Overview

1
Michael Foucault Oscar Wilde The sexual, the
loved and the repressed
2
Overview

• Foucault History of sexuality
• Repressive hypothesis
• Perverse Implantation
• Perspectives on sexuality before and after
• 19th C.
• Homosexuality/ Love marriage

3
Overview

• Oscar Wilde
• Life and trials of Oscar Wilde
• Wilde after the trial
• De Profundis Ballad of Reading Gaol

4
Michael Foucault History of Sexuality

• queer theory

5
Michael FocaultsHistory of Sexuality (Vol I)

• Historical analysis of sexuality
• Development of idea of Homo vs Hetero sexuality
• Marriage and love
• Main argument
• Points of argument

6
History of Sexuality

• Argument against common thesis that sexuality
  always has been repressed in Western society
• on the contrary
• Since 17th C.
• Fixation with sexuality
• discourse around it
• sexual minorities

7
Historical Analysis of Sexuality

• Historically
• sex in China, Japan, India and the Roman Empire-
  ars erotica-erotic art
• not seen as dirty or shameful
• something to be kept secret-only because to speak
  of it would lose its power and pleasure

8
Development of Homo vs Hetero sexuality (18th C)

• No such thing as homosexuals originally
• only the act
• extreme form of act against law
• hermaphrodites - criminals or crimes offspring

9
Development of Homo vs Hetero sexuality (18th C)

• Sexual practices governed by - customary
  regularities, Canonical law, Christian Pastoral,
  Civil law
• determined licit and illicit matrimonial
  relations
• Sodomy, rape, adultery - violations of rules of
  marriage - equal measures of condemnation
• intense focus on constraint of marriage
• sex of husband and wife beset by rules and
  recommendation
• marriage - under constant surveillance

10
Development of Homo vs Hetero sexuality (19th,
20th C)

• Homosexuality became a species
• The homosexual of the 19th Century became a
  person a past, a history and an adolescence, a
  personality, a lifestyle also a morphology, with
  an indiscreet anatomy and a possible mystical
  physiology. Nothing of his full personality
  escapes his sexuality. (p.43)
• condemned but listened to
• age of multiplication
• dispersion of sexuality

11
Development of Homo vs Hetero sexuality (19th,
20th C)

• Strengthening of their forms
• multiple implantation of perversions
• severity of law to sexual offences - diminished
• Law to Medicine
• Medicine - provided teaching and therapeutics

12
Development of Homo vs Hetero sexuality (19th,
20th C)

• Violation of marriage - 2 kinds
• 1. Against regularity of natural function e.g.
  sodomy
• 2. Against morality e.g. rape, adultery
• marriage seen by West as a way to govern sex
• legitimate couple - more discretion, stricter but
  quieter

13
Link to marriage and Love
14
Marriage

• New concepts of what a marriage would constitute
  arise
• new legal forms to accommodate homosexuals
• no longer for procreation
• more liberal

15
Love

• Despite constraints of Victorian period
• men freer in their attitudes and behaviour to one
  another
• Example

16
Oscar Wilde

• Friends did not believe he was homosexual
• Notion of the gay man before Wilde scandal?
• same sex relationships thought of with more
  suspicion
• love was liberalized

17
Main Argument

• Hypothesis Modern society is an age of increased
  sexual repression
• Conclusion Modern society - even if it creates
  power dependent on procedure of prohibition -
  causes proliferation of specific pleasure and
  multiplication of disparate sexualities

18

• Never have there existed more centers of power
  never more attention manifested and verbalized
  never more circular contacts and linkages never
  more sites where the intensity of pleasures and
  the persistency of power catch hold, only to
  spread elsewhere.

19
Main Argument

• Repressive hypothesis - It is the view that truth
  is repressed by a powerful force and that we can
  liberate ourselves by getting down to the truth.
• Perverse Implantation - It is the advancing and
  multiplying of a power specifically created to
  suppress the very vice that is its main support
  and reason for existence.

