Paolo's "list of facts" as presented on sunday 15th April

OSCAR WILDE

The first years and the relation with the Catholic Church

First Years

·      Born in 1854 in Ireland by a protestant family

·      Lady Wilde was herself quite a character in terms of her social life and appearance in public “Lady Wilde was a rebel who relished the opportunity to cause controversy”

·      It is in this context that we read her flirtation with the catholic Church. As Oscar was five, Lady Wilde brought Oscar and his brother on holyday where they met a young converted catholic priest, and asked him to baptize her children. (pg 7)

·      Various anecdotes about his mother (Nationalism, age, name…) on one side, and on the other his father’s promiscuity: Oscar had several illegitimate half brothers (i.e. Mary Travers allegation of rape towards Oscar’s dad)

·      1864: Oscar and his brother William start studying at Portora School in Enniskillen

·      1867: his sister Isola dies. Lady Wilde is shattered, for years. Oscar hides the wound (pg 18)

·      Oscar turns out to be extremely intelligent since the beginning of his studies – child prodigy

Trinity College Dublin

·      1870 Newman publishes his Grammar of Assent. Since the ‘60s the Oratory started spreading both in England and Ireland and many were converted, following the charismatic figure of Newman (who founded a uni in Dublin pg 25)

·      It is also a period of ‘trouble’ for the church – 1870 Pope infallibility creates tensions in the Church

·      Wilde is attracted maybe only as a form of rebellion – it is the only thing his father would not accept

·      Hopkins, student at Oxf before Wilde and great poet, converted and became a Jesuit after university – not even Oxford was ‘safe’ from Catholicism

Oxford

·      Starts in oct 1874 – many transformations

·      First aspects of dandysm – clothes, accent… starts his aesthetic views

·      He becomes a disciple of the art critic Ruskin – rival of Pater. The discussion was on the roots of Renaissance: at the roots (Ruskin) or in opposition to (Pater) Catholicism

·      They both talked of Catholicism – aesthetic and life.

·      ROME UNVISITED and SAN MINIATO – Trip to italy

·      Back in Oxford becomes friend with many catholics, such as Blair Hunter and Ward

·      Wilde meets and falls in love with Florence Balcombe in 1876

·      Discussions with his mother about religion throughout summer ’76 (pg 47)

·      Attends both catholic and protestant services, and knows people on both sides

·      1875 he became a Manson

·      1877 Planned trip to Italy-Rome with Ward & Hunter. Going there he changes route and follows his trip-mates to Greece. Then went to Rome – MEETS THE POPE

·      His father doesn’t leave him anything in the will because of his fling with roman church

·      Syphilis?

·      1878 last attempt with Catholicism: meeting with Father Bowden – letter – doesn’t show up to the second

Timeline of the Exhibition

Reverse timeline 

6/6 LONDON ENCOUNTER 

31/5 video concluded

24/5 (I) Panels printed (II) books printed 

17/5 Panels ready to be printed. 

1-3/5 shoot the video

26/4 (I) contents of the panels (biography) ready to be sent to graphic designers (II) names of people who want to present the exhibition during the event. 

**19/4 NEXT MEETING**

5/4 draft of the written parts sent to Beppe

22/3 script of the video concluded

Draft script of the Video (LONG VERSION)

The unreal world of art

…that beautiful unreal world of art where once I was King…
              
I remember when I was at Oxford saying to one of my friends that I wanted to eat of the fruit of all the trees in the garden of the world, and that I was going out into the world with that passion in my soul. And so, indeed, I went out, and so I lived.

The gods had given me almost everything. I had genius, a distinguished name, high social position, brilliancy, intellectual daring; I altered the minds of men and the colours of things: there was nothing I said or did that did not make people wonder. Whatever I touched made beautiful in a new mode of beauty; to truth itself I gave what is false no less than what is true as its rightful province, and showed that the false and the true are merely forms of intellectual existence. I treated art as the supreme reality and life as a mere mode of fiction.

I used to live entirely for pleasure.  I shunned suffering and sorrow of every kind.  I hated both. I resolved to ignore them as far as possible. They were not part of my scheme of life.  They had no place in my philosophy. I did not want to eat my bread in sorrow, or to pass any night weeping and watching for a more bitter dawn. I had no idea that it was one of the special things that the Fates had in store for me: that for a whole year of my life, indeed, I was to do little else.

