Stellaaaa...*With gut renching feeling*

[Tom Collins]

A Gift for Stellaaaa...

Hears a pic of your hero for you.
Thanx for turning me onto him.
http://gutenberg.spiegel.de/autoren/bilder/wilde.jpg
Would you mind if I use it for an AV from time to time?

 

[Stella_Omega]

MOI turned you on to Oscar Wilde???

I guess I'll be going to heaven after all!

 

[Just-Legal]

Hears a pic of your hero for you.
Thanx for turning me onto him.
http://gutenberg.spiegel.de/autoren/bilder/wilde.jpg
Would you mind if I use it for an AV from time to time?

Mmm, Wilde, which reminds me of Mmm, Stephen Fry.

Sorry, I'll be gone now...

 

[BlackShanglan]

MOI turned you on to Oscar Wilde???

I guess I'll be going to heaven after all!

Amen to that.

How I love that man.

Shanglan

 

[Stella_Omega]

Mmm, Wilde, which reminds me of Mmm, Stephen Fry.

Sorry, I'll be gone now...

He made an engaging Oscar, for sure.
But the original was a sexy boy. Just look at that face- and that pugnacious Irish chin, and the puppy-dog eyes...
And that slightly pouting lower lip. Doesn't it make you want to bite down hard?

 

[Just-Legal]

He made an engaging Oscar, for sure.
But the original was a sexy boy. Just look at that face- and that pugnacious Irish chin, and the puppy-dog eyes...
And that slightly pouting lower lip. Doesn't it make you want to bite down hard?

They're both hot, and both playing for the other team. *mutters*

 

[Stella_Omega]

They're both hot, and both playing for the other team. *mutters*

He was barely playing at all, poor little romantic sideliner. He was as repressed as any other conventional Victorian, and I would think he went to the bordellos just like all the other men of his day did- having nothing to do with his preferences. In fact, there were boys in most of the bawdy houses.
His claim to homosexuality lay in that he fell in love with a man of his own social station. What would he have thought, if he could visit this time!
I was thinking about that, in connection with my newest crush, John Wilmot. His outspoken literary style, his ennui, his career as a political gadfly- would he have become a radio personality, like Howard Stern?

 

[Tom Collins]

MOI turned you on to Oscar Wilde???

I guess I'll be going to heaven after all!

Well, I saw you talking about him in another thread, and I said to meself, "Self." (that's what I call myself, 'Self'.) "Self," I said, "What could Miss Stella find so appealing about some old, no doubt fat, English dude?" I knew he was a writer, but I've never read anything he's done. Oscar Wilde was just a name for me. *shrugs*
So, I went to picsearch.com and WHOA! Not old, not fat, not frummpy and a mouth you want to eat! Then I found a bio ob a site and he sounded like he might have been someone I might read. THEN I found the quote that I put in my sig line and I'm like "Self, if this cat can say something so totally real then you just need to read something he's written!"
I ain't got quite that far yet, but I'll guaran-damn-tee ya that I will!

P.S. Stella, who is John Wilmot? I came up with so many different hits on my search that I can't decide which one you mean.

 

[Stella_Omega]

Awww, Tommy!

Here's a very noice link to most of his work in etext- there are popups, sorry about that;
http://www*******-literature.com/wilde/

Here's a well-laid-out site with some of Wilmot's poems; http://www.pornokrates.com/rochester.html
and one with a lot more poetry- some of it might not actually be his;
http://www.poemhunter.com/john-wilmot/poet-35965/
John Wilmot is the subject of a film just coming out- "the LIbertine" starring two of my other favorite Johnnies- Malkovitch, and, *be still my foolish heart*, Depp.

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b344/struwwelpeter/raunchester.jpg

 

[Tom Collins]

John Wilmot is the subject of a film just coming out- "the LIbertine" starring two of my other favorite Johnnies- Malkovitch, and, *be still my foolish heart*, Depp.

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b344/struwwelpeter/raunchester.jpg

Uuuuuu...Jonny Depp...*panting and palpitating* Tha's a purdy man. I could do things ta him that'ud make a street walker blush like a Catholic school girl.

 

[BlackShanglan]

He was barely playing at all, poor little romantic sideliner. He was as repressed as any other conventional Victorian, and I would think he went to the bordellos just like all the other men of his day did- having nothing to do with his preferences. In fact, there were boys in most of the bawdy houses.
His claim to homosexuality lay in that he fell in love with a man of his own social station.

