Wilde on Trial: Psychic Injury, Exhibitionism, and the Law

The basic facts of Oscar Wilde's descent into the maelstrom of scandal and prison have been clear from the beginning. In the 1890s Wilde increasingly flaunted his homosexuality and, inadvertently if not tragically, aroused the wrath of his lover Bosie Douglas's father, the Marquess of Queensberry, who proved to be as tenaciously vindictive as he was unstable. Provoked by Wilde's public romance with his son, Queensberry harassed the lovers. Finally he accused Wilde of "posing as a somdomite, " famously misspelling "sodomite " in his fury, and the exasperated Wilde, goaded by Bosie, retaliated by having the outraged father prosecuted for libel. The trial went awry when evidence of Wilde's homosexuality surfaced. Not only did Wilde have to abandon the libel prosecution, he was indicted for "acts of gross indecency " under section 11 of the 1885 Criminal Law Amendment Act. The trial produced a hung jury; the retrial returned a conviction that sent Wilde to prison for two years and destroyed his career. Most explanations of Wilde's downfall have a core of truth to them, yet they often conflict with one another. Hyde's summary of the case shows again and again ho