Two Outsiders

Thomas Chatterton & Oscar Wilde

Is there a Poetic-Spiritual Connection between Wilde & Chatterton?

“One should always be a little improbable.”

Oscar Wilde
~
1854 – 1900

Oscar Wilde was fascinated by Bristol’s boy-poet prodigy Thomas Chatterton. He asked for
his poetry whilst in Reading Goal. He visited the poet’s house and gave lectures about him, in
London and elsewhere, to assemblies of many hundreds of people. He studied the young
boy’s life and work, planned a museum in his memory and prepared an eighty page “essay”
on Chatterton in pen and pencil in his personal note book. He wrote a proposed inscription
for a tablet to be erected on Thomas Chatterton’s School House adjacent to his birthplace
cottage in Bristol:

“To the Memory

Of
Thomas Chatterton
One of England’s greatest poets and sometime pupil at this school”

Note: In some circles Wilde’s ‘essay’ has been considered to be plagiarism. This is perhaps
an unfair criticism because firstly, it was never published and secondly the work appears to
serve as preliminary preparation. A copy of the original manuscript in the possession of this
author shows that the ‘essay’ was approximately 70% (by word count) ‘cut and paste
clippings’ from pages of the biographies: ‘Chatterton: A Biographical Study’ by Sir Daniel
Wilson and ‘Chatterton: A Biography’ by David Masson with hand written notes by Wilde
mostly as marginalia. Twenty-nine pages carry Wilson ‘clippings’ and eight are from
Masson. The work was in a rough notebook so perhaps this was Oscar Wilde’s way of
preparing for the essay rather than being it finished, publishable product.

On the face of it there is perhaps little reason to suppose that Thomas Chatterton, a poor un-
educated charity school-boy, born posthumously of a school-teacher father and un-educated

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seamstress mother would capture the imagination or interest of the witty socialite Oscar
Wilde, an award winning Oxford educated classicist and son to the nobility. However, if we
look a little closer we may see numerous parallels and similarities between these two
ostensibly disparate writers.

Both Chatterton and Wilde were eccentrics and great conversationalists. Chatterton used to
go for walks by himself along the river Avon in Bristol talking to himself and occasionally
waving his arms about. In conversation he would stare blankly into the eyes of a person
present and do so without saying a word for fifteen minutes or more, till it was perhaps
somewhat frightening for the recipient. These characteristics are typical of a strongly creative
mind lost in its own poetic fervour. For all of those who met him it was impossible not to
like him. His conversation was most captivating and intriguing and he would talk on a broad
range of subjects from heraldry, architecture, religion, politics and others. Wilde’s
eccentricity was manifest primarily perhaps in his dress and in his flagrant disregard for the
conventions of his time. His conversations, wit, fascinating lectures and oratory are well
known. It has been said that Oscar Wilde put his genius into his life and his talent into his
work. Both had a great predominance for Beauty and Aestheticism. Chatterton incorporated
great beauty into his work within the lyricism and the visual representations of nature, scenes
and people. Oscar Wilde considered the pursuit of Beauty to be the highest of aspirations and
based his philosophical creed upon it. Wilde may have had a reverence for the aesthetic of
the beautiful, young, red-haired poet Chatterton, as romantically depicted in the Henry Wallis
pre-Raphaelite painting “Chatterton” of 1856 currently displayed at Tate Britain. They were
similar in their artistic disposition, both being multi-talented and artists of the Imagination
and greatly fertile creativity. Chatterton wrote plays, burlettas, odes, elegies, satire,
journalistic sketches, letters. He could write well in any of these forms and was published in
many London literary journals of the time. “Chatterton’s genius is universal, he excels in
every specie of composition” – William Wordsworth wrote. Similarly Wilde wrote a novel,
poems, plays, stories, prose poems, essays and letters. Both of their greatest works are
considered to be plays: Ælla: A Tragycal Enterlude in the case of Chatterton and “The
Importance of Being Earnest” in the case of Wilde.

Both, in their respective ways, were of rather unique Genius. Chatterton for his ‘Rowley’
manuscripts peppered with his own terms and coinage and artificially aged with ochre and
other materials. The authenticity or otherwise of these manuscripts caused a controversy that
lasted decades. Oscar Wilde’s legacy that separates him from all others is perhaps his wit and
epigrams. in particular the use of such wit in his plays such as “The Importance of Being
Earnest”. Both Chatterton and Wilde were handsome with strong facial features and loved to
dress flamboyantly and exert influence through their dress. Chatterton was described as a
coxcomb with fashionably colourful frock coat and breeches. He wrote to his sister when in
London: “To begin with, what every female conversation begins with, dress. I employ my
money now in fitting myself fashionably; and getting into good company;..”. Wilde’s dress
was very un-conventional for his Victorian times: wearing velvet coats edged with braid,
knee-breeches and black silk stockings. His manner of dress provoked the stir that was
required of it. Chatterton and Wilde both had a love for their families. Chatterton, whenever
he spoke of a literary project that would bring him anticipated financial reward he always
drew an immediate correlation with improving the financial situation for his family. In
London when he did receive payment for his work, he sent home presents of crockery,
patterns and a French snuff box for his mother; fans for his sister and some British herb
tobacco and pipe for his grandmother. On later speaking of writing an Oratorio; Chatterton
promises his mother that when completed, his payment for the work would purchase her a