The extraordinary reality of sorrow

Failure, disgrace, poverty, sorrow, despair, suffering, tears even, the broken words that come from lips in pain, remorse that makes one walk on thorns, conscience that condemns, self-abasement that punishes, the misery that puts ashes on its head, the anguish that chooses sackcloth for its raiment and into its own drink puts gall: I was forced to taste each of them in turn, to feed on them, to have for a season, indeed, no other food at all.

‘Suffering is permanent, obscure, and dark and has the nature of infinity.’

The beauty of sorrow

But while there were times when I rejoiced in the idea that my sufferings were to be endless, I could not bear them to be without meaning.  Now I find hidden somewhere away in my nature something that tells me that nothing in the whole world is meaningless, and suffering least of all.  

There is about sorrow an intense, an extraordinary reality. For the secret of life is suffering. It is what is hidden behind everything. A pedestal may be a very unreal thing. A pillory is a terrific reality.

For this reason there is no truth comparable to sorrow.  There are times when sorrow seems to me to be the only truth.  Other things may be illusions of the eye or the appetite, made to blind the one and cloy the other, but out of sorrow have the worlds been built, and at the birth of a child or a star there is pain.

And if the world has indeed been built of sorrow, it has been built by the hands of love, because in no other way could the soul of man, for whom the world was made, reach the full stature of its perfection. Pleasure for the beautiful body, but pain for the beautiful soul.

I have said that behind sorrow there is always sorrow. It were wiser still to say that behind sorrow there is always a soul.

The discovery of the soul

I have lain in prison for nearly two years. Out of my nature has come wild despair; an abandonment to grief that was piteous even to look at.

I bore up against everything with some stubbornness of will and much rebellion of nature till I had absolutely nothing left in the world but [my son] Cyril. Suddenly he was taken away from me by the law. It was a blow so appalling that I did not know what to do, so I flung myself on my knees, and bowed my head and wept. That moment saved me. It was my soul in its ultimate essence that I had reached. In many ways I had been its enemy, but I found it waiting for me as a friend. When one comes in contact with the soul it makes one simple as a child, as Christ said one should be.

The Man of Sorrow

There is something so unique about Christ. He does not really teach one anything, but by being brought into his presence one becomes something. And everybody is predestined to his presence. Once at least in his life each man walks with Christ to Emmaus. All who come in contact with his personality, even thought they may neither bow to his altar nor kneel before his priest, yet somehow find that the ugliness of their sins is taken away and the beauty of their sorrow is revealed to them.

A share in Sorrow

I have a right to share in Sorrow, and he who can look at the loveliness of the world, and share its sorrow, and realise something of the wonder of both, is in immediate contact with divine things, and has got as near to God’s secret as anyone can get.

When I say that I am convinced of these things I speak with too much pride. Far off, like a perfect pearl, one can see the city of God. It is so wonderful that it seems as if a child could reach it in a summer’s day.  And so a child could.

Incomplete, imperfect, as I am, yet from me you may have still much to gain. You came to me to learn the Pleasure of Life and the Pleasure of Art. Perhaps I am chosen to teach you something much more wonderful, the meaning of Sorrow and its beauty.

Structure and tasks of the exhibition

Part I: Biography of Oscar Wilde (‘My life is like a work of art’)

1. The first years, Dublin and Oxford (1854-1880) [Paolo and Maddi]

2. The birth of the aesthetic ideology, the ‘Apollonian’ years (1880-1890) [Marco Govetto and Zanna]

3. The great years, Dorian Gray, success and homosexuality (1890-1895) [Lollo e Marco Sinisi]

4. The last years and the experience of pain (1895-1900)  [Eleonora]

Part II: The Happy Prince

Daniele Sacco (publication of the book) 

Ale Figini (work with GS)

Booklet with illustrations by Brad Holland 

Part III: Video De Profundis

Piddu, Mario and Marco Young (as Oscar Wilde)

Other tasks:

Correction and proofreading of texts: Roger and James

Overviewing: Beppe

The Happy Prince

Selections from the Happy Prince (for Brad Holland)

1) High above the city, on a tall column, stood the statue of the Happy Prince. He was gilded all over with thin leaves of fine gold, for eyes he had two bright sapphires, and a large red ruby glowed on his sword-hilt. He was very much admired indeed. (...) ‘Why can’t you be like the Happy Prince?’ asked a sensible mother of her little boy who was crying for the moon. ‘The Happy Prince never dreams of crying for anything.’

2) One night there flew over the city a little Swallow. His friends had gone away to Egypt six weeks before, but he had stayed behind, for he was in love with the most beautiful Reed. (...)

