![]() ![]() Reason enables Wilde to see that the laws under which he was convicted and the system that imposed them are wrong and unjust. Christ's morality is sheer sympathy with the other and his conception of justice is poetic, 'For him there were no laws: there were exceptions merely'. Interestingly, it is in exactly these terms that he describes the morality of Christ later in De Profundis. Wilde says that he is, "One of those who are made for exceptions, not for laws". Morality, for Wilde, is about the sanction of externally imposed law and must therefore be rejected. This is because each of these faculties requires the invocation of some sort of external agency. As such, in the sufferings of incarceration, Wilde becomes more of an individualist than ever.įor such an act of self-realization, Wilde insists, neither religion nor morality nor reason can help. That is, Wilde's self-ruination does not lead him to look outside the self for salvation, but more deeply within himself to find some new means of self-formation, of self-artistry. He adds, "That is all I am concerned with". On the contrary, he sees his sufferings as the occasion for a "fresh mode of self-realization". Having ruined himself and losing everything – his reputation, his wealth, his wife, his mother who died while he was in prison, and access to his children, "a blow so appalling that I did not know what to do" – Wilde does not bow down before the external command of some transcendent deity. Such happiness, however – and this is the key to the text - can only be achieved through suffering.ĭe profundis is marked by a quiet but steely audacity. Having initially longed to die when first entering prison and subsequently being resolved to commit suicide on the day of his release, the experience of incarceration teaches Wilde that, "I must learn to be cheerful and happy". The lesson that Wilde draws from his ruination is humility, absolute humility. De profundis is the testimony of someone who knows that he has ruined himself and squandered the most extraordinary artistic gifts. It is the religious dimension to this letter that I find so arresting, particularly Wilde's interpretation of the person of Christ. Perhaps he acted like a fool as well.Īn expurgated version of Wilde's letter was published in 1905 with the title, De profundis, which is the incipit of the 130th Psalm in Latin, 'From the depths I cry to thee, O Lord'. Let's just say that Wilde was used and treated like a fool. Nor do I wish to discuss the extremely lengthy litany of complaints that Wilde, with much justice, levels at his former lover. This is not the place to enter into the agonies of the relationship to Douglas, or "Bosie" as Wilde called him. The text was an extended epistle to Lord Alfred Douglas, Wilde's friend and lover, whose father, the Marquess of Queensbury, was the causa efficiens of Wilde's downfall. This was to prove his last prose work before his death in Paris three years later and the only piece that he wrote during imprisonment. He handed a manuscript of some 50,000 words to his loyal friend and sometime lover, Robert Ross. On 19th May 1897, Oscar Wilde was released from prison after two years' detention for acts of gross indecency. ![]()
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