342. The Trials of Oscar Wilde: Downfall and Prison

[@naomiseraphina9718]

Brilliant podcast, as always! Oscar Wilde will always be remembered, and if any of his enemies and critics will be remembered at all it will only be because of him. Genius never dies.

[@nelsonlugo3634]

I actually came here to see if there was any audio f Mr Wilde being interviewed to hear his voice and I found this video. Very interesting indeed. Thank you for posting it.

[@taleandclawrock2606]

This channel is going to blow up. This was a wonderfully eloquant elucidation of this difficult period in Oscar Wildes life, and the cultural public exposure and censure of that period.

[@wkcty]

The detail surrounding the cases was illuminating👏👏👏👏👏🙏

[@shawnparadise6504]

Thanks!👍

[@martiwilliams4592]

Politics. Exhausting. All before internet. So very, very sad. Wilde is one of my favorite writers. Love all of his work. Thanks so much, guys. Very thought- provoking and enjoyable!

[@HomeFromFarAway]

This gave me a much more nuanced insight into such a fascinating and imperfect man

[@suejones4013]

He was a wonderful, flawed, lovable genius. Such a sad tale.

[@SophieHamilton-d3e]

Eh?! He groomed and exploited boys to get sexual kicks😡. I don’t dispute his intelligence but he was an arrogant liar.

[@jennifernorton905]

Oscar Wilde converted to the Catholic faith before he died, and I'm interested in hearing more about that.

[@inigoromon1937]

He was attracted by the ceremony and ceremony of It all then. Those were tridentine days. And Catholicism IS bigoted, but less stuffy and stiff than protestantism and puritanism

[@robertalpy]

That Wildes solicitor was allowed to abandon him during the trial is outrageous. He"d have been disbarred for that here. A lawyer may only quit a case if his client fires him and on some occasions, not even then.

[@jjlantry6808]

This was a wonderful podcast - portraying Oscar Wilde a very sympathetic, human and lovable figure. Maybe the humanists among your listeners may become up and arms but I would love to hear your take on Cardinal Newman/or and the Oxford Movement.

[@taleandclawrock2606]

That last comment of Boses was fitting. I reckon Oscar would approve. 🥰

[@ttboggins3910]

He died of an ear infection and the irony is his father was an audiologist consultant. There is a plaque dedicated to his father in Dublin. No. 2 Merrion Square. Oscar Wilde was born in Dublin, Ireland

[@nickstone3113]

Sounds more like meningitis from initial untreated ear infection.

[@gabrielethier2046]

This is a great example of the Streisand effect

[@taleandclawrock2606]

Sounds like the severity of the sentence set Oscar up as the fall guy for the government member frightened of being noticed.

[@JackRussell-nk3fe]

Wilde did not help himself by lying about his age at the start of the libel trial, by treating Lord Queensbury's QC with the contempt that he did, almost as the straight man to his comic turn ("Never mind your doctors orders- "I never do")and that crass remark that he didn't understand "ordinary people". Just imagine if the case had been treated as it would be today - he would have been imprisoned for years and on the Sex Offenders Register for the rest of his life.

[@SophieHamilton-d3e]

Wilde was not ‘generous and kind’ to the young men as Tom says. His SO-CALLED ‘generousity’ and ‘kindness’ was not genuine, it was grooming.

[@Tom-kt8lu]

The contemporary demands for a coroner’s inquest remind me of Pizzagate.

[@kevinkevin-ug9po]

WT Stead died on the Titanic.

[@JackRussell-nk3fe]

I loved (in the Robert Morley film) dear old Henry Oscar playing Sir Alfred Wills sentencing Wilde "one must put severe restraints upon myself, from stopping oneself using language, which I would rather not use.....to describe the feelings which will rise In the breast of every man of honour who has listened to this terrible trial" and the dismissive wave of the hand once he has dealt with him. Far better than the Sir Alfred In the Peer Fnch film, who sounds more like a magistrate dealing with a petty thief.

[@malgorzatajakubowska-chaab3613]

I didn't know they were soo young. It makes it hard to like him, gentlemen. Pity. 16 year olds and from poor background? That's morally wrong, I'm afraid. It's hard to accept it because he is so good a writer.

