Masaryk University Faculty of Arts Department of English and American Studies English Language and Literature Marcela Strouhalová Aspects of the Literary Conversion in Oscar Wilde’s Late Works De Profundis and The Ballad of Reading Gaol Bachelor’s Diploma Thesis Supervisor: Mgr. Tomáš Kačer, PhD. 2016 I declare that I have worked on this thesis independently, using only the primary and secondary sources listed in the bibliography. …………………………………………….. Author’s signature Acknowledgement I would like to thank my supervisor Mgr. Tomáš Kačer, Ph.D. for his generous advice and comments which helped to shape this work. Table of Contents 1. Introduction ............................................................................................................................... 1 2. The Historical Background ....................................................................................................... 3 2.1. Jail and its Echoes .............................................................................................................. 6 3. Analysis of Wilde’s Late Works ............................................................................................... 9 3.1. Encyclical Letter .............................................................................................................. 10 3.2. Song for the Masses ......................................................................................................... 18 4. Wilde the Agitator ................................................................................................................... 29 4.1. The Letters to the Daily Chronicle ................................................................................... 30 4.2. Towards the Modern Penal System .................................................................................. 36 5. Conclusion .............................................................................................................................. 41 6. Works Cited ............................................................................................................................ 43 7. Resume .................................................................................................................................... 45 1. Introduction Between the famous and the infamous, there is but one step, if as much as one. Oscar Wilde, De Profundis This thesis deals with the aspects of the literary conversion in Oscar Wilde’s late works. It is understood that his late works were written and finished between the time of his imprisonment and his death. Works that fulfil these criteria are De Profundis, The Ballad of Reading Gaol and the two letters to the editor of the Daily Chronicle. The thesis also relies on personal letters Wilde wrote to his friends and his acquaintances for the duration of the given period. The thesis explores the reasons for the changes in Oscar Wilde’s literary voice, during and after the time he spent in prison, and how these conceivable changes are reflected within the works that he wrote at the time, mainly the epistle De Profundis, written while in jail, and The Ballad of Reading Gaol, written after his release. It also touches on the subject of the implementation of changes to the prison system, due to his imprisonment as a prominent public figure, and his critique of the system thereafter. In order to do so, two letters to the editor of the Daily Chronicle serve as a foundation for the thesis. In addition to these two letters, De Profundis and The Ballad of Reading Gaol were the only texts that he wrote and finished between the time of his imprisonment and his death. This thesis considers them all to be indispensable and therefore necessary for inclusion. The first part of the thesis offers the background to what led to Wilde’s imprisonment – his unconventional lifestyle, the relationship with Lord Alfred Douglas, the libel trial of Marquess of Queensberry, the trials which followed, directly afterwards, against Wilde, by the Public Prosecutor, and the shift in attitude of the Victorian public towards Wilde, after learning the details of his private endeavours. 1 Above all, the scandal was the turning point, in all aspects of his life. His crossing class boundaries, was for Victorian society far worse than his publicised lusts, and brought upon him the gloom of a Victorian prison. Just before he was released, one particular event had such a strong impact on him that it was reflected in all of his subsequent works. The second part analyses Wilde’s literary style, focusing on the conceivable changes in his life. The changes in his late writings are considered mainly in terms of style, form and opinion. They are based on a close reading of the epistle De Profundis, written towards the end of his jail sentence, and The Ballad of Reading Gaol, published within nine months after his release. Combined with his personal letters and secondary sources, this section considers whether there were any changes to Oscar Wilde’s persona and/or opinion per se, which brought about the changes to his literary conversion. The final section explores the connection between Oscar Wilde’s scandal and his continuous critique of the prison establishment in the works De Profundis, The Ballad of Reading Gaol and the two letters to the editor of the Daily Chronicle, as well as the improvements that took place within the prison system in the given time-frame. 2 2. The Historical Background LORD GORING. Lady Chiltern, I have sometimes thought that . perhaps you are a little hard in some of your views on life. I think that . often you don’t make sufficient allowances. In every nature there are elements of weakness, or worse than weakness. Supposing, for instance, that — that any public man, my father, or Lord Merton, or Robert, say, had, years ago, written some foolish letter to someone … LADY CHILTERN. What do you mean by a foolish letter? LORD GORING. A letter gravely compromising one’s position. I am only putting an imaginary case. Oscar Wilde, An Ideal Husband It was January 3rd 1895. The opening night of the comedic stage play An Ideal Husband by Oscar Wilde in the Haymarket Theatre, with the Prince of Wales present. A month later, on 14 February 1895, another opening night, this time in St James’s Theatre, staging what was later considered to be one of the best English comedies ever, The Importance of Being Ernest. It was the year of the Lord of Language. Oscar Wilde “could spend money like water”, was on top of the world, a celebrity, a confident playwright, always ready to entertain his dinner table audiences ( Harris 175). However, the imaginary foolish letter was not imaginary after all, it had already been written, and, with Marquess of Queensberry trying to get to the very same opening night of The Importance of Being Ernest, the undoing of Oscar Wilde was staged. Queensberry did not succeed in humiliating Oscar Wilde on the opening night of his final play. But he did not stop there. Four days later, he went to a club, where Oscar Wilde was known to dine, and left a calling card which read, “To Oscar Wilde, posing Somdomite” (Elman 412). Albeit misspelled, Queenberry meant to offend Wilde, and Wilde, instead of ignoring it, reacted to the provocation. After much discussion with his friends, who were mostly against it, and his lover, Lord Alfred Douglas, the son of Marquess of Queensberry, who nudged him on, Oscar Wilde decided to sue 3 Queensberry for libel, which led to the famous trials of Oscar Wilde. Thus, Oscar Wilde was the master of his own ruin. An Ideal Husband and The Importance of Being Earnest were still running, when their author was arrested on the criminal charge of having committed a number of homosexual offences, contrary to the Criminal Law Amendment Act, 1885. (Hyde 50) The libel case against Queensberry was dropped soon after it came to light that there might be some truth to his allegations, and the tables suddenly turned. Oscar Wilde was arrested, which was common practice in Victorians times, and was tried in two successive trials. The first ended in a hung jury, but the scandal was in full swing and Wilde’s name was smeared all over the papers. The biggest sin was not Wilde’s homosexuality, his literature, nor the above-mentioned letter to Alfred Douglas, which, due to carelessness on Douglas’s part, got into the wrong hands, and a copy thereof had got into the hands of Queensberry. The one thing for which Wilde could not be forgiven by the Victorian society, was his crossing of boundaries between the classes: If Wilde had been content to confine his homosexual relations to Robert Ross, and even to Lord Alfred Douglas, it is extremely unlikely that his conduct in this respect would ever have come to the notice of the Director of the Public Prosecutions. (Hyde 60) While Robert Ross, a true friend, and later his literary executor, was Wilde’s first male lover, Wilde’s relations with Douglas had lasted for about three years before that point. They had met late June 1891, their relationship had become closer at around the same time when Douglas was being blackmailed by some male prostitutes (Ellman 306). Douglas soon introduced Wilde to the very same practices, with male prostitutes of a lower social class, which later Wilde describes as “feasting with the panthers” (De 4 Profundis 1042). Once these were made public at the second trial, the witty poet could not say anything in his defence that would change the mind of the judge, who believed in Wilde’s guilt. Not only the judge,