Another Oscar

Shaw once remarked to Lord Alfred Douglas that Oscar Wilde’s prayer to posterity should have been to read his works and leave his life alone. For Wilde ought to endure in history as the last dramatist of the great tradition that began with The Way of the World, extended into the next century with The School for Scandal, and ended like a streaking comet with The Importance of Being Earnest.

Instead, he has persisted in the popular image as the prototype of the homosexual, familiar in sniggering joke and obscene limerick to millions who have never read a line of his or seen one of his plays. Oscar

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About the Author

Francis Russell

Shaw once remarked to Lord Alfred Douglas that Oscar Wilde’s prayer to posterity should have been to read his works and leave his life alone. For Wilde ought to endure in history as the last dramatist of the great tradition that began with The Way of the World, extended into the next century with The School for Scandal, and ended like a streaking comet with The Importance of Being Earnest.

Instead, he has persisted in the popular image as the prototype of the homosexual, familiar in sniggering joke and obscene limerick to millions who have never read a line of his or seen one of his plays. Oscar