I've loved my Oscar Wilde class, because of the people in it, and of course, my personal favorite professor at Westminster. Elree Harris has a knack for making a class zany as long as people are interested in the subject material. Last semester, in my Survey of Art class (which she taught) I felt like I was the only one who raised my hand to comment or answer questions...at least a good 90% of the time.
Anyway, so the Wilde class is wrapping up, which means (for May, in one of Elree's classes) we do presentations. My group's was on the aesthetic movement, which was relevant because Oscar Wilde was notorious for being a Decadent and an Aesthete. Before he was a writer, he was actually famous for being famous...one of those people who is a celebrity, but no one knows why.
But I would never in a million years compare him to the Kardashians or Paris Hilton. I would truly be surprised if one of that crowd would bust out a play like "The Importance of Being Earnest" or started writing literary criticism. That is the difference between Oscar Wilde and Kim Kardashian; one of them actually has wit and potential for great works of art. I can tell you that "The Kardashians Take New York" or whatever that show is called, is not art. It might deserve to be in a museum someday in the future, but not for good reasons.
(It's hilarious to me, by the way, that my computer spellchecks Kardashian. I'm taking it as a good sign.)
I digress. The highlight of today's class by a long shot was a jeopardy/presentation on the Victorian Obsession with Death done by our wonderful T.A.'s. It took me a long time to stop laughing a the categories "Drownton Abbey," "A Spoonful of Sugar helps the Mercury Go Down," and my personal favorite, "Some Like it Venereal."
(Having just watched "Some Like it Hot" made the last one even more funny.)
One of the scariest Victorian factoids that I learned today in class was that the Victorians used to give their babies "infant calmers," which were some sort of deadly cocktail of opium, cocaine, or morphine (which is an opium derivative, for the record. So when Sherlock asks for his seven per cent solution of morphine, it's really an opiate. Sherlock is the most lovable drug addict in history and literature). Naturally it calmed the babies right down (technically, it made them high, but babies can't talk much) but it would also... you know...kill them.
(And then, if you were the parent, you'd run out with your dead baby and have it photographed, perhaps with your other living children, perhaps alone and posed to look like it's sleeping. And then, you'd hang up that picture in your house. Imagine that as a conversation starter. "Why yes, this is a photograph of my dead child. We had it taken at Harry's studio. We picked the pond motif, because..." The Victorians did some weird crap.)
For the record, I am so glad that I don't live in 1850's England. The medicinal treatments alone are enough to make you run to your doctor and give them a big old hug for not treating your syphilis with mercury (which Oscar was rumored to have died from, but it remains inconclusive), or giving your infant opium.
Or, you know, telling you that your hair is red because you were conceived during menses, and that made you societally repellant. For real.
Not all the questions pertained directly to the Victorian Era. For example, one of them was about the death of literary giant F. Scott Fitzgerald's wife, Zelda. Maybe it's because I married a man who loves him some video games, but every time I remember that that's Fitzgerald's wife's name, it makes me giggle a little on the inside, and I'm tempted to make a really bad joke about Hyrule or the Triforce.
I've really grown to like Oscar Wilde, though. He was absurd, but he was also absurdly smart. How can anyone not like a man with enough wit to declare, "All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does; and that's his." And of course, his apocryphal last words:
"That Wallpaper is hideous. Either it goes, or I do."
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| "That tombstone is hideous. Either it goes, or I do." -Elree |
People still really love Oscar. He's buried in Paris, and people commute there to cover his tombstone in kisses. If you look closely at the picture, you can see the pink smudges. I think it's nice that people care so much about him, considering that he died prematurely, in ruin, after two years in prison for being a homosexual/bisexual. After all,
"The public is wonderfully tolerant. It forgives everything except genius."
Luckily any stain on his reputation for living the lifestyle he did has faded over time, and people now perform his plays in high schools, community theatres, and on Broadway. And they acknowledge him for his talent, instead of his sexuality: Oscar Wilde: Critic. Playwright. Celebrity. And the most quotable person in the English Language since William Shakespeare.
& That's Elementary.
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