{"id":7254,"date":"2020-01-24T11:51:46","date_gmt":"2020-01-24T03:51:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/glutenfreepleasure.com\/__proxy_domain\/www.wildrice.com.sg\/wr\/?p=7254"},"modified":"2020-01-24T13:39:05","modified_gmt":"2020-01-24T05:39:05","slug":"5%c2%bd-things-that-will-make-you-see-oscar-wilde-in-a-different-light","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glutenfreepleasure.com\/__proxy_domain\/www.wildrice.com.sg\/5%c2%bd-things-that-will-make-you-see-oscar-wilde-in-a-different-light\/","title":{"rendered":"5\u00bd things that will make you see Oscar Wilde in a different light"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

We all know Oscar Wilde as the consummate wit, but there\u2019s more to this fascinating artist than scintillating epigrams.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1. Oscar Wilde was a socialist<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

It may be difficult to square the aristocratic dandy with\nthe author of the essay The Soul of Man under Socialism<\/em>, which argues\nfor the abolition of private property and government. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a community like ours, where property confers immense distinction, social position, honour, respect, titles, and other pleasant things of the kind, man, being naturally ambitious, makes it his aim to accumulate this property, and goes on wearily and tediously accumulating it long after he has got far more than he wants, or can use, or enjoy, or perhaps even know of.<\/p>Oscar Wilde, The Soul of Man under Socialism<\/em><\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

This is not such a surprise if one is familiar with the best-known of his fairy tales, The Happy Prince<\/em>, in which the gilt statue of a prince asks a swallow to strip the gold leaf from his body to be distributed among the poor \u2013 a metaphor for socialism, if ever there was one. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"The<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

2. Oscar Wilde was a camp icon<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Before camp was a thing, Wilde was living and breathing it.\nThe seminal essay on this unique sensibility and aesthetic, Susan Sontag\u2019s Notes\non Camp<\/em> (published 1964) was dedicated to Wilde and quoted him extensively.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today, camp is everywhere: in RuPaul Drag Race <\/em>and every Ryan Murphy hit series, in last year\u2019s Met Gala and exhibit Camp: Notes on Fashion<\/em>, and (in the opinion of this writer) in many of Meryl Streep\u2019s late-career performances.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

3. Oscar Wilde was an editor of a magazine for women<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

While Wilde was building his reputation as the most\nsought-after dinner guest in London, he started work as an editor of a magazine\nhe renamed The Woman\u2019s World<\/em> (from The Lady\u2019s World<\/em>), undertaking\nthe task to transform it into \u201cthe recognised organ for the expression of\nwomen\u2019s opinions on all subjects of literature, art, and modern life.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Under his short-lived tenure, he commissioned articles on the campaign for women\u2019s suffrage, and according to his sub-editor Arthur Fish, was committed to championing \u201cthe the right of woman to equality of treatment with man.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

3\u00bd. Oscar Wilde was a closet… feminist<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Are the men in The Importance of Being Earnest<\/em> exceptionally passive, or are the women just boss? This is a love story in which the women dictate the terms of the romance, outmanoeuvring the men at every turn. \u201cThe home seems to me to be the proper sphere for the man,\u201d says Gwendolen of her father \u2013 will the same be said of her beau John Worthing after marriage?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

4. Gay code deciphered <\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Is there a homosexual subtext to The Importance of Being\nEarnest<\/em>? Consider the following:<\/p>\n\n\n\n