On this week of “David connects this class with his other Revolutions of the 19th Century class,” David will once again connect this class with his other Revolutions of the 19th Century class! After my discussion about The Picture of Dorian Gray, which was written about five years before his imprisonment, it’s a bit eerie to read Wilde as being so deeply religious and spiritual in “De Profundis”, as Dorian Gray what was a fairly sardonic and cynical novel. As a gay man, no doubt he frequently contended with the notion of his homosexuality and of how it affected his status in nigh-puritanical Victorian England. I wonder then to what extent Wilde’s newfound spirituality was merely a result of severe emotional and physical repression during his imprisonment. With nothing else to turn to, it’s easy to surmise that he was desperate enough to turn to the same God that allegedly hated those like him in order to perhaps ease the suffering he felt. It makes me a little sad, is all.
The Transformative Power of Torture
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