Searching for the soul of the city
CityPoem 55 - Dublin (6)
By Hans Karssenberg
11-06-2007 /views: 2897 in past 12 months.
“Only dull people are brilliant at breakfast”
Photo: Ebby
Dublin is writer’s city. Bloom’s day, that this Dublin Week leads up to, is the day of James Joyce. But Oscar Wilde is present in the current streetscape of the city too. He is honoured across 1 Merrion Square, where he lived from 1855 to 1876, with a great statue showing Wilde arrogantly lying on a rock of granite, surrounded by his epigrams and quips.
Photo: Yakanama
Dublin CityPoem: ode to Oscar Wilde
Oscar Wilde lounges arrogantly on a stone in Merrion Square, facing the house he occupied with his parents, just opposite, on the corner of Upper Merrion Street and North Merrion Square, at One, Merrion Square. Wilde lived here from 1855 to 1876.
Short stone pillars near the statue are engraved with various Wildean epigrams and quips. The statue, commissioned by Guinness and unveiled in 1997, was created by sculptor Danny Osborne. Its colours are of the natural stone from which it is carved.
Merrion Square (Cearnóg Mhuirfean in Irish) is situated on the south side of Dublin city centre and is considered one of the city's finest Georgian squares. The square was laid out between 1762 and 1764.
The park in the square is properly known as Archbishop Ryan Park. The land was a gift from the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Dublin, Dermot Ryan, to the city of Dublin. Now managed by Dublin City Council, it contains the statue of Oscar Wilde.
Epigrams and quips by Oscar Wilde
“There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about”
Photo: Infomatuque Photo: Ebby
“Literature always anticipates life. It does not copy it, but moulds it to its purpose.”
“Man is only least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask and he will tell you the truth.”
Photo: Ktylerconk
“Only dull people are brilliant at breakfast”
Photo: Infomatique
“I drink to keep body and soul apart”
“I always pass on good advice. It is the only thing to do with it. It is never any use to oneself”
“For he who lives more lives than one more deaths must die”
“A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it”
Photo: Infomatique
“Who, being loved, is poor?”
“We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars”
“Wickedness is a myth invented by good people to account for the curious attraction of others.”
“Experience is the name everyone gives to his mistakes”
“I can resist everything except temptation”
“This suspense is terrible. I hope it will last”
Photo: Infomatique
“Being natural is simply a pose”
Photo: Infomatique
About the author
Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde (1854 –1900) was an Irish playwright, novelist, poet, and short story writer. Known for his barbed wit, he was one of the most successful playwrights of late Victorian London, and one of the greatest celebrities of his day. As the result of a famous trial, he suffered a dramatic downfall and was imprisoned for two years of hard labour after being convicted of the offence of "gross indecency".
Wilde was born into a Protestant Anglo-Irish family, at 21 Westland Row, Dublin, to Sir William Wilde and his wife Jane Francesca Elgee. Jane was a successful writer and an Irish nationalist, known also as 'Speranza', while Sir William was Ireland's leading ear and eye surgeon, and wrote books on archaeology and folklore. He was a renowned philanthropist, and his dispensary for the care of the city's poor, in Lincoln Place at the rear of Trinity College, Dublin, was the forerunner of the Dublin Eye and Ear Hospital, now located at Adelaide Road.
In June 1855, the family moved to 1 Merrion Square, in a fashionable residential area. Here, Lady Wilde held a regular Saturday afternoon salon with guests including Sheridan le Fanu, Samuel Lever, George Petrie, Isaac Butt and Samuel Ferguson.
Wilde studied classics at Trinity College, Dublin, from 1871 to 1874. He was an outstanding student, and won the Berkeley Gold Medal, the highest award available to classics students at Trinity. He was granted a scholarship to Magdalen College, Oxford, where he continued his studies from 1874 to 1878. While at Magdalen, he won the 1878 Oxford Newdigate Prize for his poem Ravenna. He graduated with a double first, the highest grade available at Oxford.
During this time, Wilde became familiar with philosophies and writings on same-sex love, and lived for several years with a male lover he had met in 1876, the society painter Frank Miles. However, in keeping with the social mores of his day, such activities were kept secret.
More on Oscar Wilde: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oscar_wilde
“I always pass on good advice. It is the only thing to do with it. It is never any use to oneself”
“For he who lives more lives than one more deaths must die”
“A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it”
Photo: Infomatique
“Who, being loved, is poor?”
“We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars”
“Wickedness is a myth invented by good people to account for the curious attraction of others.”
“Experience is the name everyone gives to his mistakes”
“I can resist everything except temptation”
“This suspense is terrible. I hope it will last”
Photo: Infomatique
“Being natural is simply a pose”
Photo: Infomatique
About the author
Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde (1854 –1900) was an Irish playwright, novelist, poet, and short story writer. Known for his barbed wit, he was one of the most successful playwrights of late Victorian London, and one of the greatest celebrities of his day. As the result of a famous trial, he suffered a dramatic downfall and was imprisoned for two years of hard labour after being convicted of the offence of "gross indecency".
Wilde was born into a Protestant Anglo-Irish family, at 21 Westland Row, Dublin, to Sir William Wilde and his wife Jane Francesca Elgee. Jane was a successful writer and an Irish nationalist, known also as 'Speranza', while Sir William was Ireland's leading ear and eye surgeon, and wrote books on archaeology and folklore. He was a renowned philanthropist, and his dispensary for the care of the city's poor, in Lincoln Place at the rear of Trinity College, Dublin, was the forerunner of the Dublin Eye and Ear Hospital, now located at Adelaide Road.
In June 1855, the family moved to 1 Merrion Square, in a fashionable residential area. Here, Lady Wilde held a regular Saturday afternoon salon with guests including Sheridan le Fanu, Samuel Lever, George Petrie, Isaac Butt and Samuel Ferguson.
Wilde studied classics at Trinity College, Dublin, from 1871 to 1874. He was an outstanding student, and won the Berkeley Gold Medal, the highest award available to classics students at Trinity. He was granted a scholarship to Magdalen College, Oxford, where he continued his studies from 1874 to 1878. While at Magdalen, he won the 1878 Oxford Newdigate Prize for his poem Ravenna. He graduated with a double first, the highest grade available at Oxford.
During this time, Wilde became familiar with philosophies and writings on same-sex love, and lived for several years with a male lover he had met in 1876, the society painter Frank Miles. However, in keeping with the social mores of his day, such activities were kept secret.
More on Oscar Wilde: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oscar_wilde
See more Dublin CityPoems:
- Dublin (1) - Cafe Zanzibar
- Dublin (2) - internet poetry
- Dublin (3) - community gain?
- Dublin (4) - Guinness
- Dublin (5) - commemorating the Great War
- Dublin (6) - only dull people are brilliant at breakfast
- Dublin (7) - blogger's poetry
- Dublin (8) - open your eyes
- Dublin (9) - politics or poetry?
Inspiring Cities Museum of CityPoems
Inspiring Cities has collected many citypoems over the years, as well as organized salons with citypoets and cities doing special projects. We have two criteria for what a citypoem is: the intention must be poetic, and it must be in the public realm of cities. Shapes, form and locations can and do differ.
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