Lord Alfred Douglas: Difference between revisions

|caption = Alfred Douglas in 1903<br />(by George Charles Beresford)

|birth_place = [[Powick]], [[Worcestershire]], England

|death_date = {{death date and age|1945|303|20|1870|10|22|df=y}}

|death_place = [[Lancing, West Sussex|Lancing]], [[Sussex]], England

|parents = [[John Douglas, 9th Marquess of Queensberry|The 9th Marquess of Queensberry]]<br>Sibyl Montgomery

|education = {{plainlist|
*[[Winchester College]],
*[[Wixenford School]]

'''Lord Alfred Bruce Douglas''' (22 October 1870 – 20 March 1945), also known as '''Bosie Douglas''', was an English poet and journalist, and a lover of [[Oscar Wilde]]. At [[Oxford University|Oxford]] he edited an undergraduate journal, ''The Spirit Lamp'', that carried a [[homoeroticism|homoerotic]] subtext, and met Wilde, starting a close but stormy relationship. Douglas's father, the [[John Douglas, 9th Marquess of Queensberry|Marquess of Queensberry]], abhorred it and set out to humiliate Wilde, publicly accusing him of homosexuality. Wilde sued him for criminal [[libel]], but some intimate notes were found and Wilde was later imprisoned. On his release, he briefly lived with Douglas in Naples, but they had separated by the time Wilde died in 1900. Douglas married a poet, [[Olive Custance]], in 1902 and had a son, Raymond.

[[File:JohnSholtoDouglasMarquessofQueensberry9th-marquess-of-Queensberry.JPGjpg|left|thumb|upright|left267x267px|[[John Douglas, 9th Marquess of Queensberry|His father, the 9th Marquess of Queensberry]]]]

In 1891, Douglas's cousin [[Lionel Johnson]] introducedbrought himDouglas to the home of [[Oscar Wilde]]; theyin soonTite beganStreet, Chelsea, for afternoon tea. Wilde took an interest in Douglas but it was six months before they became intimate and their affair began.<ref>H. Montgomery Hyde, ''The Love That Dared not Speak its Name;'' p. 144</ref><ref>Ellmann (1988:98)</ref> In 1894, the [[Robert Smythe Hichens|Robert Hichens]] novel ''[[The Green Carnation]]'' was published, a ''[[roman à clef]]'' depicting satirically Douglas's dependent relationship on Wilde.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Garcia-Walsh |first1=Katerina |title=Oscar Wilde's Misattributions: A Legacy of Gross Indecency |journal=Victorian Popular Fictions Journal |date=2021 |volume=3 |issue=2 |pages=188–207 |doi=10.46911/PYIV5690|doi-access=free|hdl=10023/26159 |hdl-access=free }}</ref>

With Douglas's avid support, but against the advice of friends such as [[Robbie Ross]], [[Frank Harris]] and [[George Bernard Shaw]], Wilde had Queensberry arrested and charged with criminal [[libel]] in a [[private prosecution]], as [[sodomy]] was then a criminal offence. According to the libel laws of the time, since his authorship of the charge of sodomy was not in question, Queensberry could avoid conviction by demonstrating in court not only that the charge he had made was true andbut also that there was also a public interest in having made the charge public. [[Edward Carson]], Queensberry's lawyer, portrayed Wilde as a vicious older man who preyed upon naive young boys and with extravagant gifts and promises of a glamorous lifestyle seduced them into a life of homosexuality. Several highly suggestive erotic letters that Wilde had written to Douglas were introduced as evidence; Wilde claimed they were works of art. Wilde was questioned closely on the homoerotic themes in ''[[The Picture of Dorian Gray]]'' and ''[[The Chameleon (magazine)|The Chameleon]]'', a single-issue magazine published by Douglas to which Wilde had contributed "Phrases and Philosophies for Use of the Young".

While in prison, Wilde wrote Douglas a long and critical letter entitledtitled ''[[De Profundis (letter)|De Profundis]]'', describing how he felt about him. Wilde was not permitted to send it but it might have been sent to him after Wilde's release. It was given to Robbie Ross with instructions to make a copy and send the original to Lord Alfred Douglas. Lord Alfred Douglas later said that he received only a letter from Ross with a few choice quotations and did not know there was a letter until reference was made to it in a biography of Wilde's on which Ross had consulted. After Wilde's release on 19 May 1897, the two reunited in August at [[Rouen]] but stayed together only a few months due to personal differences and various pressures on them.

The queer history podcast [[Bad Gays (podcast)|Bad Gays]] covered Douglas in Episode 2 of their first season.<ref>{{Cite web |date=March 2019 |title=Episode Archive |url=https://badgayspod.com/listen |access-date=August 4, 2024 |website=Bad Gays Podcast}}</ref>.

[[Category:BritishEnglish male poets]]

[[Category:BritishEnglish male dramatists and playwrights]]

[[Category:LGBTLGBTQ nobility]]

[[Category:LGBTLGBTQ Roman Catholics]]

[[Category:English LGBTLGBTQ poets]]

[[Category:Muses (persons)]]

[[Category:19th-century English LGBTLGBTQ people]]

[[Category:20th-century English LGBTLGBTQ people]]