Oscar Wilde Blog

by Jörg W. Rademacher

Welcome to the life of Oscar Wilde

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Blog-Post September 2023

Dear readers of my blog,

Following a long absence, I want to take up again my series of posts. It is always necessary for me to find both time and leisure to compose such a post. This time I was inspired once again to write a comment on John Cooper’s latest post at Oscar-Wilde-in-America before finding a point of departure for a post of my own in the itinerary of Wilde’s lecture tour in the USA and Canada...

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Blog-Beitrag September 2023

Liebe Leserinnen und Leser meines Blogs,

nach langer Abwesenheit möchte meine Serie von Blog-Posts wieder aufnehmen. Stets brauchte ich  Zeit und Muße, um einen Post fertigzustellen. Dieses Mal wurde ich erneut angeregt, den jüngsten Post von John Cooper auf Oscar-Wilde-in-America zu kommentieren, bevor ich einen Ausgangspunkt für meinen eigene Beitrag zu Oscar Wildes Vortragstournee in Nordamerika fand...

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February 2023: A comment on the October poem: “Portia”

Dear readers of my blog,

as promised in the postscript of my January post, I want to go and show you at greater length what was triggered by quite a cryptic remark in an otherwise practically-minded e-mail on this year’s calendar. While October is as yet far away, I want to move on and present you the results of my research as soon as possible after having stated in January the case of neglected anti-Semitism as exemplified by “Portia”. For, clearly, once this is done I also need to go one step further and publish my findings on the stereotypically anti-Semitic passages in some chapters of The Picture of Dorian Gray as well as what various translators in different languages, mostly German, and some French and Italian, have done about them in their different versions over the last century or so...

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Wildes Hauptwerk

Alles über
"Das Bildnis des Dorian Gray"

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Über mich

Jörg W. Rademacher (*1962), born and bred in Westphalia. Attended university at Münster, Dundee and Lille. State exam in 1988. Ph.D. In 1993. Scholar, language teacher as well as writer and translator at Münster until 2002. Since 2002 secondary school teacher, writer and translator in East Frisia. Working on Wilde since 1988. Publishing on Wilde since 2000 as biographer and editor and translator, on a regular basis with Elsinor Verlag since 2012, since 2015 also editor and translator of Oscar Wilde calendars.

Der neue Kalender

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A calendar in progress 2023

Composing these reflections when offering, selling, and sending out the current calendar is still only a matter of weeks away, I do feel that this project has made another step: at long last, a balance has been found between word and image, with Günter Plessow the author of the verse translations into German, while I translated two of Egon Günther’s poems into English besides choosing, arranging, and, sparsely this time, commenting the poems. If you like, you can see the history of the Oscar Wilde calendars represented by their respective covers on my website: oscar-wilde-blog.de
In fact, it is only owing to Günter Plessow’s industry in translating what he calls “Lyrical Notes” into German in the year 2021 that a substantial selection of Wilde poems ranging from the 1870s through the 1890s, including “The Sphinx” and “The Ballad of Reading Gaol”, are now available for re-publication as part of this calendar project. This is also why, compared to previous calendars, this Oscar Wilde Calendar concentrates on poetry on the one hand and focuses on verse in English and German on the other hand. Taking the poems chosen this time in turn, I also include miniatures of the collage work, so that it is possible to survey the complete calendar here.

January

Willie Wilde
Salome

The sight of me was as a devouring flame
Burning their hearts with fire, so wantonly
That night I danced for all his men to see !
Fearless and reckless; for all maiden shame
Strange passion-poisons throbbing overcame
As every eye was riveted on me,
And every soul was mine, mine utterly, –
And thrice each throat cried out aloud my name !

“Ask what thou wilt,” black-bearded Herod said,
God wot a weird thing do I crave for prize :
“Give me, I pray thee, presently the head
Of John the Baptist.” ’Twixt my hand it lies.
“Ah mother ! see ! the lips, the half-closed eyes –
Dost think he hates us still now he is dead ?”

Once more, William Wilde’s sonnet “Salome” is there to start the New Year. The image of the head is shocking, it is true, but then facing the reality of a New Year may be shocking again and again.

