‘The Love that Dare Not Speak Its Name’: Oscar Wilde as a Gay Icon
By AJ Birt, Second Year History
As we approach the end of LGBT history month, it feels only fair to write about one of the first, and most outspoken, ‘gay icons’: Oscar Wilde. Poet, alleged criminal, and fashion pioneer, Wilde caused a media sensation when a simple libel trial turned into accusations of sodomy. The author’s conduct throughout his trial, as well as his lifestyle in general, helped to solidify him as a gay icon.
When one thinks of Wilde, they tend to think of the infamous photographs of him; chin in his hand, with long hair and a fluffy jacket, often wearing stockings with tight breeches. This look was part of the ‘dandy-aesthete’ movement that Wilde embodied and popularised. A dandy-aesthete lived their lives with a focus on leisure; doing so subverted Victorian notions of masculinity, as examined by John Tosh. 1 When gendered spheres made up an entire society, publicly subverting them was enough to label you an outlier. 2
Oscar Wilde by Napoleon Sarony, 1882, Metropolitan Museum of Art
Wilde went beyond simply affecting effeminate, however. His novels and poems were rife with homosexual imagery; his novel ‘A Picture of Dorian Gray’ is regarded by Wilde to be a self-portrait of an egoistic young homosexual, living life and going about town. Others within Wilde’s social circle were also known homosexuals, such as Lord Alfred Douglas, Wilde’s primary lover. A private poem written to Wilde by Douglas ended with the line ‘I am the love that dare not speak its name’. 3 Whilst this was overtly homosexual in its context - one man writing another love poetry is blatant - the context of Douglas publishing this poem was incredibly significant.
Published in 1894, Douglas’ poem ‘Two Loves’ became part of the media uproar surrounding the infamous ‘Oscar Wilde Trials’. Wilde was initially charged with libel after insulting Douglas’ father, the Marquess of Queensberry. Queensberry had left Wilde a note in his dressing room accusing him of being a ‘somdomite’, and would often heckle Wilde at opening nights of his shows. 4 When Wilde responded to Queensberry with libellous writings, Queensberry took him to court, likely as an excuse to harass Wilde for his sexuality and his relations with Queensberry’s son.
‘For Oscar Wilde posing Sodomite’ The Marquis of Queensberry, 1895, National Archives
It was at the trial of Wilde that we see Wilde further solidified as a gay icon. As well as being a well-known dandy-aesthete, as shown in the photograph above and through his lifestyle as a socialite, Wilde’s conduct at the trials was blatantly homosexual. Even without the media attention that the trial got, and the effeminization of Wilde, quotes from Wilde in the court transcripts damned him as a sodomite.
The Wilde Trial, The Illustrated Police News, 4th May 1895, Wikimedia Commons
For example, when asked if he had had sexual relations with a serving boy, Wilde responded with ‘no, he’s far too ugly’. Whilst such a blunt response was evidently intended for humorous effect, his lack of denial only served to criminalise him further. One can argue that this proud, joking attitude to sexuality is one that the LGBTQ+ community should uphold today; when challenged, criminalised or accused, one should stand proud in their identity. However, Wilde’s strength of character only served to sentence him for evident homosexuality.
Statements such as ‘I am not, happily, I think, an ordinarily constituted being’ further underscored Wilde’s status as a witty, entertaining, but evidently gay man. In the trials he is questioned by the prosecution in regards to the poem Douglas wrote for him; specifically, the prosecution asks ‘What construction can be put on the line, “I am the love that dare not speak its name”?’ 5
Wilde’s response, as noted in the court transcript, was full of ‘great emphasis and some signs of emotion’. 6 His speech, known in historiography as ‘the love that dare not speak its name speech’, was what truly damned him to be jailed. Within his response Wilde connected the love of the men in the poem to queer-coded artists of antiquity, such as Michelangelo, Plato, and Shakespeare. It was quite clear to a jury that Wilde was connecting his and Douglas’ relationship to the romance of the past.
There were, of course, other aspects of evidence used in the trials. Wilde’s novel ‘the Picture of Dorian Gray’ was used to demonstrate to the court his obvious, unabashed homosexuality. However, it is Wilde’s own words that allow us to see him as a modern-day gay icon. He did not remain silent when accused of sodomy and was valiant in defending his literary works and the emotion behind them.
Wilde as a character was an excellent figure to be seized upon as an icon. His dandy-aesthete look was intrinsically connected to him as a person, and his wit, socialite status and outspokenness made him a bold character. Such a larger-than-life person was easy to caricature in media at the time, and is easy to reproduce in the form of stickers, badges, birthday cards etc today.
We will continue to see Wilde’s visage in LGBT spaces as well as literary ones due to his prominence of personality, and the overwhelming evidence of his sexuality. Such an overwhelmingly queer figure cannot be called anything other than a nineteenth century ‘gay icon’.
Footnotes
1 Tosh, J. (1994). What Should Historians Do with Masculinity? Reflections on Nineteenth-Century Britain. History Workshop, (38), 179-202.
2 See also Hennen, P. (2001). Powder, Pomp, Power: Toward A Typology and Genealogy of Effeminacies. Social Thought & Research, 24(1/2), 121-144
3 The full poem can be read online, accessible at https://poets.org/poem/two-loves
4 https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/museum/item.asp?item_id=41
5 Shorthand archival evidence of the trials is available at the British Library, digitised here: https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/the-trial-of-oscar-wilde-printed-in-1906
6 Ibid