Oscar Wilde on the Internet

In April 2006, during my second-ever trip to Ireland, I made a short side-trip down to Paris, just after Easter Weekend and the festivities in Dublin commemorating the Easter Rising that presaged the Irish Revolution in 1916. I went to Paris for one specific reason (aside from practicing my stammering French): to visit Oscar Wilde's tomb in Pere Lachaise Cemetery. This was a pilgrimage of sorts for me; something I'd been wanting to do for more than twenty years. It took me a while to find this famed gravesite, as I neglected to purchase a map of the cemetery from the florist's shop across the street when I first arrived. Having finally obtained a map, it didn't take me long to find the correct division of Le Cimetière du Père-Lachaise; and from there, the tomb with the winged sphinx, angel, or whatever people are calling the large, castrated sandstone figure these days. And, true to what I'd read and observed in others' photos, the tomb was a garish mess, covered stem to stern in lipstick kisses and graffiti (some of it written in lipstick, no less!). "Spontaneous love", remarked one fellow visitor, when I pointed out the lipstick-kiss phenomenon.

Trouble is, Oscar's tomb is sculpted of sandstone (I also noticed that the sphinx/angel's legs are rather badly corroded from the elements, air pollutants, or something, and may need replacing one of these days); and lipstick, which contains animal fats, leaves stains that sink into the sandstone matrix, making said stains practically impossible to eradicate completely, despite repeated cleaning attempts over the years. Moreover, it's a well-reported fact that Wilde's family hates this practice, and feel that it disrespects Oscar's memory; they erected a plaque several years ago asking visitors not to deface the tomb, but it doesn't seem to deter very many would-be tomb-kissers. While there, I made a point of discussing this with several other visitors, some of them fellow Americans; and did not kiss the tomb myself (though, just before I left, I was hit with a sudden strong desire to do that very thing; I don't know where that came from). Instead, I took a lot of photos, walked around the tomb several times, touched it, and taped myself singing a song I wrote for Oscar in 1992 while standing in back of the tomb where the entry door is. I also left a few presents: a copy of the song's lyrics, a signed greeting card and postcard with photos of Seattle; and a small drawstring bag with polished pieces of rose quartz and amethyst. I visited the tomb once again after that--on my final morning in Paris, just before checking out of my hotel--and both times I visited, I truly hated to leave. Just being there was an intensely moving experience.

While touring solo around Ireland that same month, I found a couple of other interesting sculptures dedicated to Oscar Wilde. The first was in the center of Galway City, Co. Galway; if you walk the pedestrian-friendly shopping area of Galway, you can't miss the bronze statues of Oscar and Estonian author Eduard Wilde sitting companionably on a marble park bench. The second was in Dublin, in Merrion Square, quite close to Oscar's childhood home. It's an installation of sorts (unveiled in October 2004, in honor of Oscar Wilde's 150th birthday), with a life-sized statue of Wilde reclining on a large boulder--commonly known as "The Quare in the Square"--with platforms covered with Wilde quotes on either side of the rock. On one platform is a headless male torso (symbolizing Art); on the other is a small sculpture (about two feet high) portraying Oscar's wife Constance, naked and pregnant, looking over her shoulder at Oscar with a rather desolate expression. I took a number of photos of both the Dublin and Galway installations, and left Oscar's multicolored Dublin statue a small chocolate Easter egg.

Here are some of my own photos of the statues, Oscar's childhood home in Dublin, and the tomb. They are all from my Photobucket collection: