The importance of being earnest

OSCAR WILDE (1854-1900)
Oscar O'Flahertie Fingal Wills Wilde, born in Dublin, Ireland on October 16, 1854, was the second son of Sir William and Lady Jane Wilde. Sir William was a renowned surgeon who found himself embroiled in a sensational scandal in 1864 when Mary Travers, a former patient, informed a local newspaper that she had been chloroformed and raped. Lady Jane was a poet who stood six feet tall and claimed to be "above respectability." She loved to make a sensation and passed this passion on to her youngest son. In 1878, Oscar Wilde moved to London with a degree from Oxford and a burning desire to achieve stardom. He had been taught by his mother to view life as a performance, and he made a spectacle of everything, sometimes hailing a cab just to cross the street. He once wrote, "I awoke the imagination of my century so that it created myth and legend around me." His wardrobe was designed not by tailors, but by theatre costumiers who Wilde felt would more easily understand the dramatic effects he was trying to achieve. His standard costume included a velvet coat edged with braid, knee breeches, black silk stockings, a soft loose shirt with wide low turned-down collar, and a large flowing pale green tie. He topped the costume off with sunflowers and lillies in his buttonhole, a garish touch which became almost a signature for the outrageous public figure Wilde was so shrewdly constructing. Within two years, he had made quite a name for himself, but his first play, Vera or The Nihilists, was not well received. Nor was his first volume of poetry. Wilde decided briefly to adopt a life of Victorian respectability. In 1884, he married Constance Lloyd and fathered two sons, Cyril (1885) and Vyvyan (1886). He even became editor of Women's World, a very reputable publication. But respectability was a terrible burden for Wilde, and by 1886 he was sneaking off to Oxford to visit young men. Shortly thereafter, he separated from his wife--claiming