FREE ESSAY ON OSCAR WILDE'S TOUR OF THE AMERICA'S

OSCAR WILDE'S TOUR OF THE AMERICA'S

Tour of America
In the early 1880's, when Aestheticism was the rage and despair of literary London, Wilde
established himself in social and artistic circles by his wit and flamboyance. Soon the
periodical Punch made him the satiric object of its antagonism to the Aesthetes for what
was considered their unmaculine devotion to art and in their comic opera Patience. Wilde
agreed to lecture in the United States and Canada. Wilde was given the paradoxical
opportunity to characterize and popularize the intensely reflective and individualistic
aesthetic movement. 
In 1881 Oscar Wilde saw himself in a position of man that required company and indulgence
of leisure, and to sustain this he needed money in a time where money was scarcer than
ever. He mortgaged his hunting lounge and sold a bit of his Dublin property to obtain
some wealth. Oscar Wild had just finished two plays and was waiting to the rehearsals to
start of Mr. Beere's Verato begin. During this time producer Richard Carte in New York
approached Wild. Carte was running a not so successful play of New York at the time, but
another part of his enterprise was to manage lecture tours. Carte wanted to give
Americans a chance to see and hear the leading advocate of aestheticisms. It did not take
Wilde long to consider. The next day on October 1 he cabled back "Yes, if offer good."
Carte would cover Wilde's expenses and would share equally with him the net profits.
After communicating back and forth by letter Wilde's repertoire was narrowed quickly.
American's did not want poems recited to them what Americans wanted were "The Beautiful."
(Ellmann 150) 
Wilde accepted this proposal in December, but he asks that the tour should start at the
begging of 1882. He wanted to in London for the opening of Vera. The play he was waiting
to open never does. This gave him time to prepared carefully for his tour. What to wear
came first. Wilde thought of a costume for his tailor to make. A heavy coat made sense in
the American if not the English climate (Ellmann 154). As to lecturing Wilde knew he had
no talent for oratory. His friend Hermann Vezin gave him elocution lessons, " I want a
natural style, with a touch of affectation." "Well, said Vezi, "and haven't you got that,
Oscar?"(Ellmann 155) Wilde had yet prepared a lecture and was planning to write his
lecture on his departure on the Arizona, which was to embark on December 24, 1881. But by
the time the ship docked on January 2 he did not have it ready (Ellmann 158) 
When the Arizona docked in New York, the reporters where they are to catch his first
words. On his way through customs Wild pronounced, "I have nothing to declare, except my
genius." (Cevasco 15) Wilde was asked many questions by the press. He was unprepared for
his lecture as well as for answering the press's question so he didn't say much and what
he did say often was taken out of context. When he was asked about his voyage he
responded, "I am not exactly please with the Atlantic. It is not as majestic as I
expected. The sea seems tame to me. The roaring ocean does not roar."(Ellman 158) Report
launch had outstayed its time, but the reporters hung on to ask Wilde about his cultural
mission. When asked what was this aestheticism he had crossed the sea to promulgate, he
only laughed. But when asked on what is his politics? Mr. Wild responding, "Those matters
are of no interest to me, I know only two terms-civilization and barbarism, and I am on
the side of civilization"(Cevasco 15). Later on when he was asked to comment on
civilization in American, he said, "I believe the most serious problem for the American
people to consider is the cultivation of better manners. It is the most noticeable, the
most painful defect in American civilization"(Cevasco 16).
