De Profundis

De Profundis, letter written from prison by Irish writer Oscar Wilde to his lover, the English poet Lord Alfred Douglas. It was edited and published posthumously in 1905 as De Profundis. Its title—the first two words of Psalms 130, part of the Roman Catholic funeral service—was supplied by Wilde’s friend and literary executor Robert Ross.

In April and May 1895 Wilde was the subject of a series of trials in London involving charges of homosexuality, which was illegal in the United Kingdom. The first of these was a defamation case brought by Wilde against John Sholto Douglas, the 9th marquess of Queensberry and father of Lord Alfred Douglas. After Queensberry left a note at Wilde’s club earlier in 1895 accusing him of being a sodomite, Wilde sued the marquess for libel. Wilde dropped the case when the proceedings revealed evidence of his homosexual practices with male sex workers, who he had been encouraged by Douglas to hire.

Wilde was then tried for gross indecency. Although the jury in his second trial failed to reach a verdict, in the retrial he was found guilty and sentenced, in May 1895, to two years’ hard labor.

While imprisoned in Reading Gaol from 1895 to 1897, Wilde wrote an impassioned letter to Lord Alfred Douglas. In the first section of the letter, Wilde records his relationship with Douglas in merciless detail; he rails against his lover’s selfishness and extravagance, accuses him of being the agent of Wilde’s destruction, and turns a cold eye on his own behavior. The letter’s tone changes from bitterness to resignation as Wilde acknowledges his own responsibility for his fate and extends a hopeful offer for a renewed, calmer friendship. The letter also expresses Wilde’s spirituality, with elegant ruminations on suffering, repentance, and “the true life of Christ and the true life of the artist.”

After his release from prison in 1897, Wilde briefly reunited with Douglas. Bankrupt and broken by the experience of imprisonment, Wilde died in 1900 of acute meningitis brought on by an ear infection.

Much of the letter’s material about Douglas was cut from the version that was published in 1905. However, he eventually was made aware of its full content; the letter only helped to escalate a bitter feud between Douglas and Ross. The uncensored version of De Profundis was published in 1949.