‘Will you come away with me?’ he said finally to her; but the Reed shook her head, she was so attached to her home. ‘You have been trifling with me,’ he cried, ‘I am off to the Pyramids. Good-bye!’ and he flew away  

3) All day long he flew, and at night-time he arrived at the city. Then he saw the statue on the tall column. ‘I will put up there,’ he cried; ‘it is a fine position with plenty of fresh air.’ So he alighted just between the feet of the Happy Prince. But just as he was putting his head under his wing a large drop of water fell on him. (...) ‘What is the use of a statue if it cannot keep the rain off?’ he said; ‘I must look for a good chimney-pot,’ and he determined to fly away. 

4) ‘When I was alive and had a human heart,’ answered the statue, ‘I did not know what tears were, for I lived in the palace of Sans-Souci, where sorrow is not allowed to enter. (...) Round the garden ran a very lofty wall, but I never cared to ask what lay beyond it, everything about me was so beautiful. My courtiers called me the Happy Prince, and happy indeed I was, if pleasure be happiness. 

5) So I lived, and so I died. And now that I am dead they have set me up here so high that I can see all the ugliness and all the misery of my city, and though my heart is made of lead yet I cannot choose but weep. (...) In a bed in the corner of the room her little boy is lying ill. He has a fever, and is asking for oranges. His mother has nothing to give him but river water, so he is crying. Swallow, Swallow, little Swallow, will you not bring her the ruby out of my sword-hilt? My feet are fastened to this pedestal and I cannot move. 

6) So the Swallow picked out the great ruby from the Prince’s sword, and flew away with it in his beak over the roofs of the town. (...) At last he came to the poor house and looked in. The boy was tossing feverishly on his bed, and the mother had fallen asleep, she was so tired. In he hopped, and laid the great ruby on the table beside the woman’s thimble. 

7) Then the Swallow flew back to the Happy Prince, and told him what he had done. ‘It is curious,’ he remarked, ‘but I feel quite warm now, although it is so cold.’

‘That is because you have done a good action,’ said the Prince. 

(...) ‘You are blind now,’ [the swallow] said, ‘so I will stay with you always.’ ‘No, little Swallow,’ said the poor Prince, ‘you must go away to Egypt.’

‘I will stay with you always,’ said the Swallow, and he slept at the Prince’s feet.

8) All the next day he sat on the Prince’s shoulder, and told him stories of what he had seen in strange lands. (...) ‘Dear little Swallow,’ said the Prince, ‘you tell me of marvellous things, but more marvellous than anything is the suffering of men and of women. There is no Mystery so great as Misery. Fly over my city, little Swallow, and tell me what you see there.’

9)  Leaf after leaf of the fine gold the Swallow picked off, till the Happy Prince looked quite dull and grey. Leaf after leaf of the fine gold he brought to the poor, and the children’s faces grew rosier, and they laughed and played games in the street. 

10) ‘It is not to Egypt that I am going,’ said the Swallow. ‘I am going to the House of Death. Death is the brother of Sleep, is he not?’ And he kissed the Happy Prince on the lips, and fell down dead at his feet. At that moment a curious crack sounded inside the statue, as if something had broken. The fact is that the leaden heart had snapped right in two.

11) Dear me! how shabby the Happy Prince looks!’ he said. (...) ‘The ruby has fallen out of his sword, his eyes are gone, and he is golden no longer,’ said the Mayor; ‘in fact, he is little better than a beggar!’ ‘Little better than a beggar’ said the Town councillors. ‘And here is actually a dead bird at his feet!’ continued the Mayor. ‘We must really issue a proclamation that birds are not to be allowed to die here.’ And the Town Clerk made a note of the suggestion.

12) ‘What a strange thing!’ said the overseer of the workmen at the foundry. ‘This broken lead heart will not melt in the furnace. We must throw it away.’ So they threw it on a dust-heap where the dead Swallow was also lying.

13) ‘Bring me the two most precious things in the city,’ said God to one of His Angels; and the Angel brought Him the leaden heart and the dead bird.

‘You have rightly chosen,’ said God, ‘for in my garden of Paradise this little bird shall sing for evermore, and in my city of gold the Happy Prince shall praise me.’

The aim of the exhibit

The aim of the exhibit is to re-discover one of the greatest English literary writers: neglected by many as a thorny or shallow author, Oscar Wilde is also unknown to and misunderstood by those who use him as a mere champion of hedonism. Starting from his dramatic confession in De Profundis, the exhibit will explore Oscar Wilde’s dramatic relationship with the mystery of sorrow: from his initial attempt to escape from it by the creative power of art, through the dramatic experience of the incarceration at Reading, to the intuition that sorrow may have a beauty and a meaning.