Oscar Wilde's Grave

Another in our occasional series about visits to the graves of famous authors (previously- Hopkins, Keats). Recently Ronan Swift spent a weekend in Paris, and writes :-

Perhaps an impending trip to Paris was what made me include Oscar Wilde's De Profundis into my summer books list, but I don't think there was a conscious link. Maybe I desired an encounter with the memory of my idealistic, youthful self who first engaged with this arresting work some seventeen years ago. Above all I suppose I wanted to be moved by beautiful language, intensity of feeling and as the title suggests, something profound.

The re-visit hasn't been disappointing. The bare historical facts (of course from Oscar's side of the story) of his relationship with 'Bosie', or rather the portrait Wilde produces of the destructiveness of the friendship, is harrowing. His propensity to forgive is admirable. The determination to find hope, joy and further artistic achievement in the future beyond his imprisonment is inspiring but of course deeply saddening when we know from our perspective how those dreams were never properly realised.

It all amounts to a transformation from being a man who symbolised the quest for pleasure in material things and the delights of frivolity to one who finds all his consolations in spiritual values. Reading his words, hearing his voice as he outlines his new-found value system is both intriguing and instructive. When my friend Oliver heard I was visiting Paris this weekend that has just passed he insisted I use his empty appartment. When he mentioned that it was one minute's walk from Pere Lachaise cemetery I had to accept.

Youthful...idealistic...back-twinged...bald: it was time to pay my respects in person to one of Ireland's greatest and most poignant lives in letters.


The full text of De Profundis is here.

Keats-Shelley Museum

One of the most moving and tasteful memorials to any poet is the small Keats-Shelley House museum on the Spanish Steps in Rome (the website has been added to our 'Individual Poets' links in the sidebar). This is the building where Keats lived out his final months, tended by his dear friend Joseph Severn. Pictured, our Head of Department John Fanagan on a pre-Christmas trip to Rome, looking at Keats's death mask. The room is where the poet died of tuberculosis aged 25, though the furniture is not original (everything was burnt afterwards).

Keats and Shelley (and many other notables) are buried in the so-called Protestant Cemetery in Rome, a beautiful tranquil site which three English Department teachers visited a few years ago. Keats's poetry, including our recent Poem of the Week 'To Autumn', is on the Leaving Certficate course for 2009, while Shelley has been reduced to 'Ozymandias' on the Ordinary Level course (occasionally). The inscription on the grave reads :

This Grave contains all that was mortal, of a Young English Poet, who on his Death Bed, in the Bitterness of his heart, at the Malicious Power of his enemies, desired these words to be Engraven on his Tomb Stone:
Here lies One Whose Name was writ in Water.

Hopkins at Glasnevin

One of the poets on the Leaving Certificate rota (last on in 2006 and sadly not with us this or next year) is Gerard Manley Hopkins. Irish connections include the annual Monasterevin summer school (he used to visit the Kildare village while teaching at the Catholic University in the 1880s); its website includes a searchable online archive.

He is buried in the Jesuit plot at Glasnevin Cemetery, which has excellent tours for schools and the general public. Pictured, our head of department John Fanagan at the memorial on a recent visit (Hopkins's name is on the top of the second tier).