The multitudes of Oscar Wilde

One of the great wits of Victorian literature had a life-long fascination with Catholic ritual and art which eventually blossomed, at the very end of his life, in a conversion to the Catholic faith, as this article over at the Catholic Education Resource Center explains: The Long Conversion of Oscar Wilde. In our era Wilde is usually celebrated for his homosexuality and bohemian life-style, but if one looks deeper into the works and life of the man, one sees the strong currents of a spiritual river that eventually flowed to the Tiber. So, who was Wilde? As the author of the article, Andrew McCracken, points out, Wilde contained multitudes: "writer, wit, voluptuary, gay man, failed father and husband, sensitive soul, laughing stock, broken heart, eleventh hour Catholic convert."

Stephen Fry, who embodies many of the same traits as Wilde in modern cloth (replacing, unfortunately, Wilde's interest in Catholicism with the modern avant-garde embrace of atheism), does a wonderful job of conveying Wilde's humor and deeper spiritual perspective in this discussion of Wilde's work and approach to literature: