See, my understanding of things is that Oscar Wilde only got “busted” after screwing up his libel suit against the Marquess of Queensbury. I also understand that he was advised to keep his mouth shut after getting the note that led to the suit. So I have always wondered: could he have avoided all those years of angst and bad poetry if he’d just shrugged it off and carried on? Discuss.
Link for those who have no idea what I’m talking about: http://www.robotwisdom.com/jorn/wilde.html
Mmmmm… And if he hadn’t written those books, he wouldn’t have had to deal with all that pesky publicity.
It was in his nature to respond. Whether one feels that he rose to the bait, or to the challenge, he wasn’t the sort to walk away.
“There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.”
Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray*
*WHISTLER: It was one of Wilde’s. One of Wilde’s.
WILDE: It sodding was not! It was Shaw!
All this fuss about a somdomite poseur.
It looks like the long dead Marquess is posting here. Who would have thunk it?
Oh, and while he was a gay male, he most definitely was no poseur. Speaking of which, I hear tell that he was able to drink all chalengers under the table, when he visited the Wild West.
The “libel” was actually the Marquess sending him a card, addressed to “Mr. Oscar Wilde, posing as a somdomite”.
“I hear tell that he was able to drink all chalengers under the table…”
I’m sure he could; I’m sure he could!
I’ve always been amused at how totally gay “Marquess of Queensbury” sounds. There’s a metaphor about homophobia in there somewhere.
Er, that’s one of those things that you re-read, do one of these :smack:, and re-word.
The version I read said it was actually supposed to read “ponce and sodomite”, but the Marquis’ penmanship left something to be desired.
The most common version I’ve seen seems to be “posing as a somdomite”, but yeah, the note was a tad illegible. And yes Miller, “Marquess of Queensbury” struck me as kinda totally gay too. Ahem. The question that is keeping me occupied is: had OW not taken the Marquess to court, would he have managed to keep his sexuality under wraps, and if not, would the results have been any less disastrous, or was he just doomed?
DOOOOM. Nice word, that. Hrm.
Indeed. The card itself is now in the National Archives and can be seen here (click on the image to get an enlargement). It was naturally included in the excellent British Library cententary exhibition on Wilde and, even with it actually in front of me, I wasn’t convinced that we can be sure what he’d scrawled, though “Somdomite” is clear enough.
As for the original question, Queensbury was sufficiently obsessive about the issue that he’d surely have continued trying to escalate matters to the point where there’d be some sort of public scandal anyway. That might have been an easier situation for Wilde to spin doctor than a libel action, but we’ll never know.
No, it was quite intentional. 
If it were purely a question of the legal and social situation at the time, then yes: he could almost certainly have avoided prosecution. Wilde wasn’t the only homosexual prominent in British society at the time, and the authorities had no interest in rocking the boat by probing into people’s private lives – so long as they kept them private.
The real problem, as far as Wilde is concerned, wasn’t his homosexuality per se, but his infatuation with Alfred Douglas. It was this relationship that infuriated Queensbury and prompted his campaign, and it was at “Bosie’s” insistance that Wilde initiated the libel action.
It seems to have been a flaw in Wilde’s character that he took up with Douglas, and maintained the relationship, even when he must have known full well that was a shit, and was almost certainly going to destroy him – as indeed he did. Given that flaw, its possible that, even if he’d never met Douglas, Wilde would have found some other way of crucifying himself.
So yes, perhaps he was doomed.
I bet that chapped their asses 