In this post I’m going to introduce this brilliant Irish 😉 writer Oscar Wilde; when in 1882 he arrived in the U.S.A. in New York, at Custom Controls he said “I have nothing to declare but my genius”.

• SESSION ONE: Biography & The Picture of Dorian Gray  TIME LENGTH OF VIDEOS 15 m’ + readings & notes = 1 hour and 30 minutes.

STEP 1)  Watch these videos on his Biography & take down some notes – in Evernote or your notebook.  Read his biography in your textbook page 185 and integrate that text with the new info you got in the video.

STEP 2) As regards his life and his relationship with A.Bosie that ended up with him being arrested and sentenced to two years’ hard labour (lavori forzati) watch  the scene of Wilde’s famous monologue on “love that dare not speak its name” during the trial, taken from the movie Wilde (1997) starring Stephen Frye.

“The Love that dare not speak its name in this century is such a great affection of an elder for a younger man as there was between David and Jonathan, such as Plato made the very basis of his philosophy, and such as you find in the sonnets of Michelangelo and Shakespeare. It is that deep, spiritual affection that is as pure as it is perfect. It dictates and pervades great works of art like those of Shakespeare and Michelangelo, and those two letters of mine, such as they are. It is in this century misunderstood, so much misunderstood that it may be described as the “Love that dare not speak its name,” and on account of it I am placed where I am now. It is beautiful, it is fine, it is the noblest form of affection. There is nothing unnatural about it. It is intellectual, and it repeatedly exists between an elder and a younger man, when the elder man has intellect, and the younger man has all the joy, hope and glamour of life before him. That it should be so, the world does not understand. The world mocks at it and sometimes puts one in the pillory (alla gogna) for it.”

Remembering our school trip to Dublin this video shows the actor Ruper Everett visiting his house in Merrion Square.

STEP 3) The third video is a collection of some of his famous aphorisms. Choose the one you like best. Be ready to tell the rest of the class why you like it.

Top 10 O.Wilde’s Quotes and why he said them

The next 2 sessions – before our Christmas vacations – will deal with:

Post 2 The Picture of Dorian Gray 

Post 3 The Ballad of the Reading Gaol