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Article: Salome. (London)
- Article from:
- The Economist (US)
- Article date:
- February 24, 1990
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1990 Economist Newspaper Ltd. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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BEFORE Richard Ellman's magisterial biography, Oscar Wilde was popularly seen as a celebrated wit who came to a bad end. W.S. Gilbert took him as his model for the sham poet of "Patience", American audiences applauded his lectures as a "professor of aesthetics"; London theatre-goers relished his bons mots. But the humiliation of his conviction for homosexual activity and the ordeal of two years in prison broke him, and he died in exile in France.
The story seemed a kind of cautionary tale, part comic, part pathetic, but Ellman discerned a deeper pattern. As he put it, the playwright went from scapegrace to scapegoat. His humour criticised Victorian morality and ...