Queer Heritage · Oxford, Oxfordshire
Magdalen College, Oxford (Wilde's aesthetic years)
Where Wilde perfected the pose — blue china, sunflowers, a double first — that became the aesthetic movement. Oxford also formed the circles through which, years later, Bosie entered his life. The college that made the wit made the tragedy possible.
The story
Wilde came up to Magdalen College, Oxford, in October 1874 on a demyship — a scholarship unique to the college — and it was Oxford that turned a clever Irish boy into "Oscar Wilde". He took a double first in classics and won the university's Newdigate Prize in 1878 for his poem Ravenna. Two teachers shaped him in opposite directions: John Ruskin, who held that beauty carried moral duty, and Walter Pater, whose gospel of living for intense sensation Wilde took most to heart. He grew his hair, decorated his rooms, perfected the pose of the aesthete, and left already half-famous. The pupil who "out-Oxforded young Oxford" was inventing the public self that would make and then destroy him.
Sources
- Magdalen College
- Wikipedia
- English Heritage, "Oscar Wilde" (Tite Street)
- The National Archives, "The life and court trials of Oscar Wilde"
- Magdalen College, Oxford, "Wilde at Magdalen"
- British Newspaper Archive, "The Arrest of Oscar Wilde at the Cadogan Hotel
- LitHub, "The Exile of Oscar Wilde" (Portora honours board and windowsill)
- UK Parliament, "1885 Labouchere Amendment" and Wikipedia, "Alan Turing law"
Nearby on the map
Parson's Pleasure was Oxford's men-only nude river-bathing place for well over a century, complete with screens, punt etiquette and a folklore polished by generations of dons.
Documented historyHot spotAl Fresco & WildDame's DelightOxford, Oxfordshire · EnglandDame's Delight was Oxford's comparatively short-lived answer to Parson's Pleasure: a documented women's and family bathing place downstream on the Cherwell.
Documented historyBohemian & LibertineGarsington Manor (Lady Ottoline Morrell's set)Garsington, Oxfordshire · EnglandOttoline Morrell's Tudor manor was the great house-party of literary modernism: Bertrand Russell was her lover, Lawrence repaid her hospitality by putting her in 'Women in Love', and the peacock-stalked gardens hosted more entanglements than the guest book could decently record.
Documented historyHot spotSpotted an error, or hold a better source? Write to marquis@marquisdemayfair.com — corrections are made, never defended. Our methodology.