St. John Ervine's OSCAR WILDE

This is an amusing old video, methinks, in which I brood a wee bit about an overtly-religious fellow's bad attitude toward Oscar Wilde. I have an opposite opinion, feeling that Wilde's sexuality was one of his greatest assets--but then I may think that cos I love being queer meself. The sin of Wilde, for me, was the way he treated his beautiful, loving wife. To see the effect of Wilde's behavior on his children, we have an excellent book by his youngest son, Vyvyan Holland:

I used to borrow this book over again & again from ye library. I always regretted that my own father was not a man who read many books, except for books by leaders of the Mormon Church. In many ways, my dad was a very good father; but we were so different from each other that I spent my childhood avoiding him. Oscar Wilde was, in many ways, a father that a son could not avoid, although during the "Bosie years" he became very distant from his family.

I became enchanted with Oscar Wilde when I saw him portrayed in the 1978 television series. Lillie. where she was portray'd by Francesca Annis. Peter Egan's portrayal of Wilde in that series fascinated me, and as a result I found every biography of Wilde that I could get my hands on in the library. I found that some local shops sold green carnations for St. Paddy's Day, and thus I bought a few and safety-pinned them to my Oscar Wilde jacket. Wilde has influenced my writer's prose style more than anyone else, I think.

I love the video from LILLIE below--except for ye bloody awful pop song that infiltrates its...