De Profundis

Di Oscar Wilde

De Profundis e una lunga lettera che Oscar Wilde scrisse, dopo essere stato processato per omosessualita, al suo compagno, Alfred Douglas, proprio durante il periodo della carcerazione.

• Lingua: Italiano
• Editore: Booklassic
• Data di uscita: 29 giu 2015
• ISBN: 9789635268801

Oscar Wilde

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) was a Dublin-born poet and playwright who studied at the Portora Royal School, before attending Trinity College and Magdalen College, Oxford. The son of two writers, Wilde grew up in an intellectual environment. As a young man, his poetry appeared in various periodicals including Dublin University Magazine. In 1881, he published his first book Poems, an expansive collection of his earlier works. His only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, was released in 1890 followed by the acclaimed plays Lady Windermere’s Fan (1893) and The Importance of Being Earnest (1895).

Anteprima del libro

978-963-526-880-1

PREFAZIONE DELL'EDITORE

Oscar Fingal O' Flahertie Wills Wilde nacque a Dublino il 16 ottobre 1854. Suo padre, William, era un celebre chirurgo e letterato, uomo di carattere leggero. Sua madre, nata Elgée, era anch'essa letterata e parente di Carlo R. Mathurin, autore del romanzo «Melmoth the Wanderer». Il fratello maggiore di Wilde, William, fece il giornalista a Londra e morì nel 1899; la sorella minore, Isola, morì bambina e inspirò con la sua morte a Oscar la poesia «Requiescat».

Il salotto di Casa Wilde era brillante e frequentato da persone eminenti. Lady Wilde, profonda conoscitrice di greco e di latino, collaborava col pseudonimo di «Speranza» in un giornale rivoluzionario nel quale trattava con efficacia le questioni dell'irredentismo Irlandese.

Gli anni dell'infanzia di Wilde passarono così in un ambiente denso di studi, di dotte conversazioni, di ricerche archeologiche eseguite dal padre in continue visite alle rovine di antichi monumenti dell'Irlanda.

A 11 anni, nel 1865, Wilde entrò nella Portora Royal School di Enniskillen. Seguì i corsi con buoni risultati, ma fu sempre ribelle alle matematiche.

La passione della lettura si rivelò fortissima in lui, preparando fin dai giovani anni la base formidabile della sua coltura specialmente classica.

A 19 anni, nel 1873, entrò all'Università di Dublino, al Trinity College. Nel 1874 ottenne la medaglia d'oro Berkeley per uno studio sui poeti comici greci. Nello stesso anno passò all'Università di Oxford, al Magdelein College. Nel 1876 ebbe il certificato di prima classe nelle Literae humaniores. Nel 1877 fece in Italia e in Grecia un viaggio che lasciò profonda influenza sull'arte sua. Nel 1878 vinse il famoso premio Newdigate per il poema «Ravenna». Nello stesso anno lasciò Oxford col diploma di bachelor of arts. Venne a Londra, dove la sua fama cominciò presto a diffondersi.

Nel 1880 pubblicò i suoi lavori giovanili sotto il titolo: «Poems by Oscar Wilde». Il successo fu grandissimo: si vendettero subito cinque edizioni. Nel 1882 fu invitato in America dove tenne molte conferenze sull'arte, a Boston, a New York, a Chicago. I suoi poemi uscirono in edizione americana. Tornò a Parigi dove terminò il dramma «La duchessa di Padova» che fu rappresentato subito a New York ma fu pubblicato nel 1908. Nel 1883 tornò in America per la rappresentazione del suo dramma «Vera». Andò poi a Parigi dove lavorò al poema «La Sfinge» che scrisse in varie riprese e pubblicò nel 1884. Tornò in Inghilterra per tenere una serie di conferenze in provincia. Il 29 Maggio 1884 sposò Miss Constance Mary Lloyd, figlia di un avvocato di Dublino, bella, buona, ricca. Abitò in Chelsea, Tite Street 16, dove rimase fino al 1895. La sua casa, arredata con ricchissimi mobili, piena di oggetti di gusto squisito, fu celebre a Londra.