February

Egon Günther
white morning

(erich mühsam in memoriam)

early on madness wakes from his dream
and shaking stretches long
his limbs when outside wildly rages the stream
drowning out the birds’ songs

close-by stands the fiend
high rises the flood
the guard presses on
roughly into the latrines
far from any friend
depressed is his mood
prepared for war
are only the machines

the white murder undermines
the crumbling dam
that hardly holds in check the hateful pack
many a one in his heart
now feels cold & clammy
deeming himself already the scum’s rich picking
just under the veneer of civilization
wrongfulness – vulgar & naked beast that be –
brashly baring his teeth & also showing his face
the drummer of the nation
conjuring baneful times to be
the press spitting slander across time & space

the murdered’s regards from the grave
are not for you – the murderers
you who with barbarous affectation gave
more support to the law of might
that you ruled to be right:

the tradition of master & slaves
withal the arbitrariness of ancient privilege
you are no adversaries earning his respect
all but despicable torturer knaves
even though arrogantly to subject
you strove the world to your tyranny

in his grave he can but scoff at you
and should you win the world even
with fraud & might & steel
your dream of the master race ne’er comes true
as will prove future’s reel

 

The poem “white morning” by the German poet, painter, writer, and translator Egon Günther had to be omitted from last year’s edition for lack of space. Like Oscar Wilde, the German Jewish socialist Erich Mühsam (1878-1934) endured much before he was even killed in prison for his convictions.

March

Oscar Wilde
By the Arno

The oleander on the wall
Grows crimson in the dawning light,
Though the grey shadows of the night
Lie yet on Florence like a pall.

The dew is bright upon the hill,
And bright the blossoms overhead,
But oh ! the grasshoppers have fled,
The little Attic song is still.

Only the leaves are gently stirred.
By the soft breathing of the gale
And in the almond-scented vale
The lonely nightingale is heard.

The day will make thee silent soon,
O nightingale sing on for love !
While yet upon the shadowy grove
Splinter the arrows of the moon.

Before across the silent lawn
In sea-green vest the morning steals,
And to love’s frightened eyes reveals
The long white fingers of the dawn

Fast climbing up the eastern sky
To grasp and slay the shuddering night,
All careless of my heart’s delight,
Or if the nightingale should die.

 

Poems by Wilde such as “By the Arno.” (March), “From Spring Days to Winter (for Music.)” (April), “San Miniato.” (May), “At Verona.” (June), and “Italia.” (July) record each specific moments in more or less clearly defined places. “By the Arno” has an explicitly Florence setting, breathing a romantic atmosphere redolent not only of Tuscany but of an Oxford college lawn at the dawn of day, also alluding to John Keats.

April

Oscar Wilde
From Spring Days to Winter

(for Music.)

In the glad spring when leaves are green,
O merrily the throstle sings !
I sought, amid the tangled sheen,
Love whom mine eyes had never seen,
O the glad dove has golden wings !

Between the blossoms red and white,
O merrily the throstle sings !
My love first came into my sight,
O perfect vision of delight,
O the glad dove has golden wings !

The yellow apples glowed like fire.
O merrily the throstle sings !
O Love too great for lip or lyre,
Blown rose of love and of desire,
O the glad dove has golden wings !

But now with snow the tree is grey
Ah, sadly now the throstle sings !
My love is dead ; ah ! well-a-day,
See at her silent feet I lay
A dove with broken wings !

Ah, Love ! ah, Love ! that thou wert slain –
Fond Dove, fond Dove return again.

 

“From Spring Days to Winter (for Music.)” contains the elements of the Italian tricolour, so that it might also be set in Italy whereas the poem in general still reflects a romantic view of the seasons.

May

Oscar Wilde
San Miniato

See, I have climbed the mountain side
Up to this holy house of God,
Where once that Angel-Painter trod
Who saw the heavens opened wide,

And throned upon the crescent moon
The Virginal white Queen of Grace, –
Mary ! could I but see thy face
Death could not come at all too soon.

O crowned by God with thorns and pain !
Mother of Christ ! O mystic wife !
My heart is weary of this life
And over-sad to sing again.

O crowned by God with love and flame !
O crowned by Christ the Holy One !
O listen ere the searching sun
Show to the world my sin and shame !

 

Likewise “San Miniato” (al Monte) takes you on an imagined or real tour to a church located on the hills beyond the Arno while also referring to the history of art and religion.

June

Oscar Wilde
At Verona

How steep the stairs within Kings’ houses are
For exile-wearied feet as mine to tread,
And O how salt and bitter is the bread
Which falls from this Hound’s table, – better far
That I had died in the red ways of war,
Or that the gate of Florence bare my head,
Than to live thus, by all things comraded
Which seek the essence of my soul to mar.

‘Curse God and die : what better hope than this ?
He hath forgotten thee in all the bliss
Of his gold city, and eternal day’ –
Nay peace : behind my prison’s blinded bars
I do possess what none can take away,
My love, and all the glory of the stars.

