| The Importance of
Being Oscar
 On the 150th anniversary
of the birth of Oscar Wilde on October 15, Colin Lacey writes about Wilde’s
mother, Lady Jane Francesca Wilde – familiarly known as “Speranza.”
Appearing before an Irish-American group in St. Paul, Minnesota on St.
Patrick’s Day, 1882, Oscar Wilde was introduced not as a rising
literary star, but as “the son of one of Ireland’s noblest
daughters – of a daughter who in the troublous times of 1848 by
the works of her pen and her noble example did much to keep the fire of
patriotism burning brightly.”
Oscar may have been surprised by such enthusiasm, but it was no overstatement
– long before he dazzled audiences and critics with his own writing,
the inflammatory patriotic poetry of his mother, Lady Jane Francesca Wilde
– familiarly known as “Speranza” – had made her
a hero of Irish nationalists across the world. Until his most famous works
made him a household name in his own right, Oscar Wilde, as the New York
newspaper The Irish Nation pointed out, was “Speranza’s Son.”
 A renowned linguist,
translator, folklorist, advocate of women’s rights, popular poet,
and the host of celebrated literary salons in Dublin and London, Speranza
was a celebrated figure, greatly admired and regularly cheered in the
streets of Dublin. With 13 publications to her credit, she was more prolific
than Oscar was, but Speranza died in relative obscurity in 1896, and was
buried in an unmarked grave in Kensal Greene, London. Forgotten by admirers,
her name seemed destined to remain a minor footnote in biographies of
her more famous son until 1996, when a commemorative plaque was added
to the Wilde family vault at Mount Jerome Cemetery in Dublin. Unveiled
on February 3, the centenary of her death, the plaque pays tribute to
Speranza’s literary and social achievements and restores her memory
as the mother of one of Ireland’s greatest writers.
The young Lady Wilde had a sense of being destined for greatness, and
her demeanor reflected it. Born Jane Elgee in Wexford in 1821, she exuded
the same flamboyancy and cultivated air that would later mark Oscar as
a lasting personality. Over six feet tall, she dressed elaborately throughout
her life, even when she couldn’t always afford to, and her eccentric
apparel was remarked upon by contemporaries almost as often as her achievements.
A well-read, generous, and broad-minded woman, Oscar was devoted to her:
“all women become like mothers,” he wrote. “That is
their tragedy. No man does. That’s his.”
Although her wealthy family were Protestant with unionist leanings, Jane
Elgee was influenced by the patriotic poems of Thomas Osborne Davis in
The Nation, the magazine founded in 1842 by Young Ireland leaders Gavan
Duffy and John Dillon. Considering herself descended from the Italian
poet Dante, she assumed as her nom-de-plume “Speranza” –
the Italian word for “hope” – and at age 25 began contributing
verse as well as translations to the nationalist publication. Her rousing
iconoclastic poems addressed the coming revolution and exodus from Ireland
of the famine-stricken, and were immediately successful. One contemporary
critic wrote, “The poems of Speranza, next to those of Thomas Davis,
were the inspiration of the nationalist movement,” and the poet
received ecstatic letters from readers throughout the country.
When The Nation editor Gavan Duffy was imprisoned on sedition charges
in 1848, Speranza wrote a series of anonymous editorials excoriating the
British presence in Ireland and announcing, in “The Hour of Destiny,”
that “the long pending war with England has actually commenced.”
A week later, her most famous article Jacta Alea Est (The Die is Cast)
exclaimed “O! For a hundred thousand muskets glimmering brightly
in the light of Heaven.” She appealed to the Irish public to take
no further steps along “the base path of suffering and slavery”;
the British government seized the issue and suppressed The Nation for
disseminating sedition. Gavan Duffy was charged with writing the articles,
but before his trial for treason, Speranza wrote to the Solicitor General
and announced she had written the inflammatory words. During Duffy’s
trial, she shouted from the gallery, “I, and I alone, am the culprit,
if culprit there be.” After four trials, Duffy was set free.
Speranza married William Robert Wilde, the prominent Dublin eye and ear
surgeon, also a writer and folklorist, in 1851, and they settled at 1
Merrion Square, Dublin, one of the most fashionable addresses in the city.
Reflective of their progressive views on women and marriage, it was an
unconventional, though affectionate, relationship, and the couple retained
a healthy respect for each other’s independence. When they married,
William Wilde had already fathered three children, all of whom he supported,
and Speranza displayed a singular lack of jealousy towards her husband’s
affairs. When Sir William (he was knighted in 1864) was dying, she permitted
a visit by a strange, veiled woman known to be her husband’s mistress.
Another woman, Mary Travers, had earlier accused Sir William of drugging
and sexually assaulting her, and after Speranza had written to the woman’s
father, she was herself accused of libel. Refusing to spare herself the
embarrassment of a public trial, she refused to settle out of court, and
was ultimately vindicated.
At her Merrion Square home, Speranza established a salon whose Saturday
afternoon meetings attracted the cream of Dublin’s intellectual
and artistic elite. Gatherings of over 100 were common, and Speranza,
like her son a brilliant talker, held forth on the literary and social
issues of the day. The position of women in society particularly interested
her, and she was an advocate of women’s rights long before the suffragette
movement grew to prominence. Hers was the first signature on an 1892 petition
demanding the admission of women to Dublin’s Trinity College.
Oscar Fingal O’Flaherty Wills Wilde, Speranza’s second son,
was born in 1854. Sir William died in 1876 while Oscar was at Oxford,
and later, in 1879, Speranza left Ireland for London. Twice a week Speranza
hosted salons, where the main attraction was her increasingly famous son
and the guests included George Bernard Shaw and W.B. Yeats. The death
of her husband left her relatively independent, and Speranza devoted much
of the rest of her life to writing. She gathered Sir William’s vast
collection of stories and legend into what would become two significant
works on Irish Folklore, completed a volume on Scandinavia, and compiled
two volumes of her own writing, much of which had appeared in The Nation.
She also took an active part in London’s literary scene, eventually
becoming, along with Oscar and another son, Willie, a charter member of
the Irish Literary Society.
Oscar and his mother remained devoted to the end, and although aging,
she remained as resolute as she had been as a young woman, urging her
son not to back down from the infamous trial which centered on his homosexuality
even when prison seemed a certainty. Speranza died while her son was in
Pentonville prison in England.
“All poets love their mothers,” said Oscar. “I worship
mine.” The memorial at the Wilde family grave will ensure the larger-than-life
Speranza and her contribution to Irish literary history will not be forgotten.
Irish Director Honors Wilde
“Society often forgives the criminal; it never forgives the dreamer,”
Wilde once remarked. One hundred and fifty years after his birth, Wilde,
dreamer or no, is not only forgiven but lionized. To mark the anniversary,
Irish director Bill Hughes has assembled an array of stars for a film
project in association with Art for Amnesty and Amnesty International.
The program, broadcast on RTÉ on Oct 16, and shown again on PBS
on World Aid’s Day, Dec 1, 2004, features 150 of Wilde’s best
lines, spoken by 150 international artists, in a specially commissioned
adapted screenplay by Frank McGuinness.
Shot in New York, Los Angeles, London and Dublin, the program involves
many of Wilde’s fans, including Bono, Liam Neeson, Al Pacino, Susan
Sarandon and Martin Sheen.
“Oscar Wilde was in prison for his sexuality,” said Hughes,
explaining that the proceeds from the program will go to Amnesty International,
“Because they support human rights and gay rights.” |