20
Points of Argument

• Form of power employed - repression of
  sexualities - did the opposite
• Function of powers - broken down to 4 points
  (p.41-46)

21
Points of Argument

• 1. Educators and Doctors
• parents and teachers alerted
• devices of surveillance
• inexhaustible and corrective discourses
• eliminate the vice - but did the opposite
• In appearance, we are dealing with a barrier
  system but in fact, all around the child,
  indefinite lines of penetration were disposed
  (p.42)

22
Points of Argument

• 2. Medicine
• new specification of individuals
• psychological, psychiatric, medical category of
  homosexuals - Natural order of disorder
• gave analytical, visible and permanent reality to
  homosexuals
• The strategy behind this dissemination was to
  strew reality with them and incorporate them into
  individuals (p.44)

23
Points of Argument

• 3. Power and Pleasure
• power demanded - constant, attentive and curious
  presence for its exercise
• medicalization of sexuality led to - physical
  proximity and intense sensation
• dramatized troubled moments, intensifying areas,
  scandalizing
• sensualization of power and gain of pleasure

24
Points of Argument

• 3. Power and Pleasure
• homosexuals - fixed by a gaze, isolated and
  animated by the attention
• These attractionstraced around bodies and
  sexes, not boundaries not to be crossed, but
  perpetual spirals of power and pleasure. (p.45)

25
Points of Argument

• 4. Devices of sexual saturation
• reduce sexuality to the couple
• forbidden desire
• Educational or psychiatric institutions and
  family - distributed interplay of power and
  pleasure
• less a principle of inhibition than an inciting
  and multiplying mechanism

26
Points of Argument

• Modern society as being in actual fact
  perverse (p.47)
• the type of power employed to bear on the body
  and on sex
• encouraged multiplication of singular sexualities
  - and not repress them
• Hypocrisy

27
Points of Argument

• It did not set boundaries for sexuality it
  extended the various forms of sexuality..it did
  not exclude sexuality, but included it in the
  body as a mode of specification of individuals.
  It did not seek to avoid it it attracted its
  varieties by means ofpleasure and power. It did
  not set up a barrier it provided places of
  maximum saturation... (p.47)

28
The Life and Trialsof Oscar Wilde
29
A Wilde Life
30
A Wilde Life

• Born 1854 to well-known surgeon father, writer
  mother
• Studied at Trinity College, Dublin
• Oxford
• 1883-84 Engaged and married
• Constance Lloyd
• 1885-86 Sons Cyril and Vyvyan born

31
Dear and Beloved,Here am I, and you at the
Antipodes. O our souls are one.What can I tell
you by letter? indeed your bodily presence here
would not make you more real for I feel your
fingers in my hair, and your cheek brushing mine.
The air is full of the music of your voice my
soul and body seem no longer mine, but mingled in
some strange exquisite ecstacy with yours. I feel
incomplete without you. Ever and ever
yours,OSCAR.
32
Tuesday, 3 March 1891Hotel de l'Athenee, Paris
My dearest Cyril,I send you a letter to tell
you that I am much better. I go every day and
drive in a beautiful forest called the Bois de
Boulogne, and in the evening I dine with my
friend Tonight I go to visit a great poet, who
has given me a wonderful book about a Raven. I
will bring you and Vyvyan back some chocolates
when I return. I hope you are taking great care
of dear Mamma. Give her my love and kisses, and
also love and kisses to Vyvyan and
yourself. Your loving Papa,Oscar Wilde
33
A Wilde Life

• First play, 1892 Lady Windermeres Fan
• 1892 Salome banned by Lord Chamberlain
• 1895 Masterpiece The Importance of
• Being Earnest

34
A Wilde Life

• 1892 1st night of Lady Windermere's Fan Wilde
  introduced to
• Lord Alfred Douglas
• nicknamed "Bosie
• (video)

35

• Bobby,Bosie has insisted on dropping here for
  sandwiches. He is quite like a narcissus -- so
  white and gold. I will either come Wednesday or
  Thursday night to your rooms. Send me a line.
  Bosie is so tired he lies like a hyacinth on the
  sofa, and I worship him.
• Yours, OSCAR.

Letter to Robert Ross, May 1892
36
A Wilde Life

• Relationship infuriated Marquess of Queesnbury,
  Douglas father

Letter from the Marquess of Queensberry to Lord
Alfred Douglas, 1 April 1894 (video)
37
WHAT A FUNNY LITTLE MAN YOU ARE. Telegram from
Lord Alfred Douglas to the Marquess of
Queensberry, 2 April 1894
38
The downfall
For Oscar Wilde, posing as a somdomite

• This card was left by Queensberry at Wilde's club
  in Feb, 1895.
• Wilde decided to sue Queensberry for libel

39
The libel trial

• Defense
• 10 names of boys Wilde solicited
• Letters to Bosie
• Wilde
• You sting me and insult me and try to unnerve me
  and at times one says things flippantly when one
  ought to speak more seriously. I admit it
• Wilde lost and arrested

40
Wilde on Trial

• 2 trials
• 1st trial hung jury
• 2nd trial guilty
• "People who can do these things must be dead to
  all sense of shame... It is the worst case I have
  ever tried.... I shall, under such circumstances,
  be expected to pass the severest sentence that
  the law allows. In my judgement it is totally
  inadequate for such a case as this. The sentence
  of the Court is that... you be imprisoned and
  kept to hard labour for two years."

