The Fag on the Crag

A sneering Oscar Wilde in Merrion Square. Photo by David Lansing.

If Oscar Wilde were in his prime today, I wonder what he’d be known for. Certainly not his poetry (we don’t read poetry anymore, do we). And to be honest with you, his plays and prose weren’t much although they stirred up the literary crowd back in his day. (Speaking of his day, one of the reasons I’ve been thinking about Oscar Wilde is that his birthdate, October 16, is just around the corner; he was born in 1854 and died ridiculously young on November 30, 1900.)

The thing Oscar was best known for, I suppose, is his witticisms. All the Irish seem to have a way with words; Oscar was better than most. “America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between.” That’s one of his bon mots (or, more properly, bons mots). If he were around today, I imagine he’d amend that to, “America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence and back to barbarism without civilization in between.”

“Patriotism is the virtue of the vicious.” That’s a good one. That’s something Sarah Palin should have painted on the side of her “Going Rogue” bus.

Oscar, who was married and had two children who he doted on, was also a sodomite. At least that’s what he was convicted of in 1895, not long after he sued his lover’s father, the Marquess of Queensberry, for leaving his calling card at Wilde’s club, the Albermarle, inscribed, “For Oscar Wilde, posing sodomite.” Oscar sued for libel, lost, and then was arrested by the Crown. His mother advised him to take a boat to France to avoid the trial, but Oscar wrote: “The train has gone. It’s too late.” He was convicted of homosexual acts and sentenced to prison in London. By the time he was released, in May 1897, he was both broke and broken. A pauper, he moved to Paris and died of cerebral meningitis—probably as a result of syphilis. He’s buried in the wonderful Père Lachaise Cemetery, not far from Jim Morrison.

But a spirited tribute to Oscar Wilde lounges on a boulder in Merrion Square, across from where he resided with his family from 1855 to 1876. Dubliners have a tendency to give nicknames to these tributes (the Molly Malone statue is known as “The Tart with the Cart” and James Joyce is called “The Prick with the Stick”) so it’s not too surprising that the Irish refer to the slouching Oscar as “The Fag on the Crag.” Or, if you prefer, “The Queer with the Leer.”

I think Oscar wouldn’t have minded that too much. As he said, “Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much.”