Oscar Wilde in Taormina, Sicily

On a recent working holiday in Taormina, Sicily, I saw a sight that puzzled me: What was a street performer doing as a ‘living statue’ of the eminent — and ultimately tragic — author, playwright, poet, and wit, Oscar Wilde? Because I knew about Wilde’s Irish roots, his rise to giddy heights in London’s upper social circles, downfall after a disastrous court case, cruel imprisonment, and sad, impecunious end in Paris. But as far as I knew, Oscar had no connection with Sicily. However, I had to admit that the ‘living statue’ was among the best I’ve ever seen; never moved a muscle.

Confession: this was because this was not a ‘living statue’, it was, of course, a ‘statue’.

No wonder nobody who got up close ever gave him any money.

Attracted by the climate, Wilde arrived in Taormina in 1898. But there were more pressing  issues than sun-seeking: poverty and disgrace. When he was released from Reading Gaol in May 1897, his finances were in a parlous state, and he sailed that same evening for Dieppe, France. Cloaked in scandal from revelations about his relationship with Lord Alfred ‘Bosie’ Douglas and homosexual lifestyle, he never returned to the United Kingdom.

With every intention of rekindling the affair with ‘Bosie’, Wilde wrote to his lover about Taormina, "I have discovered the paradise of lovers, where we will come one day to live together". However, their relationship simply faded away.

 After spending a month there, Oscar Wilde left Taormina in February 1898, and despite an open offer of accommodation at the house of his friend, the eccentric photographer Baron Wilhelm von Gloeden, he never went back. Wilde died in Paris of meningitis in November 1900. In 2017, he was among tens of thousands of men who were pardoned for homosexual acts that were no longer considered offences in the UK.

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Wilde stayed for a single night at Hotel Victoria, 81, Corso Umberto, Taormina; it’s still there.