-------- Original Message --------
Subject: VICTORIA Digest - 14 Dec 2003 to 15 Dec 2003 (#2003-139)
From: Automatic digest processor <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Tue, December 16, 2003 5:00 am
To: Recipients of VICTORIA digests <[log in to unmask]>
There are 10 messages totalling 473 lines in this issue.
Topics of the day:
1. Mary Braddon Celebrations Jan-April 2004 (2)
2. NYTimes.com Article: Books of the Times | 'The Real Trial of Oscar
Wilde':
Wilde and the Gentlemen of the Jury (4)
3. 'The Real Trial of Oscar Wilde': Wilde and the Gentlemen of the
Jury 4. NYTimes.com Article: Books of the Times | 'The Real Trial of
OscarWilde':
Wilde and the Gentlemen of the Jury
5. Tune Q (2)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Mon, 15 Dec 2003 09:42:48 -0000
From: Chris Willis <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Mary Braddon Celebrations Jan-April 2004
(Apologies for cross-posting)
Here's details of various events taking place in 2004 to celebrate the
life and work of Mary Elizabeth Braddon.
EXHIBITION
The Sensational Miss Braddon
Exhibition at the Museum of Richmond
14 Jan - 24 April 2004
Opening hours: Tuesday-Saturday 11am-5pm
Museum of Richmond
Old Town Hall
Whittaker Avenue
Richmond
Surrey TW9 1TF
CONFERENCE
Braddon Conference / Study Day
Museum of Richmond
30 March 2004
Details at:www.chriswillis.freeserve.co.uk/braddon_in_richmond.htm
PLAY
Secrets and Rumours: The Unconventional Life of M.E. Braddon
by Doug Pinchin
25 January 2004
Orange Tree Theatre , Richmond, London
For details contact the Orange Tree Box Office - 020 8940 3633
or see http://www.orangetreetheatre.co.uk/
FILM
Lady Audley's Secret (1920)
National Film Theatre, 16 and 24 January 2004
For details contact the NFT Box Office - 020 7928 3232
or see www.bfi.org.uk
CENTENARY
Edward Braddon Centenary Celebration (Tasmania)
Details at: www.chriswillis.freeserve.co.uk/edward_braddon.htm
================================================================
Chris Willis
[log in to unmask]
www.chriswillis.freeserve.co.uk/
Happy Christmas from Hamrax!
www.hamrax.co.uk
================================================================
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 15 Dec 2003 05:33:58 -0800
From: Jack Kolb <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: NYTimes.com Article: Books of the Times | 'The Real Trial of
Oscar Wilde': Wilde and the Gentlemen of the Jury
Books of the Times | 'The Real Trial of Oscar Wilde': Wilde and the
Gentlemen of the Jury
December 15, 2003
By JANET MASLIN
The man was such a celebrity that he lived in a kind of
Neverland. He fancied young lads and couched his overtures
to them in terms of friendship and generosity. He did not
foresee that he might run afoul of the law and wind up
ensnared in a public relations nightmare. He seems
genuinely to have believed that his art and fame would keep
the world at bay.
The story of his collapse is an occasion "to see how little
has changed over a century whenever fame, sex, pride and
libel are shaken up into their intoxicating cocktail of
human weakness," Merlin Holland, Wilde's only grandson,
writes in "The Real Trial of Oscar Wilde." "The outcome is
as predictably fascinating for the onlookers as it is
invariably disastrous for the participants." And it prompts
Mr. Holland to ask what any reader of this transfixing,
better-than-Court-TV transcript will also wonder, "Why on
earth did you do it?" Why did Wilde set in motion his own
downfall?
The provocations leading up to this trial are well known.
The Marquess of Queensberry, the father of Wilde's great
friend Lord Alfred Douglas, became outraged and perhaps
unhinged by the famous playwright's attachment to his son.
Queensberry signaled his distress on one occasion by
showing up at a theater and trying to present Wilde with a
bouquet of vegetables. Later on, when he left a calling
card addressed to "Oscar Wilde posing Somdomite," these
proved to be fighting words.
Wilde became litigious. "I said to him, `How dare you say
such things as you do about your son and me?' " he
testifies in this transcript, which is nearly three times
as long as any previously published version. Riding high
enough to imagine that a jury would share his indignation,
Wilde can be found here at the apex of hubris, amusing the
courtroom spectators while sparring with Edward Carson, the
lawyer defending Queensberry. Lauding the beauty of an
amatory note that he wrote to Douglas, Wilde initiates this
exchange:
Wilde: "When I wrote it, it was beautiful. You read it very
badly."
