On Oscar Wilde

This paper is a small fragment from my forthcoming book, which is a psychoanalytic study of Oscar Wilde. At the very outset I would like to indicate some of the problems in doing such a psychoanalytic study. It is always difficult to deal with a historical figure because of the limited availability of personal material. This is especially true in the case of Wilde. There are no journals, no diaries, and only two (very brief) dreams have been recorded. In addition, Wilde was so vain and so affected, such a poseur, and his writings and speeches were so filled with deliberate deception, that his real self was often obscured by a “mist of words.”

Despite these difficulties, however, there are important primary sources: Wilde's extant letters have now been published in unexpurgated form; his statements in court during his trials are a matter of public record; and all his writings are available. In addition to these sources, there are a number of excellent biographies. By studying this material I have endeavored to piece together something of a dynamic formulation of Oscar Wilde's personality, a psychoanalytic picture of Oscar Wilde if you will. This picture, however, is at best a sketch—incomplete and imperfect.

I am mindful, of course, of the fact that using literary productions as a basis for understanding an author's personality presents certain dangers and possibilities of error. We cannot have the author confirm or disprove our hypotheses. Hence, we can never be entirely certain what dynamic determinants in the author's personality were responsible for his choice of material. Thus, even though we may recognize that certain themes are parallel or even identical with what is known about the life of an author, there is always an element of conjecture as to whether these themes actually provided the determining factors for a particular work. When one sees that these themes appear repeatedly in the author's work, however, and when one knows certain biographical facts about