Monday, August 25, 2008

explanation of the last days of the bluechina acolyte

I thought it would be interesting to explain my poem to you Since this poem is so to speak a collage of historical incidents I thought I'd give a little background info to clarify things for you. (khalas ba2a the label of nerd/weirdo has becomed permanently affixed to my head )! enjoy !


1-blue china acolyte : in his earliest days at college wilde is reported to have said "I find it harder and harder every day to live up to my blue china." hence blue china acolyte



2- "The heart was meant to be broken" if memory serves this came from 'an ideal husband" not very sure though

3-“cupping his Egyptian cigarette” once upon a time ,in the 19th century Egypt produced the world’s finest cigarettes and Wilde being the refined man he was delighted in them . He once said of cigarettes “A cigarette is the perfect type of a perfect pleasure. It is exquisite, and it leaves one unsatisfied. What more can one want?” also check out this extraordinary short story by Kate Chopin

4- “a mad boy with a rose petal mouth”: here of course I’m referring to Lord Alfred Douglas “Bosie” the cause of Wilde’s down fall ,one of the letters used in the trial against Wilde was written to Bosie and ran thus “Your sonnet is quite lovely, and it is a marvel that those red rose-leaf lips of yours should have been made no less for music of song than for the madness of kisses. Your slim gilt soul walks between passion and poetry. I know Hyacinthus, whom Apollo loved so madly, was you in Greek days”

5-“A sighing love”- this is from Lord Alfred Douglas’s infamous poem “two loves”

6- “childrens kisses” Wilde had two sons , Vivian and Cyril whom he adored And who inspired his exquisite children’s stories which were collected in “a house of pomegranates” the worst thing Wilde experienced was loss of the right to see his children after his release from Reading Gaol

7- Amber scented champagne – I took this from "De Profundis” the 90 page letter he wrote to lord Alfred whilst in prison

8-'Who never ate his bread in sorrow, Who never spent the midnight hours Weeping and waiting for the morrow, - He knows you not, ye heavenly powers.' This was written by Goethe and often quoted to Oscar by his mother Lady Jane Wilde

9- “The wanderer he became” after his release from prison Wilde spent the last three years of his life in L’hotel d’alsace in Paris. He went under the assumed name of Sebastian Melmoth, after the famously Saint Sebastian and the devilish central character of Wilde's great-uncle Charles Robert Maturin's gothic novel Melmoth the Wanderer.

10- “duelling with wallpaper
he or it had to go!” Just a month before his death Wilde is quoted as saying, "My wallpaper and I are fighting a duel to the death. One or other of us has got to go."

11-“a purple clad priest at his side” On his deathbed Wilde became a Catholic

12-“he had been killed
by the thing he loved
By each let this be heard
neither by sword nor kiss
but with a careless word”
This is an adaptation of Wildes famous poem ‘The Ballad of Reading Gaol”

8 comments:

Mohammad said...

WOW! u're a Wilde fanatic! his short stories were wonderful, but the plays were so very awful, at least if it 2 be read.

Hebe said...

yes ive been stuck on wilde ever since I read "a house of pomegranates" aged 11. it has been my only satisfactory love affair :) its too bad you don't like his plays (the early ones were rubbish I admit) but come on how can you not love "the importance of being earnest" its so wonderfully clever

Mohammad said...

I have 2 admit that I haven't read this one yet, still stuck on the 1st plays. so far I only read Lady Windermere's Fan and An Ideal Husband. what's ur favorite play?

Hebe said...

I meant his earliest plays like the Nihilists and The Duchess of Padua , personally I think an I deal husband is fab as a woman of no importance but of course the importance of being earnest is the crown jewel of wildean plays .

I'm assuming you mean my favorite play generally speaking and that my friend is a VERY difficult question since I have a lot of favorite plays.however I've read both " night of the iguana" and "a streetcar named desire" by Tennesee Williams a zillion times so possibly those two

Mohammad said...

so the plays in his complete works are not in order as I assumed.. how silly!

and u like the steercar named derise? that's one book I wanna read out loud! but I remember liking a play much more, arthur miller's a view from the bridge. did u read that?

and since u're well into classics? did u try reading Virginia Woolf?

one last question: what's ur favorite Wilde poem? I didn't read any yet but I wanna start with a nice one, since I'm not so well into poetry..

Hebe said...

yeah I read it bas I prefer "death of a salesman"
I've read almost everything by Virginnia Woolf, actually one of my top 10 books ever is Orlando , its just amazing.
as for wildes poetry i wouldnt recommend it unless you're deeply into greek/Roman mythology as its full of obscure refrences. but his simpler stuff like "her voice" and "symphony in yellow" w tab3an you must read " the Ballad of Reading Gaol"

Mohammad said...

Orlando! that's my most favorite book, and I think u're the 1st one I know to have even heard of it!

u beat me with the plays though, I didn't find the death of a salesman anywhere yet, and so haven't read it (i've read it in arabic long ago, but I don't account that as "reading it" if u know wt i mean)

thanks 4 the poems, and 4 ur tolerance also for my many questions :)

Osiris Kane said...

The Number 3 one, he didnt actually say..it was in his book, the picture of Dorian Gray, and if my memory still hasnt failed me, it was that guy in the beginning who took Dorian out to the places and the dinners...dont expect my memory to retain his name, regardless..he still said it, he still is in a league on his own..too bad he was a Homo...