Carson: "I don't profess to be an artist, Mr. Wilde."
Wilde: "Then, don't read it to me."
Carson: "And if you will allow me to say so, sometimes,
when I hear you give evidence I am glad I am not."
(Laughter.)
A word about the origins of this theatrical, highly
readable dialogue: while working with the British Library
on an exhibition about his grandfather, Mr. Holland became
privy to a longhand manuscript of the complete Queensberry
trial. It was written by at least eight different
observers; as he points out, the margin of error here is
substantial.
But as he also writes, in a long and helpful introduction,
"The consistency was, however, remarkable," and the drama
of the courtroom is unmistakable. Mr. Holland also cites
his own father's memory of these events: the sight of
Wilde's wife, Constance, in tears while reading press
clippings about her husband. Wilde's two young sons were
then sent to Switzerland and never saw their father again.
Although some of this material confines itself to petty
legal wrangling and repetitive questions (did Wilde speak
to the hall porter who delivered Queensberry's hostile
calling card?), most of it is inordinately gripping. And
the testimony is as revealing about class and arrogance as
it is about late-19th-century concepts of vice. As the
focus of the interrogation moves from Queensberry's insult
to evidence of Wilde's behavior with young men (as
corroboration that Queensberry was abusive but not
libelous), Carson repeatedly expresses shock that Wilde
would mingle with riffraff: "What enjoyment was it to you,
Mr. Wilde, to be dining and entertaining grooms and
coachmen?"
At first Wilde presents himself simply as someone who
delights in the company of the young and who cares not a
whit about anything but art. "An artist, sir, has no
ethical sympathies at all," he once wrote in a letter to a
newspaper, with regard to the supposedly immoral content of
"The Picture of Dorian Gray." He added: "Virtue and
wickedness are to him simply what the colors on his palette
are to the painter." He even maintains that a love letter
written to Douglas in purplish prose, with reference to the
young man's "slim gilt soul" and "red, rose-leaf lips" was
in essence a sonnet.
"You may believe, if you like, that this was written as a
sonnet to be published," Carson remarks to the jury. "I am
sure I shall envy your credulity if you do."
The courtroom tension here is such that Wilde's vastly
overmatched lawyer, Edward Clarke, inadvertently reveals
the existence of this letter to the Queensberry side. Soon
the gloves come off, and Carson taunts Wilde with the
particulars of his assignations with young men. And he
plays the trump card of asking jurors to identify with
Queensberry's anguish about his son (despite such familial
exchanges as: "You reptile. You are no son of mine and I
never thought you were"). As the lawyer asks the jury, in
timeless, manipulative fashion, "What would you have done?"
The trial ended when the prospect of testimony from the
consorts became too excruciating for all concerned and when
it became clear that Wilde's actions could be a basis for
criminal prosecution. Wilde was ruined by the legal process
he set in motion, and this book offers a sharp, specific
account of how that came to pass.
The caption of a drawing from the Illustrated Police Budget
dated April 13, 1895, reads, "The pet of London Society,
one of our most successful playwriters and poets, arrested
on a horrible charge." Inevitably this book asks readers,
Since that day, how much has changed?
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/15/books/15MASL.html?ex=1072491183&ei=1&en=636d802187ab8b40
Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 15 Dec 2003 15:01:04 -0000
From: Michel Faber <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: NYTimes.com Article: Books of the Times | 'The Real Trial
of Oscar Wilde': Wilde and the Gentlemen of the Jury
Jack Kolb passed on a New York Times review of the 'The Real Trial of
Oscar Wilde', which contains the following:
> The man was such a celebrity that he lived in a kind of
> Neverland. [...] He did not
> foresee that he might run afoul of the law and wind up
> ensnared in a public relations nightmare. [...]
> Mr. Holland [asks] what any reader of this transfixing,
> better-than-Court-TV transcript will also wonder, "Why on
> earth did you do it?" Why did Wilde set in motion his own
> downfall?
I'm not a Wilde scholar, so forgive me if what I'm about to say has
already been said elsewhere. But I've never been as mystified by Wilde's
actions as many modern commentators seem to be. His foolhardy, doomed
libel action is only puzzling if one focuses on what Wilde could hope to
achieve by it in his own lifetime. Clearly it was a recipe for personal
calamity, but this was not the only arena that was important to Wilde.