Collaborava allora come critico letterario nella Pall Mall Gazette e scriveva articoli sul Teatro nella Revue dramatique. Diresse poi dal 1887 al 1889 il periodico The Woman's World.

Nel 1885 sulla Nineteenth Century apparve il saggio «Shakespeare e i costumi teatrali» che fu poi intitolato «La verità delle maschere». Nel 1885 gli nacque un figlio: Cirillo, e un altro, Viviano, gli nacque nel 1886. In questo anno Wilde, sempre più avido di bellezza e di nuove sensazioni, cominciò la fatale discesa nel vizio che doveva portarlo alla prigione. Nel 1887 pubblicò «Il delitto di Lord Savile», «Il modello milionario», «Il principe felice e altri racconti». In questo anno, trentaquattresimo della sua vita, la fama di Wilde è universale. La potenza del suo ingegno gli procura onori e gloria; la coscienza di questa potenza, manifestata continuamente con atteggiamenti originali gli procura molti amici ma anche molti nemici. In cerca sempre di nuove sensazioni diventò indifferente alle conquiste femminili che prima lo avevano tanto occupato, e scivolò in complicazioni in pieno contrasto con la morale vigente.

I suoi guadagni che subito diventarono altissimi gli permettevano una vita estremamente lussuosa e stravagante. Non è il caso qui di riferire i numerosi aneddoti della sua vita.

Nel 1889 pubblicò «Il ritratto del signor W. H.» sul Blackwood's Magazine; «Penna matita e veleno» sulla Fortnightly Review; «La decadenza del mentire» sulla Nineteenth Century. Su questa ultima rivista uscì nel 1890 «Il critico considerato come artista» e nello stesso anno «Il ritratto di Dorian Gray» sul Lippincott's Magazine. Nel 1891 pubblicò sulla Fortnightly Review la prefazione al «Ritratto di Dorian Gray» per rispondere a coloro che ritenevano immorale il suo romanzo. Subito dopo apparve in volume «Il ritratto di Dorian Gray», con l'aggiunta di sette capitoli.

Nel 1891 inoltre pubblicò «La casa dei melograni» e riunì in volume col titolo di «Intenzioni» i saggi: «La decadenza del mentire», «Penna, matita e veleno», «Il critico considerato come artista», ai quali aggiunse il nuovo saggio «La verità delle maschere». Pubblicò sulla Fortnightly Review «L'anima dell'uomo sotto il socialismo», e poi «L'amabile arte di farsi dei nemici», e a Parigi, dove continuamente si recava, scrisse in francese la tragedia in un atto «Salome» pubblicata poi nel 1893. Nel 1892 «Salome» doveva essere rappresentata a Londra da Sara Bernhardt, ma la censura inglese ne proibì l'esecuzione. Il 20 febbraio 1892 fu rappresentata a Londra la commedia «Il ventaglio di Lady Windermere», il 19 aprile 1893 «Una donna di poco conto», il 3 Gennaio 1895 «Un marito ideale», il 14 Febbraio 1895 «L'importanza di esser Fedele», e poi «Una tragedia fiorentina».

Intanto la sua notorietà non gli aveva permesso di tenere nascosti i suoi vizi. Nel 1895 non solo perdette il processo di diffamazione ch'egli aveva intentato al marchese di Queensbury, ma fu arrestato sotto un'imputazione più grave. Ebbe la libertà provvisoria perchè i giudici non erano concordi nel giudizio. Gli amici speravano ch'egli fuggisse dall'Inghilterra. Invece rimase, subì il processo e fu condannato a due anni di prigione per perversione sessuale. Entrò nel carcere di Reading il 25 maggio 1895. L'uomo di genio diventò agli occhi di tutti un uomo esecrando. L'artista meraviglioso fu dimenticato. Il suo nome fu sinonimo di obbrobrio. La sua ricchissima raccolta di mobili e di oggetti d'arte andò dispersa all'asta. Molti suoi libri furono bruciati. Le rappresentazioni dei suoi drammi furono proibite.

