Whose plays are second only to Shakespeare’s as the most studied and translated from English?

Arts Society Newbury lecture: Simon Whitehouse, Wilde about Oscar: Famous for being famous (and infamous)

at Arlington Arts

on Tuesday, March 18

For Oscar Wilde, who said: There is one thing in life worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about”, his descent from celebrity to dying in a garret in Paris, and fearing obscurity, was a bitter blow.

His wit did not desert him though, Wilde expert Simon Whitehouse told the Arts Society Newbury. “The wallpaper and I are fighting a duel to the death” he said, as he lay dying in 1900. “One of us has to go.”

He was born in Ireland in 1854, Mr Whitehouse said, as he described Wilde’s life. At Oxford he gravitated to the Aesthetic movement, and its philosophy of ‘art for art’s sake’.

In London he quickly became a celebrity, well known enough to be caricatured in Punch.

By 1886 he was married with children and life was getting dull. A paying guest introduced him to “the love that dare not speak its name”. In 1891 Wilde became enthralled by ‘Bosie’ - Lord Alfred Douglas – beginning a “capricious, volatile relationship “ that would lead to his downfall.

First, though, he became the talk of the town for his satirical plays, including The Importance of Being Earnest.

Bosie’s father, the Marquess of Queensbury, accused Wilde of being a sodomite. Wilde, said Mr Whitehouse, would have done better to ignore the taunt but he sued for libel. He lost, was bankrupted and was then jailed for two years hard labour for gross indecency. In Reading Gaol he taught inmates to read and helped the poorest.

He was buried in Pere Lachaise cemetery in Paris. Far from him being forgotten, his tomb had to be protected – from admirers, whose lipstick ate into the statue over it. His plays are second only to Shakespeare’s as the most studied and translated from English.

“A kind, generous, very funny man who held up a mirror to nature and showed us who we are”, said Mr Whitehouse.

Next lecture: Betty Joel: Glamour and innovation in 1930s design on April 15

Full details: theartssocietynewbury.org.uk