Oscar Wilde | Interview - Wilde's grandson, Merlin Holland | 4

British Scandal

Wondery

Scandal, Alice Levine, Great Britain, Society & Culture, Exhibit C, British, England, History, Matt Forde, Documentary

4.5 • 6.5K Ratings

🗓️ 20 June 2023

⏱️ 41 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Matt and Alice speak to Oscar Wilde's only grandchild, Merlin Holland, who has spent more than four decades researching his grandfather's life. He tells us what it's like being connected to a literary icon, and why he believes his grandfather felt untouchable. Plus he takes us inside Wilde's complicated relationship with scandal. Did he court it?

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Transcript

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0:00.0	From Wondry, I'm Alice Levine. And I'm Matt Ford. And this is British scandal.
0:17.4	So Matt, that is a wrap on the story of Oscar Wilde. Although it's set in the 1890s,
0:31.0	there's clearly, and maybe quite depressingly, a lot of parallels with the world today.
0:35.6	Yes, the scapegoating and fear-mongering of a certain group, a sense of moral panic,
0:40.8	the constant threat of public opinion. It just makes you realise how perilous it must have felt
0:46.6	to be gay in Victorian England. Yes, and also the dawn of trial by media.
0:52.7	Oscar's was one of the first that we could see that kind of tabloid esensationalism coming to the fore.
0:58.7	Stoking the flames of paranoia and fear. It doesn't actually feel very far from the world now, does it?
1:05.0	No, and it's interesting drawing the comparisons in terms of our modern media landscape,
1:09.6	and seeing the scandal sheets and pamphlets of that time release the heritage of our tabloid culture
1:15.0	today. There's a direct lineage between the sorts of publications that we're talking about Oscar
1:19.2	Wilde and the way that we cover celebrities these days. And it just shows that the one consistent
1:24.0	thing is our country's appetite for gossip and scandal, talking about people, and really enjoying
1:30.7	other people's faults from grace. The gossip pamphlet was the side bar of shame of the day.
1:36.9	As Oscar said, there is only one thing in life worse than being talked about, and that is not
1:41.5	being talked about, and there really is no one better in the world to talk about the legend and
1:45.3	mythology of Oscar Wilde than our guest today. Merlin Holland is a British biographer and editor,
1:51.6	as well as the only grandchild of Oscar Wilde. He spent over 30 years researching his
1:56.2	grandfather's life and works, and he joins us next.
2:06.6	Ah, the Bahamas. What if you could hang out with celebrities,
2:09.8	live in a penthouse above the crystal clear ocean with all your best friends and have it be 100%
2:14.8	paid for? FTX Founder Sam Bankman freed made that dream a reality, but US prosecutors say he was
	...

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