41
(No Transcript)
42
Wilde in Prison

• Pentoville ? Wandsworth
• Reading Gaol
• De Profundis

43
Life after Reading

• 1897 released, bankrupt
• Went immediately to France
• Constance already left country with children,
  changing family name
• Hope Wilde would give up Bosie
• Sent De Profundis to Bosie
• But reunited

44

• "I feel that my only hope of again doing
  beautiful work in art is being with you. Everyone
  is furious with me for going back to you, but
  they don't understand us. I feel that it is only
  with you that I can do anything at all. Do remake
  my ruined life for me, and then our friendship
  and love will have a different meaning to the
  world."- Oscar Wilde(following his release
  from prison)

45
Life after Reading

• Adopted name Sebastian Melmoth
• Wrote The Ballad of Reading Gaol 1898
• Died 30th Nov 1900, Paris

• Somehow I dont think that I shall live to see
  the new century. If another century begin and I
  was still alive, it would really be more than the
  English could stand.

46
And alien tears will fill for him Pitys long
broken urn For his mourners will be outcast
men And outcasts always mourn
47
The Dead Poet

• I dreamed of him last night, I saw his faceAll
  radiant and unshadowed of distress,And as of
  old, in music measureless,I heard his golden
  voice and marked him traceUnder the common thing
  the hidden grace,And conjure wonder out of
  emptinessTill mean things put on beauty like a
  dressAnd all the world was an enchanted
  place.And then methought outside a fast locked
  gateI mourned the loss of unrecorded
  words,Forgotten tales and mysteries half
  said,Wonders that might have been
  articulate,And voiceless thoughts like murdered
  singing birds.And so I woke and knew he was
  dead.-Lord Alfred Douglas(written about Oscar
  Wilde the year after his death)

48
Wilde and Family

• Devoted to wife and children
• Constance sympathetic
• Wilde did not abandon family
• Imprisoned
• Separation from children was a major blow
• video

49
Wilde and his Sexuality

• Not a professional homosexual
• Men could be much more affectionate without
  causing suspicion
• many of Wildes friends did not believe that he
  was homosexual until he actually told them that
  he was

50
Wilde and his Sexuality

• Foucault stereotyping of sexuality began in 19th
  C.
• Wilde scandal illustrated the stereotype for
  Victorian society
• Everything about Wilde could now play as evidence
  of his so-called vice
• Sexuality Wildes entire identity
• Not just his identity as somdomite

51
Wilde and his Sexuality

• Acceptance into the catholic church before death
• Acceptance of society of Wilde after his death,
• his monument.
• Foucault the sodomite had been a temporary
  aberration the homosexual was now a species
• Continual love for Bosie vs Foucault
• a kind of interior androgyny, a hermophrodism of
  the soul
• less a type of sexual relations than by a
  certain quality of sexual sensibility, a certain
  way of inverting the masculine and feminine in
  oneself

52
De Profundis

• Letters written to Bosie while in prison
• Published in 1905
• Filled with recriminations against the younger
  man
• de profundis latin phrase taken from the Holy
  Bible

53
De Profundis

• The Holy Bible, Psalm 130
• De profundis clamavi ad te,
• Domine Domine, exaudi vocem meam.
• Fiant aures tuae intendentes
• In vocem deprecationis meae.
• Si iniquites observaveris,
• Domine, Domine, quis sustinebit?
• Quia apud te propitiatio est
• et propter legem tuam sustinui te, Domine.

54
De Profundis

• Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord
• Lord, hear my voice.
• Let your ears be attentive
• to the voice of my supplication.
• If you should remember sins, O Lord
• Lord, who could bear it?
• But with you is forgiveness,
• that you may be served with reverence.
• I hope in the Lord.