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gown. Oscar Wilde adored his sons Cyril and Vyvyan and used to love to play on his hands
and knees with them. Writing from Reading Gaol Wilde says

“..There is much more in me, and I always was a good father to my children. I love them
dearly and was dearly loved by them, and Cyril was my friend. And it would be better for
them not to be forced to think of me as an outcast, but to know me as a man who has
suffered.” And further he writes “I could not bear the idea of being separated from Cyril,
that beautiful, loving, loveable child of mine, my friend of all friends, my companion of all
companions,..” Chatterton and Wilde were both very liberal in their political and social
views, Chatterton was a supporter of “Wilkes and Liberty” and rallied against King George
III and the exploitation of the colonies; Wilde was for “Individualism” through Socialism and
the removal of private property and he was for the minimisation of State and Government.
This process he saw as the only route to the eradication of poverty and the emancipation of
truly free, artistic expression. Chatterton wrote an “Ode to Freedom” which is the chorus
within his poem “Goddwyn. A Tragedie” which Wilde speaks of in his “essay” as “one of the
noblest of our martial lyrics”. Wilde himself wrote his “Sonnet to Liberty”. Both writers had
a profound belief in the existence of God, not only as First Cause, but they also had
propensities towards religiosity. Chatterton being very young and still in pursuit of self-
knowledge had perhaps somewhat variable views of religion veering from Catholicism to
arguments for and against Christianity and flirting with Mohammedism. As with everything
with Chatterton, his more mature beliefs regarding religion where most probably of his own
unique design, more towards free-thinking rather than of received dogma. Wilde also
included the Christian notion “Be thyself” as an important contributory factor in the
development of his Socialist “Individualism” and pure artistic expression. In discussing Art
he said “But wherever there is a romantic movement in Art, there somehow, and under some
form, is Christ, or the soul of Christ... [as] in Chatterton’s “Ballad of Charity”. Although
Wilde was born into a Protestant family, he was immersed in Catholic thought from a young
age and was conditionally baptised on his deathbed. He saw Irish folk-Catholicism as a
potential world unifier which would convert the English empire to a leadership of the poor
and the weak. Both Chatterton and Wilde had a thirst for fame and achieved their fame
through notoriety. Chatterton posthumous fame came through the Rowley controversy that
raged for years and Wilde although famous in his lifetime, achieved particular notoriety
through the legal battle with the Marquis of Queensbury and the consequent incarceration in
Reading Gaol. His finest poem “The Ballad of Reading Gaol” was the result of this
experience.

Chatterton and Wilde both had comparatively short literary careers, Chatterton barely three or
four years and Wilde barely eight years. Both confused the critics and were condemned by
critics; Chatterton with his Rowley poems and Wilde with “The House of Pomegranates” and
“The Picture of Dorian Gray”. Both writers were outsiders, Chatterton with his precocious
dreaming genius and low regard for, and alienation from, the philistinism of mercantile
Bristol and his literary contemporaries. Satirising Dr Samuel Johnson, the Earl of Bute and
the Duke of Grafton and others was never likely to be a good career move. He was further
alienated from the nobility and the literary establishment because of his poverty, low social
status and wayward youth. Similarly Wilde felt alienation, in some regard, from the general
public because of his love of flamboyant, unconventional dress and his sexuality that
eventually landed him in prison. He also felt that the general public were not blessed with the
aesthetic attributes of the artist and it was of necessity that the artist lead and educate the
public in the matters of beauty, art and taste. As Chatterton said “I value neither the Praise or
Censure of the multitude.” Chatterton and Wilde both inflicted a certain self-harm and

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paradoxically self-aggrandisement by confrontations with the Establishment. Chatterton in
his boyish enthusiasm seemed to have little regard for the potential detrimental effects of his
work upon his own career.

He remonstrated Horace Walpole the Earl of Orford when his approach for Walpole to
become his patron was turned down and his Rowley manuscripts returned by Walpole as not
being genuine 15th century works. He wrote against King George III in the London journals
and satirised such luminaries as not only Dr Johnson but the Lady Dowager, Oliver
Goldsmith and Bristol dignitaries. Wilde through his ill-advised attack on the Marquis of
Queensbury, perhaps unduly encouraged by Lord Alfred Douglas, the son of Queensbury,
resulted in his imprisonment. However, after the respective deaths of Chatterton and Wilde,
these events did much to fan the flames of their posthumous careers. Chatterton’s row with
Walpole did much to enhance the life and work of Chatterton and did grave harm to the
reputation of Walpole. Walpole was seen as the cold, heartless aristocrat who refused to
patronise a starving boy-genius of low social regard and was even unfairly considered to have
contributed to Chatterton’s premature death. As Walpole’s reputation plummeted so the
romantic image of Chatterton as the starving, un-recognised, neglected garret genius soared.
Similarly, paradoxically Oscar Wilde’s imprisonment was to enhance his posthumous
reputation with the publication of The Ballad of Reading Gaol, his finest poem.

END

Michael Doble, For The Thomas Chatterton Society Newsletter 2017

Chairman, The Thomas Chatterton Society
June 2017

Note: This is an extract from a 110 page document written in October 2009 before the
Publication of the recent work on Wilde & Chatterton.