Verso la fine della prigionia scrisse la lettera da dove fu poi tratto il «De Profundis», pubblicato nel 1905. Uscì dal carcere il 19 Maggio 1897. Non potè riprendere mai più l'attività letteraria di prima. L'artista era stato ucciso nell'uomo condannato in nome della morale comune.

Dopo la liberazione abitò a Berneval sur Mer vicino a Dieppe, dove cominciò «La Ballata del carcere di Reading» che continuò a Napoli. Tornò a Parigi, dove nel febbraio 1898 apparve in volume la ballata che aveva dapprima offerto a varii giornali senza poterla vendere. Scriveva sotto il pseudonimo di Sebastiano Melmoth. Due sue lettere sui maltrattamenti nelle prigioni furono pubblicate dal Daily Chronicle.

Nella primavera del 1900 andò a Roma dove fu attratto dalla bellezza e dalla ricchezza delle cerimonie religiose del Vaticano. Era tale il suo piacere nell'assistere alle meravigliose funzioni, che si presentò per sette volte alle udienze papali. In maggio tornò a Parigi. Pochi amici lo aiutarono. Passava il suo tempo nei caffè a bere, ridotto ormai a una larva. La sua volontà si estinse completamente e tornò fanciullo. Abitava all'Albergo di Alsazia al n. 13 della Rue des Beaux-Arts. Si ammalò di meningite, presa in seguito a un attacco di sifilide terziaria. Aveva continuamente l'emicrania. Il 10 ottobre subì un'operazione e parve ristabilirsi. Ma in Novembre peggiorò. Il 29 Novembre fu battezzato. Nel pomeriggio del 30 morì. Fu sepolto il 3 Dicembre al cimitero di Bagneux. Il 20 luglio 1909 i suoi resti furono trasportati al Père Lachaise.

* * *

È impossibile non esprimersi con parole di entusiasmo quando si parla dell'opera di Wilde. L'arte di Oscar Wilde ha raggiunto altezze vertiginose. Il suo astro ha brillato molto intensamente e gli uomini non l'hanno potuto fissare. Ma una nube nera si è interposta e tutti si sono sentiti in diritto di giudicare e disprezzare l'uomo e l'artista. Purtroppo i suoi contemporanei inglesi non compresero la sua arte nè la sua vita. Wilde ha messo il suo genio nella sua vita. Anzi egli stesso disse che la sua vita era la sua opera d'arte. Questa frase che lo doveva assolvere lo fece condannare.

Ma la nube nera è sparita e l'astro brillerà per molto e molto tempo ancora.

Wilde ha scritto non tanto per i suoi contemporanei quanto per i posteri. Egli ci ha detto delle cose la cui bellezza sarà analizzata un po' per volta; ha lasciato profumi fortemente concentrati che dureranno nel tempo e piaceranno sempre. Tutti i letterati dal '90 ad oggi hanno attinto all'opera di Wilde; tutti attingeranno anche in seguito. Molte cose scritte da Wilde furono da lui copiate; ma il suo genio gli permetteva di dare la sua impronta a tutto. Anche alle cose inverosimili e senza senso dette bellezza. Spettatore della sua stessa vita, riconobbe la propria potenza e si educò e migliorò. Godeva egli stesso della propria creazione libera, senza impacci di scuole, di norme, di tradizioni.