[@j0nnyism]

It’s interesting to consider that had Wilde done what he did today he still would’ve been convicted but for entirely different reasons. Age and class rather than homosexuality

[@briandelaney9710]

He was received into the Catholic Church on his deathbed and I’m sure he made his last confession and repented He isn’t the easiest model for modern gay pride

[@briandelaney9710]

Like Charles II!

[@leehallam9365]

I don't think you can call Wilde a martyr for his sexuality. He brought his case to deny it was true and defended both cases by denying it.

[@DivePlane13]

Eh, he was still put into prison for being gay

[@helmutsecke3529]

Li'l Bosers was a right old steaming pile.

[@HomeFromFarAway]

Does anyone know if Wilde was pergaps bipolar?

[@helmutsecke3529]

Pergaps.

[@HomeFromFarAway]

@@helmutsecke3529 🤣

[@robertalpy]

It was the law and you operate under the laws as they exist. If you choose to break certain ridiculous laws you do so quietly and unobtrusively. Like you don't smoke pot in your hotel room. Easy. You don't sue a marquis for libel when his charge against you is correct and you are sleeping with his son.

[@steventrotter4958]

Now in the UK you can be jailed for not calling a mutilated man in a wig a woman. The pendulum really has swung the other way hasn't it?

[@bobjary9382]

Really ? Proof please.

[@steventrotter4958]

@@bobjary9382 Caroline Farrow, cops broke down her door for not adhering to there party line. Really depressing to to hear

[@user-vg6gu8hl8m]

Caroline Farrow doxed a trans person and made numerous anonymous threats. She was arrested when the police considered that she had made credible threats of arson. Calling a person a gender other than that they prefer is not a crime. But I think you knew that already.

[@steventrotter4958]

@@user-vg6gu8hl8m I assume the troon you are referring to Farrow allegedly doxing is Anthony Halliday, who plead guilty in 1999 to sexually assaulting a 14 year old boy, and is still currently on the sex offender list, so yeah what a great guy he is. And in the UK people can and do get arrested for not indulging a sex pests delusions of whatever they demand you call them

[@JackRussell-nk3fe]

@@user-vg6gu8hl8m If Starmer gets his way it probably will be, thanks to all the homosexuals and lesbians in his shadow cabinet

[@Johnconno]

We have 'Bosie' to thank for the repulsive Douglas Murray.❤

[@noodleperson17]

What on earth do you mean? Sounds just homophobic.

[@samuelschiff2531]

whenever you done with lgbt month ill listen then good luck boys

[@adrianseanheidmann4559]

You are pathetic

[@jonathandnicholson]

Is Oscar Wilde a martyr? Depends what is meant by martyr. However, I think the Apostles and many others have better claims of martyrdom. The Levitical condemnation of same-sex intercourse is of act not being. That is different to the Victorians. Also, that the Leviticus commands are supposed to be enforced and upheld by the Ecclesiastical Courts, not the king's courts. I think, say, Henry II was supposed to enforce and uphold Exodus 21-23 and, say, Thomas Becket was supposed to enforce and uphold the extant parts of the Holy Code (obviously for Thomas Becket et al Passover becomes Easter). Exodus 20 being narrower, if still fairly general, principles to which the particular ordinances/statutes conform to. This of course means Henry VIII was wrong to end the Ecclesiastical Courts. I have heard some people claim that the Holy Code applies to the general population as morality and to the priests as a legal standard as well as morality. I have even read some scholars think that in Christianity the laws of Leviticus are just morality. I do not know, so I am best describing/quoting the text in a manner of good faith and saying what was practiced. In the New Testament the distinction between male and female is reaffirmed. The condemnation of same-sex intercourse is also reaffirmed. I find the Biblical condemnation of homosexual acts reasonable (in the sense that the law of Leviticus is coherent with a premise and/or purpose) given: And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth” (Genesis 1:28, ESV) as well as “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in His own image. And you, be fruitful and multiply, increase greatly on the earth and multiply in it” (Genesis 9:6-7, ESV).

[@mesamies123]

One has a keen interested in condemnation. Is one in the US right now? A fascist political party wants you! 🤢🤮😔

[@Michael_JM]

OK bro. I still think consenting adults should be able to do what they wish with their body parts. It does not take a lot to see that this makes sense.

[@jonathandnicholson]

​@@Michael_JM The LORD God disagrees. When did consent become the summon bonum of morality? Humans have agency, but not sovereignty.