55
De Profundis

• Personal reflections of a homosexual relationship
  made public
• Proof to the Victorian public tt homosexuality is
  not just an act of sodomy
• involves day to day interactions and activities
• involves the commitment of the mind and soul
• homosexual is now a species (Foucault)

56
De Profundis

• Pg 152
• Peversity became to me in the sphere of passion
• Desire, at the end, was a malady, or madness, or
  both.
• Wilde admitting that his sexuality is perverse?
• Perversity ? Passion ? Malady/Madness?
• Foucault
• 19th C. homosexual a morphology anatomy and
  mysterious physiology

57
The Ballad of Reading Gaol

• Classification of the 19th century British
  society
• Murder in ballad and homosexuality in Wildes
  life
• selective punishment in the 19th century for
  selective crimes of the same breed

58
The Ballad of Reading Gaol

• Law and Order
• ordained by men and not other superior authority
  like God.
• classified largely in the lines of Medicine and
  Science as that is the wave that seized the 19th
  century British society.
• based on productivity thus promoting a sexuality
  that is economically useful and politically
  conservative.

59
The Ballad of Reading Gaol

• The man had killed the thing he loved,
• And so he had to die
• vs
• For each man kills the thing he loves,
• Yet each man does not die

• INJUSTICE
• societal criminals vs non-social criminals

60
The Ballad of Reading Gaol

• For Oak and elm have pleasant leaves
• That in the spring-time shoot
• But grim to see is the gallows-tree,
• With its adder-bitten root,
• And, green or dry, a man must die
•  Before it bears its fruit!

• Adheres a strong commitment to God.
• Believes that just punishment not meted out on
  earth will be meted out in heaven.
• Nature and Society

61
The Ballad of Reading Gaol

• Like two doomed ships that pass in storm
• We had crossed each others way
• But we made no sign, we said no word,
• We had no word to say
• For we did not meet in the holy night,
• But in the shameful day

• Relationship as decreed in the 19th century
  British society
• How they could have worked around society

62

• There is no chapel on the day
• On which they hang a man
• The Chaplains heart is far too sick,
• Or his face fat too wan,
• Or there is that written in his eyes
• Which none should look upon.
•  
• They think a murderers heart would taint
• Each simple seed they sow
• It is not true! Gods kindly earth
• Is kindlier than men know,
• And the red rose would but glow more red,
• The white rose whiter blow.
•  
• But Gods eternal Laws are kind
• And break the heart of stone

• fighting against individual attitude.
• Societal condemnation of a person
• the incapability of a single man to judge another
  as every one makes mistakes
• Holy Bible whoever did not sin may cast the
  first stone.
• big accusation to mens jurisdicial system.
• Opposite to all rules of religion.

63
The New RemorseOscar Wilde, 1891(written for
Lord Alfred Douglas)The Sin was mine I did not
understand.So now is music prisoned in her
cave,Save where some ebbing desultory waveFrets
with its restless whirls this meagre strand.And
in the withered hollow of this landHath Summer
dug herself so deep a grave,That hardley can the
leaden willow craveOne silver blossom from keen
Winter's hand.But who is this who cometh by the
shore?(Nay, love, look up and wonder!) Who is
thisWho cometh in dyed garments from the
South?It is they new-found Lord, and he shall
kissThe yet unravished roses of thy mouth,And I
shall weep and worship, as before
64
Banished into the Wilde

• and I am quite conscious of the fact that when
  the end does come I shall return as an unwelcome
  visitant to a world that does not want me.
• Acknowledgement of rejection by society

65
The Ballad of Reading Gaol

• For where a grave had opened wide,
• There was no grave at all
• Only a stretch of mud and sand
• By the hideous prison-wall,
• And a little heap of burning lime,
• That the man should have his pall.
•  
• For he has a pall, this wretched man,
• Such as few men can claim
• Deep down below a prison-yard,
• Naked, for greater shame,
• He lies, with fetters on each foot,
• Wrapt in a sheet of flame

• Forgiveness of crime by society not obtained in
  death even.
• But as in Foucault, this changes.
• In Wildes death the views of society changed
  for his grave to be monumented.

66
Love that dare not speak its name

• Sweet youth, Tell me why, sad and sighing,
  thou dost rove These pleasant realms? I pray
  thee speak me sooth What is thy name?' He said,
  'My name is Love.' Then straight the first did
  turn himself to me And cried, 'He lieth, for his
  name is Shame, But I am Love, and I was wont to
  be Alone in this fair garden, till he came
  Unasked by night I am true Love, I fill The
  hearts of boy and girl with mutual flame.' Then
  sighing said the other, 'Have thy will, I am the
  Love that dare not speak its name.'
• End of Poem Two Loves by Bosie
• Standard reference for gay love in 20th century