Oscar Wilde: Difference between revisions

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==Relevance==
==Relevance==
One of Morrissey's favourite books: "Complete Works" - via NME interview (1983):<br>
One of Morrissey's favourite books: "Complete Works" - via NME interview (1983):<br>
[[https://www.morrissey-solo.com/content/interview/nme0983.html Morrissey - "Portrait Of The Artist As A Consumer"]]<br>
[https://www.morrissey-solo.com/content/interview/nme0983.html Morrissey - "Portrait Of The Artist As A Consumer"]<br>
Morrissey chose the "Complete Works", again, as an island book on [[https://www.morrissey-solo.com/wiki/Desert_Island_Discs_-_BBC_Radio_4_(2009) Desert Island Discs - BBC Radio 4 (2009)]]<br>
Morrissey chose the "Complete Works", again, as an island book on [https://www.morrissey-solo.com/wiki/Desert_Island_Discs_-_BBC_Radio_4_(2009) Desert Island Discs - BBC Radio 4 (2009)]<br>
In [[Autobiography]], Morrissey states:<br>
In [[Autobiography]], Morrissey states:<br>
<blockquote>
<blockquote>
As the world’s first populist figure (first pop figure), Oscar Wilde exploded with original wisdom, advocating freedom for heart and soul, and for all – regardless of how the soul swirled. He laughed at the squeezers and the benders and those born only to tell others what to do. Tellingly, a disfigured barrister and a half-wit in a wig destroyed Wilde in the end, and in doing so one lordly barrister and one lordly judge deprived the world of further works from Oscar Wilde.
As the world’s first populist figure (first pop figure), Oscar Wilde exploded with original wisdom, advocating freedom for heart and soul, and for all – regardless of how the soul swirled. He laughed at the squeezers and the benders and those born only to tell others what to do. Tellingly, a disfigured barrister and a half-wit in a wig destroyed Wilde in the end, and in doing so one lordly barrister and one lordly judge deprived the world of further works from Oscar Wilde.
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
In the May 6, 1984 issue of [[http://www.tiptopwebsite.com/websites/index2.php?username=thesmithsfile&page=8 Jamming! Magazine]], Morrissey answers:<br>
In the May 6, 1984 issue of [http://www.tiptopwebsite.com/websites/index2.php?username=thesmithsfile&page=8 Jamming! Magazine], Morrissey answers:<br>
<blockquote>
<blockquote>
"'''So what makes you shout and jump and write and how close are The Smiths to real life?'''<br>
"'''So what makes you shout and jump and write and how close are The Smiths to real life?'''<br>

Revision as of 19:43, 12 January 2023

Morrissey surrounded by his Wilde collection (1984)

Relevance

One of Morrissey's favourite books: "Complete Works" - via NME interview (1983):
Morrissey - "Portrait Of The Artist As A Consumer"
Morrissey chose the "Complete Works", again, as an island book on Desert Island Discs - BBC Radio 4 (2009)
In Autobiography, Morrissey states:

As the world’s first populist figure (first pop figure), Oscar Wilde exploded with original wisdom, advocating freedom for heart and soul, and for all – regardless of how the soul swirled. He laughed at the squeezers and the benders and those born only to tell others what to do. Tellingly, a disfigured barrister and a half-wit in a wig destroyed Wilde in the end, and in doing so one lordly barrister and one lordly judge deprived the world of further works from Oscar Wilde.

In the May 6, 1984 issue of Jamming! Magazine, Morrissey answers:

"So what makes you shout and jump and write and how close are The Smiths to real life?
Most of my inspiration does come from outside music - especially literature and particularly Oscar Wilde..."

Miserable Lie appears to have taken the term "flower-like life" from Wilde's De Profundis:

"He was the first person who ever said to people that they should live ‘flower-like lives.’"

A caricature of Wilde by illustrator Chas Kendrick was used on the limited edition Interesting Drug etched vinyl & sleeve (taken from a book about Wilde). It would feature as a poster & t-shirt image surrounded by the words: "Interesting Morrissey" in 1989. The shirt was part of a promotional giveaway for the Interesting Drug release (Smash Hits magazine also gave some away as a competition prize). In 2022, a more colourful version of the shirt was sold via Mporium and at concerts.

Image used as a 2012 backdrop (source):

Image used as a 2021 backdrop during Irish Blood, English Heart (video source):

Mentioned In

Discogs Information

Profile

Anglo-Irish playwright, novelist, poet, short story writer and Freemason, born 16 October 1854 in Dublin, Ireland and died 30 November 1900 in Paris, France. One of the most successful playwrights of late Victorian London, and one of the greatest celebrities of his day, known for his barbed and clever wit.

External Links

Wikipedia Information

300px-Oscar_Wilde_by_Napoleon_Sarony._Three-quarter-length_photograph%2C_seated.jpg

Oscar Fingal O'Fflahertie Wills Wilde (16 October 1854 – 30 November 1900) was an Irish poet and playwright. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of the most popular playwrights in London in the early 1890s. He is best remembered for his epigrams and plays, his novel The Picture of Dorian Gray, and his criminal conviction for gross indecency for homosexual acts. Wilde's parents were Anglo-Irish intellectuals in Dublin. In his youth Wilde learned to speak fluent French and German. At university, he read Greats; he demonstrated himself to be an exceptional classicist, first at Trinity College Dublin, then at Magdalen College, Oxford. He became associated with the emerging philosophy of aestheticism, led by two of his tutors, Walter Pater and John Ruskin. After university, Wilde moved to London into fashionable cultural and social circles. He tried his hand at various literary activities: he wrote a play, published a book of poems, lectured in the United States and Canada on the new "English Renaissance in Art" and interior decoration, and then returned to London where he lectured on his American travels and wrote reviews for various periodicals. Known for his biting wit, flamboyant dress and glittering conversational skill, Wilde became one of the best-known personalities of his day. At the turn of the 1890s he refined his ideas about the supremacy of art in a series of dialogues and essays, and incorporated themes of decadence, duplicity, and beauty into what would be his only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890). Wilde returned to the drama, writing Salome (1891) in French while in Paris, but it was refused a licence for England due to an absolute prohibition on the portrayal of Biblical subjects on the English stage. Undiscouraged, Wilde produced four society comedies in the early 1890s, which made him one of the most successful playwrights of late-Victorian London. At the height of his fame and success, while An Ideal Husband (1895) and The Importance of Being Earnest (1895) were still being performed in London, Wilde issued a civil writ against John Sholto Douglas, the 9th Marquess of Queensberry for criminal libel. The Marquess was the father of Wilde's lover, Lord Alfred Douglas. The libel hearings unearthed evidence that caused Wilde to drop his charges and led to his own arrest and criminal prosecution for gross indecency with men. The jury was unable to reach a verdict and so a retrial was ordered. In the second trial Wilde was convicted and sentenced to two years' hard labour, the maximum penalty, and was jailed from 1895 to 1897. During his last year in prison he wrote De Profundis (published posthumously in abridged form in 1905), a long letter that discusses his spiritual journey through his trials and is a dark counterpoint to his earlier philosophy of pleasure. On the day of his release he caught the overnight steamer to France, never to return to Britain or Ireland. In France and Italy he wrote his last work, The Ballad of Reading Gaol (1898), a long poem commemorating the harsh rhythms of prison life.