Even though there is a published collection of Wilde’s letters, the scholar must be always conscious that the correspondence of any author, and Wilde in particular, will be incomplete. Analysis of Wilde’s letters aids scholars in seeing how the various personas Wilde cultivated, be they private, professional, public, or authorial, conflict, coalesce, and inform one another.īut analyzing letters is not as simple a task as it sounds. Utilizing Oscar Wilde’s letters can provide scholars with a new dimension to support their reading of Oscar Wilde’s works. As Liz Stanley explains of her experience editing the Olive Schreiner’s “Letters Online,” viewing Schreiner’s letters as a whole immediately dispels the myth of her insecurity and authorial laziness (60). Letters being regularly discovered can invigorate new scholarship. However, there is a rich history of letters revealing fascinating details about a text, insight into the author’s intent, and the authors perspective on the world in which they exist. In an age when technology often dominates social discourse, letters can often be overlooked as a means of exploring literature. In choosing the green carnation as our symbol, we are acknowledging that past and those languages.Wilde Meant that Letterally: An Analysis of the Correspondence of Oscar Wilde That is why we have to hunt for clues about their lives-in art, in literature and in symbols that made up a kind of private language. Gays in Wilde’s time could not be open in the way we are today. Instead, like so many things from gay history-particularly from periods where same-sex love was illegal and dangerous- the green carnation merely hints at homosexuality.įor Oscar Wilde Tours that hint of homosexuality from a distant past is significant. Yet that is as close to evidence as we will get there simply is no direct link between the flower and sexuality. ![]() ![]() In addition, early sexologists tell us that green is supposedly the “invert’s” favorite color. It is the first thing most people would have thought of if they had heard the word “unnatural” at the time, and the claim is often made that the green carnation was fashionable among “inverts” (as gays were then called) in Paris, with Wilde having simply imported the fashion to London. A flower of an unnatural color embodied the decadent and the unnatural.ĭid it, however, embody something more-namely “unnatural” love? Certainly that is a possibility. In that sense, then, the green carnation was symbolic. In fact, he gave a hint as to its meaning in the same conversation, telling his follower that he should get one at Goodyear’s (a famous flower shop in London) because “they grow them there.” As anyone who knew the Decadent Movement would see, Wilde was playing with one of his favorite ideas: that nature should imitate art, and not the reverse. When asked by one of his followers, he replied, “Nothing whatever, but that is just what nobody will guess.”īut as scholars have noted, Wilde was almost certainly being coy. What, if anything, did the green carnation mean? On this question, Wilde was less than helpful. Soon the carnation became an emblem of Wilde and his group-no doubt aided by his having scandalized critics after the play by appearing on stage smoking a cigarette! Indeed, an amusing parody of Wilde was published in 1894 called The Green Carnation-and which the horrified author withdrew from publication during the Wilde trial because he felt it had helped bring Oscar down. In 1892, Wilde had one of the actors in Lady Windermere’s Fan wear a green carnation on opening night and told a dozen of his young followers to wear them too. The short answer is that it’s a symbol of Oscar himself. And it’s one we love to answer, because it tells so much about us-and Oscar Wilde. That’s a question we get regularly asked at Oscar Wilde Tours.
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