Gender in Victorian Britain – Lecture Notes for Nov. 11, 2014

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History 364-0-01: Gender and Sexuality in Victorian Britain; Northwestern University, Fall 2014

Homosexuality on Trial

  • Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
    • Birth and family
      • Born during the Victorian time period
      • Born in Dublin, thinks of himself as Anglo-Irish, English upper- and middle-class
      • His mother was a well-known poet, assumed that all his writing talent comes from his mother’s side; also an Irish nationalist, much more so than Wilde’s father
      • His father, Sir William Wilde, was a well-known eye surgeon; he was knighted for his philanthropy (charity work)
    • Growth
      • Attends Trinity College, went on to study at Oxford (highly educated, very smart, able student) where he wins a prize for poetry
      • Wilde never aspired to be respectable Victorian middle-class
      • Falls under the spell of the aesthetic movement – “art for art’s sake”
      • Undertakes a tour of the United States and Canada in 1881 (still young), and it is “Wilde”ly successful
    • Marriage
      • In 1884, Wilde married Constance Lloyd Wilde (1858-1898) – a heterosexual love match
      • Constance is interested in women’s rights
      • Gives birth to two male children, Cyril (1885) and Vyvyan (1886)
      • As part of the aesthetic movement, Wilde decides to paint the walls of their house white
    • Work
      • Wrote a lot of plays – “Lady Windermere’s Fan” (1892), “A Woman of No Importance” (1893), “Salomé” (1894), “… Ideal Husband” (1895), “The Importance of Being Earnest” (1895)
      • When Wilde was on trial, three of his plays were running in the west end
    • Homosexuality
      • Robbie Ross (1886), a homosexual, was living with Wilde and his wife when he seduced Wilde while his wife was asleep
      • Up until this point, Wilde had been heterosexual and loved his wife, but after the encounter with Ross, his life completely changed
      • Wilde begins to experiment in a discreet way and moves towards a London homosexual circle
      • He is living the double life – he is remaining with his wife and adores his children, but also leads a secret, closeted double-life of a homosexual
      • The Cleveland St. Scandal hits in 1889 when Wilde is ramping up his homosexual life – the scandal involved a 15-year-old telegraph boy in a homosexual brothel

 

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