De Profundis – a story of love, loss, anger and acceptance

What an opportunity to feel the depth and sorrow of the love of one man for another.

To celebrate 125 years since Oscar Wilde’s death, the Museum of Literature Ireland (MOLI), has produced in film key passages of the letter described as a love letter called De Profundis – written by Wilde to his lover ‘Bosie’ while Wilde was in prison from 1892 to 1895.

Photo: Mary Phelan

Luke Fallon, Visitor Experience Assistant in the museum says “although primarily people will come to the museum for James Joyce, there has also been a great interest to learn more about Oscar Wilde”.

He says that apart from celebrating 125 years since Wilde’s death this year “most people will relate only to his witticisms, whereas this piece shows a very profound and different side to the man”.  

The background story is that Wilde and Lord Alfred Douglas (Bosie) were in a relationship together, much to the disgust of Bosie’s father, the powerful Marquess of Queensbury, who was a very cruel man and was determined to ruin Wilde, which he succeeded in doing, by taking him to court for gross indecency. He won his case. Wilde was sent to Reading Gaol for two years.  

The film consists of the reading of some passages of his letter written to Bosie by a number of artists, writers and activists from the LGBTQ+ community.

In the reading we learn how Wilde, after his conviction in London, was brought in shackles on a train from Reading Gaol where he spent two long years in prison. The conditions were rough.

In prison he goes through a whole gamut of emotions, including anger, sadness, and incomprehension as to why Bosie never wrote to him all the time he was incarcerated. He realises that he made a huge psychological error in going with Bosie’s suggestion to press criminal libel charges against his father. He contemplates the affection he had for Bosie, and how little it was returned. In hindsight he realises he should have got rid of him before his own ruination. He recalls the bills that Bosie ran up during his stay in a Brighton hotel with a friend and which were so onerous that Wilde could not pay them. As a result he could not leave the hotel, and was ultimately arrested.

As the letter continues, he concludes that hate was always stronger than love with Bosie. He says hate blinds people, and Bosie was blinded by hate. He questions if Bosie had ever known what love was, and also why Bosie never wrote to him, not even once while he was in prison. However, he realised Bosie was also suffering, and that he had to forgive him, and wanted to turn what happened to him into a spiritual experience. He makes references to God and of learning the meaning of sorrow and beauty.

He writes “beauty and sorrow is all that interests me now. I used to live purely for pleasure and lived a selfish life. I no longer want this life.” He writes that “pain unlike pleasure wears no mask.” Prison had given him new spirit. He used to say to himself “what an ending, now I think what a beginning.” He longs to be in nature again, seeing the flowers and trees bloom again. He looks forward to meeting Bosie when he is finally liberated from prison.

The film is approximately 50 minutes long and is in a quiet room, away from the main exhibition area on the 3^rd floor.

The film runs until early October.

MOLI is open 7 days a week, and also has a café and outdoor dining area.