On January 5th, soon after Wilde arrived in New York, he attended a performance of
Gilbert and Sullivan's Patience, an operetta that satirized the aesthetic movement. The
main character in the play is a ridiculous young aesthete probably modeled on Wilde, and
apparently the first entrance of Bunthorne on this particular night caused a theater-wide
double take as eyes moved from the stage to Wild's box. Wild's carefully staged encounter
with this portrait of himself, his choice to openly confront this portrait and cause the
double take defined his task in America. By January 9 his lecture was written, typed, and
it was time for his first lecture. His lecture was titled "The Great Aesthete" which
rejected the social conception of the natural (Cevasco 16). Tickets were sold out,and
there was no way he could fail. His audience could now take stock of his attire, which
was not at all what he had been wearing to the receptions and was far more daring that
anything in the lecture. He wore velvet doublet, knee breeches which showed off his
well-turned legs and feet and silk stockings. The essay, which he read out, was in
contrast to his costume. What he said makes dull reading, as it consisted of paraphrase
of Russian and Pater, but his audiences were pleased with his platform delivery. They
preferred entertainment and Wild gave them what they wanted, if his words meant little he
still spoke with great authority and his enunciation was perfect (Ellman 164). Where his
words failed he wardrobe carried the message. The audience applauded warmly. Not all of
them please, some had been bored, but all recognized that they had been in the presence
of something unaccustomed (Ellman 165). In his trip to Boston sixty Harvard Students each
dressed in knee breeches and carrying a sunflower progressed into the lecture hall taking
front row seats. Wild was informed of this and appeared on the platform in evening dress
making the boys feeling very foolish. Capitalizing on the event he began his talk with a
remark that he was pleased to detect "certain signs of artistic movement in the lecture
hall." (Cevasco 16) Everyone laughed including those in the front row. 
After his lecture in Boston, he headed west and stopped to see the sights. But many of
the sights, he says, in America disappointed him. He made a remark on the Mississippi
River saying, "No well behaved river ought to act that way"(Cevasco 16). There again he
wasn't much impressed in the Niagara falls describing it as "simply a vast amount of
water going the wrong way and the falling over unnecessary rocks" think that everyone
agreed with him he added "Every American bride is taken there and the sight of the
stupendous waterfall must be one of the earliest if not the keenest disappointments in
American married life"(Cevasco 17). While at the Nigra fall he received a telegram from
the major of Griggsville asking "Will you lecture us on aesthetics?" Wilde replied by
saying, "Begin by changing the name of your town"(Cevasco 17). He was told that if he
went to visit Leadville in Denver the miners would sure to shoot him or his traveling
manager. Nothing the miners could do to his traveling manager, he replied would
intimidate him. Wild described the miners as "the best dressed men in America"(Cevasco
17). The miners took a liking to him. They went out and drank. The next day they took him
to the bottom of a mineshaft. Oscar reported afterwards "we sat down to a banquet, the
first course whiskey, the second whiskey, the third whiskey"(Cevasco 17. When they were
brought up they were near unconsciousness but Wilde continued to chat away as cordially
as though he were at a London Tea Party. From Denver he lectured in San Francisco then
headed east and south lecturing in New Orleans, Dallas, Galveston, Savannah and
Charleston. In over a ten-month period, he delivered almost one hundred lectures in
dozens of American cities. In New York, Boston, and Chicago he had been paid a thousand
dollars a lecture. Even smaller cities never paid less that two hundred. 
Before leaving, Whilde visited Whitman. On January 18, 1882 Wilde visited Whitman at
Whitman's brothers home in Camden, NJ. After Wilde explained that he and his friends at
Oxford carried Leave of Grass to read on their walks, the two poets sat down and shared a
bottle of elderberry wine. On the day of his departure reporters captured some of his
final words while in America "They say that when good Americans die they go to Paris" he
began "I would add that when bad Americans die they stay in America." Oscar Wilde
returned to Liverpool in 1883 to waiting reporter, he summed up his tours of America as
"One Long Expectoration." In need of a vacation after spending a few weeks in London he
went to Paris.
Wilde's lecture tour of America was an experience for Wilde as well as the Americans.
Both were inspired by new ideas and thoughts, which brought new life in the arts. Wilde
was a man of beauty and the Americas were in a state of needing some. The inspiration
that Wilde created gave them a new life. Though Wilde was not impressed of what America
had to offer he came home more talented and confident than ever before.
Bibliography
Cevasco, G.A. Oscar Wilde. Charlotteville, NY: SamHar Press, 1972.
Ellmann, Richard. Oscar Wilde. NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 1988.