Recensioni su De Profundis

[gbill_7 · Valutazione: 4 su 5 stelle]

The end of Oscar Wilde’s life was so sad it makes me shiver to think about. The world was his oyster, and he was a highly successful playwright and wit at the height of his powers when he was convicted of “gross indecency”, and then sentenced to two years in prison. Humiliated, jeered at by crowds, not allowed to read or write for portions of his imprisonment, scrubbing floors and performing other menial tasks so ridiculously beneath such a brilliant, eloquent mind, losing his children as well as a lot of weight, suffering injuries that would later contribute to his early death, and becoming a pauper – all for essentially being gay. How appropriate to have bought this book in Dublin after seeing the Pride parade march through the streets there. Never again, and always remember.De Profundis, or, ‘From the Depths’, is a long letter Wilde was allowed to write but not send to his lover, Lord Alfred Douglas, towards the end of his imprisonment. When he was released in 1897 he gave the letter to Robert Ross, instructing him to give it to Douglas, which may or may not have ever happened. Over the objections of the families on both sides, Wilde did meet Douglas again for short intervals in France and Italy, but died a few years afterwards in 1900, disgraced and impoverished. The letter was then published posthumously five years later.There is a pervasive feeling of overwhelming sadness in De Profundis, as well as Wilde’s attempts to come to terms with the absurdity and cruelty of it all. Prison was so damaging to his sensitive, artistic soul, and yet he tried to make sense of it, find meaning, and become a better person for having been there. His words flow so beautifully, and while the content at times was not all that interesting, such as the Christian themes and likening Christ to an artist, one cannot help but feel sadness for the condition he was in, and the tragedy of his life and career being cut short so senselessly.Unfortunately, while finding the first edition from 1905 was very cool, it came with a significant drawback, for when the book was first published, large portions of the letter were suppressed – in particular, Wilde’s recounting of his personal time with Douglas, and everything that led up to his arrest – and it’s worse for it, losing the ‘feel’ of a letter and the stories from his life. Gone are the passion and myriad feelings towards Douglas, who had influenced Wilde into a playboy lifestyle and then encouraged him to sue his father for libel, which of course ended in the disastrous U-turn of events and Wilde’s own arrest. It’s for this reason I knock down the review score a bit, though it may be a bit unfair, not having the full text which appeared in later editions.Quotes:On beauty:“…merely to look at the world will be always lovely. I tremble with pleasure when I think that on the very day of my leaving prison both the laburnum and the lilac will be blooming in the gardens, and that I shall see the wind stir into restless beauty the swaying gold of the one, and make the other toss the pale purple of its plumes so that all the air shall be Arabia for me.”On prison, and the charity of the poor:“The poor are wise, more charitable, more kind, more sensitive than we are. In their eyes, prison is a tragedy in a man’s life, a misfortune, a casualty, something that calls for sympathy in others. They speak of one who is in prison as of one who is ‘in trouble’ simply. It is the phrase they always use, and the expression has the perfect wisdom of love in it. With people of our own rank it is different. With us, prison makes a man a pariah. I, and such as I am, have hardly any right to air and sun. Our presence taints the pleasures of others. We are unwelcome when we reappear. To revisit the glimpses of the moon is not for us. Our very children are taken away. Those lovely links with humanity are broken. We are doomed to be solitary, while our sons still live. We are denied the one thing that might heal us and keep us, that might bring balm to the bruised heart, and peace to the soul in pain…”On regret:“The gods had given me almost everything. But I let myself be lured into long spells of senseless and sensual ease. I amused myself with being a flaneur, a dandy, a man of fashion. I surrounded myself with the smaller natures and the meaner minds. I became the spendthrift of my own genius, and to waste an eternal youth gave me a curious joy. Tired of being on the heights, I deliberately went to the depths in the search for new sensation. What the paradox was to me in the sphere of thought, perversity became to me in the sphere of passion. Desire, at the end, was a malady, or a madness, or both. I grew careless of the lives of others.”On the other hand: (love the poetry in this one)“I don’t regret for a single moment having lived for pleasure. I did it to the full, as one should do everything that one does. There was no pleasure I did not experience. I threw the pearl of my soul into a cup of wine. I went down the primrose path to the sound of flutes. I lived on honeycomb.”Lastly, on solitude, this at the book’s end:“Society, as we have constituted it, will have no place for me, has none to offer; but Nature, whose sweet rains fall on unjust and just alike, will have clefts in the rocks where I may hide, and secret valleys in whose silence I may weep undisturbed. She will hang the night with stars so that I may walk abroad in the darkness without stumbling, and send the wind over my footprints so that none may track me to my hurt: she will cleanse me in great waters, and with bitter herbs make me whole.”