 

“At Verona.” is a sonnet which recounts Dante Alighieri’s sojourn while, of course, anyone aware of Wilde’s later fate is free to associate a foreboding in words like “exile” and “prison” (cf. “The Ballad of Reading Gaol”). The colours of “yellow” and “gold” concern Wilde everywhere, although visitors of Verona, or even passers-by, would still associate them with the city today.

July

Oscar Wilde
Italia

Italia ! thou art fallen, though with sheen
Of battle-spears thy clamorous armies stride
From the north Alps to the Sicilian tide !
Ay ! fallen, though the nations hail thee Queen
Because rich gold in every town is seen,
And on thy sapphire lake in tossing pride
Of wind-filled vans thy myriad galleys ride
Beneath one flag of red and white and green.

O Fair and Strong ! O Strong and Fair in vain !
Look southward where Rome’s desecrated town
Lies mourning for her God-anointed King !
Look heaven-ward ! shall God allow this thing ?
Nay ! but some flame-girt Raphael shall come down,
And smite the Spoiler with the sword of pain.

 

“Italia.” clearly reflects Wilde’s affinity for the play of colours associated with that country as well as the sounds of “clamorous armies”. It invokes Italy as a woman, fallen, that is, a failed state in all respects, not neglecting the larger historical perspective. As such, this sonnet becomes one of the poems that are difficult to translate.

August

Oscar Wilde
La Dame Jaune

She took the curious amber charms
From off her neck, and laid them down,
She loosed her jonquil-coloured gown,
And shook the bracelets from her arms.

She loosed her lemon-satin stays,
She took a carven ivory comb,
Her hair crawled down like yellow foam,
And flickered in the candle’s rays.

I watched her thick locks, like a mass
Of honey, dripping from the pin ;
Each separate hair was as the thin
Gold thread within a Venice glass.

 

“La Dame Jaune” (August) with its French title, however, is representative of a different poet in Wilde, no longer the poetical diarist in a more conventional sense, but rather the observer recording minute moments in the movements of the lady concerned, just as an Impressionist painter would. “Amber” and “honey” tones here face, as a first climax of this effect in Wilde’s poetry, various shades of “yellow”, “jonquil”, “lemon”, and “gold”.

September

Oscar Wilde
Phedre.

How vain and dull this common world must seem
To such a One as thou, who should’st have talked
At Florence with Mirandola, or walked
Through the cool olives of the Academe :
Thou should’st have gathered reeds from a green stream
For Goat-foot Pan’s shrill piping, and have played
With the white girls in that Phæacian glade
Where grave Odysseus wakened from his dream.

Ah ! surely once some urn of Attic clay
Held thy wan dust, and thou hast come again
Back to this common world so dull and vain,
For thou wert weary of the sunless day,
The heavy fields of scentless asphodel,
The loveless lips with which men kiss in Hell.

 

“Phedre.” (September) and “Portia” (October) refer to Jean Racine’s eponymous tragedy and to William Shakespeare’s problem play The Merchant of Venice, with Venice also being verbally present in “La Dame Jaune”. In fact, while unpublished in Wilde’s lifetime and apparently without any biographical overtones, this poem does not figure in his list of works dedicated to women, as do the other two which he wrote for the actresses Sarah Bernhardt and Ellen Terry playing the parts of Phèdre and Portia on the London stage in 1879/1880.

October

Oscar Wilde
Portia.

I marvel not Bassanio was so bold
To peril all he had upon the lead,
Or that proud Aragon bent low his head,
Or that Morocco’s fiery heart grew cold :
For in that gorgeous dress of beaten gold
Which is more golden than the golden sun,
No woman Veronesé looked upon
Was half so fair as Thou whom I behold.

Yet fairer when with wisdom as your shield
The sober-suited lawyer’s gown you donned
And would not let the laws of Venice yield
Antonio’s heart to that accursèd Jew –
O Portia ! take my heart: it is thy due:
I think I will not quarrel with the Bond.

 

“Phedre.” (September) and “Portia” (October) refer to Jean Racine’s eponymous tragedy and to William Shakespeare’s problem play The Merchant of Venice, with Venice also being verbally present in “La Dame Jaune”. In fact, while unpublished in Wilde’s lifetime and apparently without any biographical overtones, this poem does not figure in his list of works dedicated to women, as do the other two which he wrote for the actresses Sarah Bernhardt and Ellen Terry playing the parts of Phèdre and Portia on the London stage in 1879/1880.