Editorial Journal of John Cooper on Oscar Wilde
Previously published as The 16th Green
on Oscar’s birthday in 2016 and 2018.
October 16 is a noted birthday in Ireland.
I do not refer solely the young man above—followers of this blog should need no reminding that Oscar Wilde was born on this day,
But consider also a curiosity about this date in Irish lore.
Continue reading “Same Day Delivery”
Compton Mackenzie’s Wildean Allegory
“It had to be complete self-denial, or complete surrender…
Walking about for ever on thin ice does not appeal to me.”
Henry Fortesque, in Thin Ice (1956)
This week marks the 170th anniversary of the birth of Oscar Wilde. With it comes the realization of round numbers that seventy years have now passed since the historic centenary in 1954, when a commemorative plaque was placed on the wall of his former home in Tite Street, Chelsea.
For that occasion there had been a fraught search for someone to conduct the unveiling of the plaque.1 The task was eventually, but gladly, accepted by Sir Compton Mackenzie, the writer and commentator best known for two comic novels set in Scotland: The Monarch of the Glen (1941) and Whisky Galore (1947).
More to the point of Wilde’s memory, however, is a novel Mackenzie wrote immediately after that unveiling ceremony.
Continue reading “Thin Ice”
Following the podcast featuring Oscar Wilde’s grandson Merlin Holland in Gyles Brandreth’s series Rosebud, here is another worth noting for Wildeans who might have missed it.
It is an interview with broadcaster, comedian, and writer, Stephen Fry: and thus the President of the Oscar Wilde Society meets one of its honorary patrons (and the man who played Oscar Wilde in the film of that name in 1997).
Continue reading “Rosebud II — Stephen Fry”
Oscar Wilde’s American visits resulted in mixed fortunes: he failed to achieve too much literary advance, and although his tour met with a mixed reception critically, it was a great commercial success. We can see these fortunes reflected in the above cartoon from Judge magazine of September 1883.
Continue reading “Not A Joy Forever”
You may remember an earlier post about Wilde’s lecture in Narragansett Pier.
Perhaps we should place that visit into the wider context of Wilde’s Summer schedule of 1882 and his yearlong lecture tour of North America.
Continue reading “Summer Schedule”
Perhaps all playwrights since Shakespeare have succumbed to the lure of influence—at least that seems to be the view of cynical Punch cartoonists. Above we see parallel depictions of the theatrical reliance: George Bernard Shaw resting on his inner bard and ditto Oscar Wilde additionally propped up by French literature.1
We all lean on our progenitors, admittedly—even Wilde was not averse to the occasional borrowing, although it was often from himself.
But what of Shaw?
Or, put another way: what of downright plagiarism by a playwright of accepted genius now that his fellow countryman is safely beyond the pale?
Continue reading “Stealing The Show”
SEWING MACHINES IMPROVE SPEAKING
During Oscar Wilde’s 1882 tour of North America, his name was used arbitrarily to sell any number of products—there are several such advertisements on this page.
Above is another example from the Davis Sewing Machine Company asserting that Oscar’s perceived lack of ability as a “talkist” was the result of his not having purchased one of their sewing machines. It’s true that commentators noted Oscar’s untutored monotone delivery, but it’s not clear how owning a Davis sewing machine would have developed his diction—with or without basting.
Needless to say, there is no record in Oscar’s tour expenses of a sewing machine.
Continue reading “Sew to Speak”
My recent post about Whistler’s long ladies of the six marks featured the famous Du Maurier cartoon, from Punch magazine in 1880, about a couple longing to live up to the blue china of their ‘Six-Mark Tea-Pot’. The cartoon was widely understood to be channeling Wilde because he is reported to have done the same thing in his rooms at Oxford.
But doting couples cradling tea-pots was nothing new even then.
Continue reading “Tea in China”
Given that the most familiar impression of Oscar Wilde derives from photographs taken by Napoleon Sarony, a retrospective of the famous nineteenth-century portraitist should be much anticipated by Wildeans, particularly as Sarony has for some time been a neglected figure. Erin Pauwels’s new book attempts to redress the balance.
Continue reading “Penn Pictures”
In my recent article about the Whistler painting at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, I admitted to being no expert in art appreciation. I now realize that was a needless confession.
Apparently, the amateur aesthete can abandon artistic authenticity.
Continue reading “How To View Art”