[cjyurkanin · Valutazione: 5 su 5 stelle]

Beautiful, fascinating, poetic, and heartbreaking, Wilde becomes the “spectator of his own tragedy” in De Profundis and attempts a sort of mystical Confiteor to make sense of the suffering of his soul.

When first I was put into prison some people advised me to try and forget who I was. It was ruinous advice. It is only by realizing what I am that I have found comfort of any kind. Now I am advised by others to try on my release to forget that I have ever been in a prison at all. I know that would be equally fatal. It would mean that I would be always haunted by an intolerable sense of disgrace, and that those things that are meant as much for me as for anyone else -- the beauty of the sun and moon, the pageant of the seasons, the music of daybreak and the silence of great nights, the rain falling through the leaves, or the dew creeping over the grass and making it silver -- would all be tainted for me, and lose their healing power and their power of communicating joy. To reject one's own experiences is to arrest one's own development. To deny one's own experiences is to put a lie into the lips of one's own life. It is no less than a denial of the Soul."

There are so many great reviews of this here on GR that I'll just add an aspect that I think hasn't been touched upon. Wilde’s meditations on his pre-prison life were colored by the reading he undertook while in prison: the Bible, Dante, Saint Augustine, and Cardinal Newman among others. However, it was still his situational antinomianism upon which he filtered his philosophy even as he found in himself parallels with the prodigal son:

Of course the sinner must repent. But why? Simply because otherwise he would be unable to realize what he had done. The moment of repentance is the moment of initiation. More than that. It is the means by which one alters one's past. The Greeks thought that impossible. They often say in their gnomic aphorisms "Even the Gods cannot alter the past." Christ showed that the commonest sinner could do it. That it was the one thing he could do. Christ, had he been asked, would have said — I feel quite certain about it — that the moment the prodigal son fell on his knees and wept he really made his having wasted his substance with harlots, and then kept swine and hungered for the husks they ate, beautiful and holy incidents in his life. It is difficult for most people to grasp the idea. I dare say one has to go to prison to understand it. If so, it may be worthwhile going to prison.

Wilde puts the past transgressions (despite what you/I/we see today as transgressions) of the prodigal son into the category of “beautiful and holy things” rather than the effect that later resulted from them, thus making the evil things good rather than accepting that God may bring good from evil. He’s justified his own actions as necessary for the remaking of the man he thought he was become.

It is tempting to see him as a new man born from his catastrophe but the short, mostly depressed and alcohol-soaked life of poverty he lived afterward was not exemplary of someone on the road to wisdom or salvation. Instead, it seems he'd become even more mired in "the depths" from which he thought he was rising. However, that detracts nothing from him being one of the masters of the English language.

[wonderperson · Valutazione: 5 su 5 stelle]

Very moving account of his emotional state in Prison.

[thereshegoes_1 · Valutazione: 4 su 5 stelle]