Hmmm. Lord Douglas may have gotten him *to* the courtroom, but it was the servants and newspaper boys who did him in. Carson hammered on it relentlessly throughout the opening and the cross examination in the first trial, and he would have driven it home more ruthlessly still if Wilde's counsel hadn't abandoned the prosecution just as Carson was about to start calling witnesses. He came back to that issue of "breaking class" again and again; it was the central issue of his defense of Queensbury via attack on Wilde.

I don't doubt that many bordellos did have boys; certainly there were services consisting only of them, as the Cleveland St. affair had born witness some years before Wilde's trial. Wilde's problems lay more in the latter; Alfred Taylor, sometimes procurer, not very cleverly left behind a box of papers when he changed dwellings, from which Carson's team derived many of their leads. Taylor was definitely in the exclusively male line of the trade, although of course Wilde repeatedly denied that he associated with Taylor for that particular reason. That said, the jury at the third trial found sufficient evidence to convict, although some of the men who were deposed for the first trial did not testify at the later proceedings. There seems to be at least a reasonable suggestion that Wilde was active with quite a few young men; some of them, of course, were semi-professional blackmailers, but they mostly played the badger game once they actually had something with which to badger.

Shanglan

 

[Stella_Omega]

Hmmm. Lord Douglas may have gotten him *to* the courtroom, but it was the servants and newspaper boys who did him in. Carson hammered on it relentlessly throughout the opening and the cross examination in the first trial, and he would have driven it home more ruthlessly still if Wilde's counsel hadn't abandoned the prosecution just as Carson was about to start calling witnesses. He came back to that issue of "breaking class" again and again; it was the central issue of his defense of Queensbury via attack on Wilde.

I don't doubt that many bordellos did have boys; certainly there were services consisting only of them, as the Cleveland St. affair had born witness some years before Wilde's trial. Wilde's problems lay more in the latter; Alfred Taylor, sometimes procurer, not very cleverly left behind a box of papers when he changed dwellings, from which Carson's team derived many of their leads. Taylor was definitely in the exclusively male line of the trade, although of course Wilde repeatedly denied that he associated with Taylor for that particular reason. That said, the jury at the third trial found sufficient evidence to convict, although some of the men who were deposed for the first trial did not testify at the later proceedings. There seems to be at least a reasonable suggestion that Wilde was active with quite a few young men; some of them, of course, were semi-professional blackmailers, but they mostly played the badger game once they actually had something with which to badger.

Shanglan

I bow to your superior knowledge once again

It's heartening to think, though- that at least he did sample the fruits of the tree, since he was convicted of trespassing there... And I hope with all my heart that they were delicious to him.

 

[BlackShanglan]

It's heartening to think, though- that at least he did sample the fruits of the tree, since he was convicted of trespassing there... And I hope with all my heart that they were delicious to him.

"Like feasting with panthers" was his description of his dinners with some of his more deliberately and delightfully unwise choices. I think he enjoyed himself. Unfortunately, his pleasures turned out to be less hidden than he'd hoped. There's some suggestion that he had a fair bit of fun at college as well; it is of record that he was treated for syphilis, but of course it's not clear how it was acquired.

One of the more intriguing commentaries I've read about him draws some interesting (not physical, but personal) connections to Bram Stoker, of all people; evidently Mrs. Stoker, before her marriage, was closely courted by and wooed from under the nose of none other than Mr. Oscar Wilde. The author makes a convincing argument to suggest that the poor woman - a famous beauty of her day - was the unlikely subject of a dispute between two men equally unlikely to relish her charms in the ways society would have expected. Interesting theory - damned hard luck if it's right. (Or, if she had her own reasons for seeking such suitors, possibly good luck?)

Shanglan

 

[Stella_Omega]

"Like feasting with panthers" was his description of his dinners with some of his more deliberately and delightfully unwise choices. I think he enjoyed himself. Unfortunately, his pleasures turned out to be less hidden than he'd hoped. There's some suggestion that he had a fair bit of fun at college as well; it is of record that he was treated for syphilis, but of course it's not clear how it was acquired.

One of the more intriguing commentaries I've read about him draws some interesting (not physical, but personal) connections to Bram Stoker, of all people; evidently Mrs. Stoker, before her marriage, was closely courted by and wooed from under the nose of none other than Mr. Oscar Wilde. The author makes a convincing argument to suggest that the poor woman - a famous beauty of her day - was the unlikely subject of a dispute between two men equally unlikely to relish her charms in the ways society would have expected. Interesting theory - damned hard luck if it's right. (Or, if she had her own reasons for seeking such suitors, possibly good luck?)

Shanglan

What we now call "rough trade" eh?
Thank you for the book recommendation- It's been years since I've read any account of the trial, or even "De Profundis"- or any Wilde, except for "The happy Prince" which i came on unexpectedly somewhere