Little known facts about oscar wilde?

Question

I have to do a presentation about Oscar Wilde and I really want it to be interesting and include unknown, weird or funny facts about him and make the class to want to know more about him.

Answer 1

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His mother knocked so many years off her age, she ended up saying she was born a few years after her father died!
Oscar also lied about his age - in court, to an old class mate, thereby showing the judge and jury he wasn't always truthful.
He has two graves - still both with headstones. When he died in Paris it was under an assumed name (Sebastien Melmoth) and for that reason he could only be buried for 10 years. 9 years later he was dis-interred and moved to another cemetery.
He called himself Sebastien because he loved a portrait of St Sebastien and Melmoth after the book Melmoth the Wanderer, which was written by his mother's uncle.
His father was Queen Victoria's eye surgeon and was knighted for it.
Oscar had two half sisters who died in a fire - one was dancing close to the coal fire and her dress caught light. Her sister tried to put it out and died too.

Sorry - I'm a mine of useless info on Mr Wilde. Hope some of it helps.

Source(s):

I collect biographies on Oscar Wilde.

Answer 2

When he was being taken out of court and into prison, his good friend and [possible] lover, Robbie Ross, waited in the rain for hours simply to lift his hat to him.

His grave is in the cemetery at Pere Lachaise in Paris. Originally it had a sculpture of a man with an erect penis but the gardener at the graveyard was so offended by it that he snapped it off.

Whilst he was in gaol he wrote letter after letter to Bosie (Lord Alfred Douglas) on the single sheets of paper to which he was entitled one at a time. Bosie intended to publish these and Wilde's friends, including Ross, rushed off to America to get the letters published first in order to maintain the copyright. They succeeded but the publications were full of errors and kept under lock and key until the [I believe] 1960s, when they were finally published.

I used to run an after school club for the gifted and talented and we discussed the concept that 'Life Imitates Art'. Why not ask your pupils to discuss it? You probably know this, but the theory (from 'The Decay of Lying') suggests that life only recognises phenomena once Art has seen it (he makes specific reference to Turner and the fogs of London - none of which were seen as beautiful or even seen until he painted them).

Hope this helps.

I love Wilde.

Source(s):

De Profundis - Essay by Wilde written in Reading Gaol and published with a collection of other stories and essays.
Visit to Pere Lachaise cemetery.
My degree specialising in Decadent Fiction.

Answer 3

ah Oscar Wilde a "drinker with a writing problem."
he was homosexual or possibly bisexual
went on a tour of London Canada and the US in the 1860's to promote aesthetics.
he coined the word "dude"
spent two years in hard labour for the "crime of sodomy."

Answer 4

once when he was a young man he asked a beautiful woman to dance with him in a ball.looking at his young age the woman asked scornfully"Me?dance with a child?"to which oscar replied politely saying,"oh,I am sorry ma'am.I didn't know you were in that condition"(implying that he thought she was pregnant with a child)