"Love does not traffic in a marketplace, nor use a huckster's scales. Its joy, like the joy of the intellect, is to feel itself alive. The aim of Love is to love: no more, and no less. You were my enemy: such an enemy as no man ever had. I had given you all my life, and to gratify the lowest and most contemptible of all human passions, hatred and vanity and greed, you had thrown it away. In less than three years you had entirely ruined me in every point of view. For my own sake there was nothing for me to do but to love you."This is another book that I wish I could have given 3½ star to because I'm not sure whether to give it a 3 or a 4. De Profundis is the 50 000-word letter (yes, imagine writing that by hand with ink.) that Oscar Wilde wrote to his lover Lord Alfred Douglas, whilst in prison. Some say it is a love letter, other says it is not. It's not the relationship between them that makes the "love letter or not" debatable - because there is no denying that Wilde loved Douglas - it's the fact that most of the time, Wilde portrays Douglas as a - how should I put this - douchebag. The letter begins with a very detailed account of how Wilde was put into prison in the first place. He describes detailed and with his own words the moments between him and Douglas and everything that lead to to the trial. I thought this part was the most interesting. I'm not that fond of autobiographies and memoirs but I've always been interested in Oscar Wilde (or anything else LGTB-related for that matter) and hearing Wilde put everything into his own words and describing, to Douglas, how he was to blame for the misery and downfall of Wilde, and still loving the man, was very fascinating. Like always, his language is beautiful and there are lots of wit and aphorism. He writes about how much he loved Douglas and the things he had done for him yet at the same time, condemns him for behaving so selfish and rude. What makes me hesitate about giving it a four star instead of a three is the middle part of the letter when Wilde all of the sudden goes into deep contemplation and comparison between religion, Christ and artists. I find religion interesting too but those pages were simply put, boring. The third half of the book becomes better however when he goes back to talk about Douglas actions and the philosophy of life. It's filled with emotions and you can tell that there is a lot of misery, sorrow and grief. One of my favourite passages that describe the sorrow very well and at the same time shows the beauty is this: "Of course to one so modern as I am, `Enfant de mon siècle,’ merely to look at the world will be always lovely. I tremble with pleasure when I think that on the very day of my leaving prison both the laburnum and the lilac will be blooming in the gardens, and that I shall see the wind stir into restless beauty the swaying gold of the one, and make the other toss the pale purple of its plumes, so that all the air shall be Arabia for me. Linnaeus fell on his knees and wept for joy when he saw for the first time the long heath of some English upland made yellow with the tawny aromatic brooms of the common furze; and I know that for me, to whom flowers are part of desire, there are tears waiting in the petals of some rose. It has always been so with me from my boyhood. There is not a single colour hidden away in the chalice of a flower, or the curve of a shell, to which, by some subtle sympathy with the very soul of things, my nature does not answer. Like Gautier, I have always been one of those ‘pour qui le monde visible existe.’"I was planning on continuing this review but now I am left speechless again and I think I will, after all, give this a four star. Here are several memorable quotes however to read and admire.Memorable Quotes"I made art a philosophy, and philosophy an art: I altered the minds of men, and the colour of things: I awoke the imagination of my century so that it created myth and legend around me: I summed up all things in a phrase, all existence in an epigram: whatever I touched I made beautiful.""To regret one's own experiences is to arrest one's own development. To deny one's own experiences is to put a lie into the lips of one's own life. It is no less than a denial of the soul.""Most people are other people. Their thoughts are some one else’s opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation. ""We are the zanies of sorrow. We are clowns whose hearts are broken.""There is no room for Love and Hate in the same soul. They cannot live together in that fair cavern house. Love is fed by imagination, by which we become wiser than we know, better than we feel, nobler than we are: by which we can see Life as a whole: by which, and by which alone, we can understand others in their real as in their ideal relations. Only what is fine, and finely conceived, can feel Love. But anything will feed Hate.""After my terrible sentence, when the prison dress was on me, and the prison house closed, I sat amidst the ruins of my wonderful life, crushed by anguish, bewildered with terror, dazed through pain. But I would not hate you. Every day I said to myself: 'I must keep love in my heart today, else how shall I live through the day?'""The most terrible thing about it is not that it breaks one's heart — hearts are made to be broken — but that it turns one's heart to stone.""Suffering is one very long moment. We cannot divide it by seasons. We can only record its moods, and chronicle their return. With us time itself does not progress. It revolves. It seems to circle round one centre of pain.""Morality did not help me. I am one of those who are made for exceptions, not for laws. But while I see that there is nothing wrong in what one does, I see that there is something wrong in what one becomes."

[heatherheartsbooks · Valutazione: 4 su 5 stelle]

A moving, angry love letter. I recommend this second only to The Picture of Dorian Gray to people who aren't familiar with Wilde's work. Even then, it's a very close second. Beautiful. My copy is a hardcover from approx. 1910. The "unabridged" version wasn't available until approx. 1960.