that wallpaper goes or I do”.
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