CONTEXT Flashcards

Question

oscar wilde's relationship with homosexuality

Answer 1

-had a homosexual relationhsip with Lord Alfred Douglas, who he called 'bosie' -lord alfred douglas's father, the Marquess of Queensbury became the reason wilde was trialed, as he left a letter detailing his 'gross indecency' outside wilde's gentlemans club -he was trialed for gross indecency and was advised by close friends to flee to france, where homosexuality was delegalised during the French Revolution

Answer 2

- 1895 in old bailey court -wilde initially tried to sue the marquess for defamation due to the card he left -heavily publicised and high profile -trial went poorly as allegations were true -defence accused him of committing sodomy with 12 young men -in thevtrial he was questioned about the homosexual themes in dorian gray -pleaded not guilty but was found guilty

Answer 3

-reading gaol -poor conditions and violence -wrote to hime secretary multiple times complaining of poor conditions

Answer 4

-wife divorced him and moved away with her sons due to shame, he never saw them again -wld and lord alfred douglas reunited in france but marquess paid off wilde to never live with him again -lived in poverty in france

Answer 5

-when art became a medium through which morality and advocation for social change in society -the concept of aethsticism was a reactionary movement against the moralistaion of art

Answer 6

-critics condemed Dorian Gray for its immorality -wilde believed in aestheticism and removing morality from art -saw people who saw morality in art as corrupt, those we find ugly meanings in beautiful things -believed artists incorportating morality limits the works beauty due to its reality

Answer 7

-thought there was no suvh thing as a moral or a immoral book -some interperate this book as a morality tale -lord henry serves as a mouthoeice for wilde's own aestheticist/ hedonistic principles -acknowledges but doesnt criticise the duality of corruption and beauty

Answer 8

-prevailed in 1890s -rejected mainstream views that art needed a moral purpose -vulued 'art for arts sake' -upper class -prioritised sensation and pleasure over moral, social and political duties (wilde believed this and he was a dandy) -only wealthy men who could afford to do nothing

Answer 9

-hostile response to underlying homosexual themes and sexually explicit context -didnt like the portrayal of idle young men -dandys aim was to turn oneself into a peice of art

Answer 10

-announced a new mode of literature and art influenced by aestheticist movement -yellow colour- decadence described as a beautiful disease (infecting dorian)

Answer 11

-derived from the ancient greek word meaning pleasure -seek pleasure, disregard morality

Answer 12

Opium was widely available in the 19th century, Before the 1868 Pharmacy Act it was sold by barbers, tobacconists and stationers. -was routinely perscribed for both children and adults, e,g for the 'nervous cough' Writers including Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Charles Dickens all used the drug, for pleasure or as medicine other drugs widely available, ossible queen victoria was perscribed marujiana for mentrual cramps, and used alcohol and cocaine mixture

Answer 13

Thomas de Quincey : Confessions of an English Opium-Eater 1821 detailed the enjoyable effects of drug taking De Quincey’s intriguing depiction of drug use was a huge influence on later writers in the 19th century

Answer 14

-as 19th C progressed pium in particular could be associated with the criminal underworld as well as with medical use - Lord Henry smokes ‘opium-tainted cigarettes’, it is the memory of Henry’s advice that persuades Gray to seek solace in an opium den -opium and opium dens also feature importantly in Charles Dickens’s The Mystery of Edwin Drood.

Answer 15

Some associate the movement with the Pre-Raphaelites, who were active from the mid-19th century. Their emphasis on sensual beauty and on strong connections between visual and verbal forms was certainly highly influential. Perhaps the most important inaugurating phase of aestheticism, however, occurred during the late 1860s and early 1870s.

Answer 16

1889, a male brothel on Cleveland Street was raided by the police. Some of the men working as prostitutes were arrested and brought to trial, but got off on lighter sentences than would have been typical of the time, when all homosexual acts were illegal and subject to 2 years imprisonment. they had named prominent members of the aristocracy as clients of the brothel, PARKE suspected a coverup, publicised the case in his paper the Duke of Somerset, fled the country and another, the Earl of Euston, brought Parke to trial and won. This incident was alluded to in "The Picture of Dorian Grey"

Answer 17

Jews were often seen in terms of their “otherness”—their difference in appearance, social standing, religion and morality depicted in extreme terms: as completely evil or as impossibly virtuous Charles Dickens produced one of the most famous examples of the stereotypical “evil Jew”—the character of Fagin in Oliver Twist (1838).