He was a hugely vain man and much concerned with notions of enduring
fame and of one's life as a work of art.
If Wilde had not provoked his own tragic downfall, but instead lived out
the remainder of his life as a popular playwright, it is conceivable he
would be scarcely remembered today. Yes, his work was of a high
standard. But there are plenty of 19th and even 20th century authors
whose work was of a high standard who have fallen so far out of fashion
that they are known only to scholars. Brilliance does not guarantee
lasting fame. Wilde's characteristic subject matter and style -- subtle
manoeuvres within the British class system in the late Victorian age,
aesthetic preciousness, notions of the exquisite -- are precisely the
sort of things that are most vulnerable to being swept away by the broom
of modernity. I can imagine critics sneering at Wilde as a sort of a
literary version of Alma-Tadema, a relic of empire whose work is
irredeemably tainted by kitsch. (I see neither Alma-Tadema nor Wilde in
this way, but many might.)
What keeps Wilde's reputation hot is his status as homosexual martyr
and/or self-destructive enigma. He still fascinates the public so much
that a new biography of him is trumpeted in the New York Times, today,
15 December 2003. While I don't wish to downplay Wilde's suffering and
the remorse he felt about the effect his hubris had on his family and
friends, this enduring fame is the ultimate vindication of his vanity.
If the only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked
about, Wilde got what he desired.
Best wishes,
Michel Faber
[log in to unmask]
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 15 Dec 2003 11:11:52 -0500
From: Meegan Kennedy <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: 'The Real Trial of Oscar Wilde': Wilde and the Gentlemen of the
Jury
Michael --
E. F. Benson also argues, in As We Were: A Victorian Peep-Show (his 1930
reminiscence of Victorian life), that
"A very remarkable literary interest, both directly and indirectly,
attaches to [the trial of Oscar Wilde] and to the savage punishment to
which he was sentenced, for they were among the causes which
combined to establish his reputation as a writer and a dramatist, and
caused it to soar ... to a height which it is most improbable that it
would ever have reached otherwise" (221).
He sees Wilde's downfall as self-imposed, though more as an
unavoidable result of his self-indulgence and "uncontrollable
appetites" than as a strategic bid for lasting fame.
Benson's analysis of Wilde is fascinating for its zigzags between
admiration for Wilde's verbal talents and condemnation of his
exaggerated, public poses. One suspects that Benson (son of the
Bishop of Canterbury and one of six brilliant, eccentric, and not
overtly heterosexual siblings) was dismayed more by the exaggeration of
Wilde's poses than by his acts themselves.
Best,
Meegan Kennedy
--
********************************************************************************
Meegan Kennedy
Program in History and Literature
Harvard University
Barker Center 122
12 Quincy Street
Barker Ctr Mail Area H0850
Cambridge, MA 02138
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 15 Dec 2003 08:44:06 -0800
From: Jack Kolb <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: NYTimes.com Article: Books of the Times | 'The Real Trial
of Oscar Wilde': Wilde and the Gentlemen of the Jury
While much that you say about Wilde has some truth to it, Michel, he is
still a first-rate artist. His essays alone would insure him a higher
ranking that any scholar could propose. It is easy to be misled by his
brilliance and not see the substance behind it.
Jack Kolb
Dept. of English, UCLA
[log in to unmask]
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 15 Dec 2003 18:05:18 -0000
From: Michel Faber <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: NYTimes.com Article: Books of the Times | 'The Real Trial
of Oscar Wilde': Wilde and the Gentlemen of the Jury
Jack Kolb wrote:
> While much that you say about Wilde has some truth to it, Michel, he
> is still a first-rate artist. His essays alone would insure him a
> higher ranking that any scholar could propose. It is easy to be
> misled by his brilliance and not see the substance behind it.
I think I have failed to make clear to Jack, and perhaps to others, that
I admire Wilde and agree that he is a first-rate artist. What I was
partly suggesting is that being a first-rate artist is not necessarily
enough to ensure enduring fame. One's work must also to some extent fit
in with the zeitgeist, and this is what I seriously doubt Wilde's work
would have done in the post- Victorian age, had he not had the engine of
his martyrdom/enigma assisting him.
