The idea of sweetening bitterness is taken from Isaiah 5:2o and also refers back to Wilde and Catholic Ireland where the Virgin Mary is remembered as the Sea of Sorrow. The denunciations only became clear when Lord Alfred Douglas saw quotations from De Profundis many years later and decided to sue for libel only to discover that the quotations were true. Yet, on leaving prison, Wilde handed the work to Robbie Ross, Bosie's nemesis, and the work was never shown to the wild panther.

Wilde is quick to assert that De Profundis has one purpose, to sweeten bitterness and explain the error of Bosie's ways to Bosie. This long wail out of the depths was written (allegedly) to correct the vanity of Lord Alfred Douglas, Oscar's beloved Bosie. Reading it now, it appears as a beautifully written yet very strange work. Wilde considers Him the true founder of the Romantic movement, the first authentic individualist, a man who saw each person as unique and who revealed to humankind the profound truth that we must grow through suffering into love.ĭe Profundis was devoured (uncritically) as a teenager and as a student. Some of the most interesting passages here are Wilde's exploration of the nature of Christ. 'Whatever is realized is right.' What Wilde calls 'a failure of the imagination' is the moral evil that afflicts Bosie, and it is only by a necessarily painful growth in self-awareness that this young man can become a fully human, completely realized work of art. 'Shallowness is the only sin.' Wilde repeats again and again. This letter from prison written to Lord Alfred 'Bosie' Douglas-Wilde's young lover and the occasion of his downfall-urges the young lord to face up to his own reckless past behavior and to seek the knowledge of self that can only be gained through suffering. A superb work of prose, this autobiographical essay in epistolary form is also-although Wilde would never call it so-an unconventional moral exhortation and an impressionistic work of Christology.

De profundis wilde