De Profundis

By: Oscar Wilde

Narrated by: David McCallion

At its heart, De Profundis is a love letter and is better known as the De Profundis papers. Written in 1897, while Oscar Wilde was imprisoned in Reading Gaol, De Profundis would become one of his best-known works. The papers include Wilde's account of living a lavish lifestyle and his relationship with Lord Alfred Douglas, both of which he credited for his eventual downfall and imprisonment. The second half of the papers is Wilde's account of prison life and his spiritual awakening.

In 1891, Oscar Wilde began an intimate relationship with the dashing but reckless Lord Alfred Douglas. Although both families disapproved of the relationship, Alfred's family was especially against it. When threats failed to yield the results he was looking for, Alfred's father, the Marquess of Queensberry, began to publicly attack Wilde, even as the author was reaching the peak of his career.

Ultimately, Oscar Wilde would make the mistake of bringing a lawsuit against the nobleman that would backfire with a charge of indecent acts, resulting in a prison sentence. De Profundis is an interesting firsthand account of the most tremulous years of Wilde's life.

Public Domain (P)2017 A.R.N. Publications

This Work Really Is Wilde Going Off...

I have tried "De Profundis" several times, and this time around I figured I would try listening to it, to see if I could handle the rot that Wilde is peddling in the book any better than I had been able to handle it before.

I was not.

The narration here is perfectly good, but the ideas behind the ever elegant writing Wilde offers us are damaging and full of the internalized homophobia that sits at the core of Wilde's very being, apparently.

"De Profundis" is a very long harange from an extremely bitter queen who has hated himself forever, and who apparently never meant a word he wrote before he was incarcerated for having sex with a man who professed to love him, but who was apparently just using him for the glamour he offered.

It's a sad and tawdry tale from a time we should all be glad is past.

And for those of you who will take offense at what I write above, I am well aware that Wilde was both a product and antidote to his time. I get that Victorian and Edwardian England was about as toxic a place as ever existed; but I read as a gay man who has lived in the US since tne middle of the 1950's. I am unrepentantly gay, and I am happy to flip you off if you don't like it.

I am glad the work still exists, because it stands a a cautionary screed, warning us of the dangers of petty religioisity; but it really is tedious and self-indulgent folks; and I cannot help but think that is reflective of the man who wrote it.