By the way... I am not an academic but I would suggest that Jack
unnecessarily downrates the scholarly role when he seems to imply that
scholars are powerless or ill-advised to propose a high ranking for
artists who have been judged unworthy by majority opinion. True, many
academics labour futilely to restore the reputations of artists who may
well remain marginal and obscure forever. But there are also, from time
to time, genuine, popular rediscoveries of extraordinary artists, and
those rediscoveries can originate from the studies of academics.
My contention about Wilde is that his concerns and stylistic mannerisms
are so out of step with what was considered interesting and vigorous
throughout the 20th century that it is quite conceivable his literary
reputation would have suffered a drastic diminution had he not been a
focus of scandal/figurehead for homosexual issues. In which case,
perhaps by 2003, an academic might be about to publish a book arguing
that this once-popular, now-forgotten late- Victorian Irish author was
overdue a reappraisal, as he wrote some brilliant plays and substantial
essays.
Best wishes,
Michel Faber
[log in to unmask]
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 16 Dec 2003 07:40:54 +1100
From: Ellen Jordan <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: NYTimes.com Article: Books of the Times | 'The Real Trial
of OscarWilde': Wilde and the Gentlemen of the Jury
I agree with Jack Kolb over this. Indeed it seems to me that The
Importance of Being Earnest survived DESPITE the scandal. It, like
Gilbert and Sullivan and much of Barrie, joined a repertory of
enduringly popular pieces put on over and over again by both amateurs
and commercial managements. At the age if 10 I could name all the
characters not because I'd read the play but because it figured in a
schoolgirl story I enjoyed.
Ellen Jordan
University of Newcastle
Australia
[log in to unmask]
>>> [log in to unmask] 12/16/03 03:44am >>>
While much that you say about Wilde has some truth to it, Michel, he is
still a first-rate artist. His essays alone would insure him a higher
ranking that any scholar could propose. It is easy to be misled by his
brilliance and not see the substance behind it.
Jack Kolb
Dept. of English, UCLA
[log in to unmask]
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 15 Dec 2003 11:00:12 EST
From: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Mary Braddon Celebrations Jan-April 2004
While in London last month --- I visited the Church of St Mary Magdalen
in Richmond and saw the memorial plaque to Mary Braddon. No one seemed
to know where her grave is located or if it is even at the church,
inside or out. There was no churchyard guide (as so often is the case)
and the man I spoke with said, "I'm only here to sell Charity Cards, I
know nothing about the church." Let the celebration begin.
Tom Hughes
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 15 Dec 2003 13:29:56 -0500
From: Paul G Beidler <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Tune Q
Dear Victorian--
I'm happy to be joining VICTORIA again after a few years away.
Can anyone direct me to sources on early Victorian popular music? I'm
preparing a new course on gender in the 1840s Gaskell, Brontes,
Jewsbury, Tennyson) but also indulging a private fascination with fiddle
tunes of the era. I've recently acquired Mel Bay's Lincolnshire
Collections, Vol. I: The Josua Gibbons Manuscript--these are tunes
collected in the mid 1820s, many of which would presumably have been
known in the '40s. But I'm not sure where to go from here. Has anyone
collected the ballads mentioned in Mary Barton and matched them with
their tunes? Anyone up on this sort of thing and willing to point me in
the right direction?
I'm team-teaching with a colleague in history how has studied gender in
popular ballads of the era, which often involve spouses murdering each
other and other monstrosities--but how much more monstrous to actually
sing them!
Paul
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 15 Dec 2003 20:51:12 -0500
From: Jerry Kenney <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: Tune Q
Paul G Beidler wrote:
>Can anyone direct me to sources on early Victorian popular music?
>
Here's a wonderful source of folk music from that as well as earlier and
later eras. The presentation includes midi files, lyrics, and
background information:
http://www.contemplator.com/intro.html
Enjoy it.
~Jerry
--
Jerry Kenney
8322 Tuckahoe Ct.
Orlando, FL 32829
407-282-0085
Click here for UCF's Science Meets Fiction Series
<http://beyond.ucf.edu/index.html>
Click here for my Personal Web Page
<http://gmkenney.home.mindspring.com/index.html>
Click here for my Composition Syllabus
<http://gkenney_comp.home.mindspring.com/index.html>.
------------------------------
End of VICTORIA Digest - 14 Dec 2003 to 15 Dec 2003 (#2003-139)
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