Oscar Wilde – more talent than sense

Oscar Wilde, the most popular playwright of his day and still a treasure trove of witty sayings in common currency would have been 165 this week. He led a charmed life until he foolishly challenged his lover’s father in a libel suit, lost and was himself charged with gross indecency. Despite an open chance to flee abroad he arrogantly or stubbornly refused to go, partly on the bidding of his Irish nationalist mother, and was imprisoned for two years which led to his early death at 46.

Born 18 October 1854 3am Dublin (time unverified), his father was an Anglo-Irish doctor and his mother a poet and supporter of Irish revolutionaries. He was educated at Trinity Dublin and Oxford where he gained a reputation for being an aesthete. An early romantic relationship failed and he married Constance when he was 30. After a literary and journalistic career he wrote his novel Dorian Gray and then a series of successful plays – Salome, A Woman of No importance, Lady Windermere’s Fan, An Ideal Husband, The Importance of Being Earnest.

He had a Libra Sun square Jupiter in Capricorn, which on this birth time would make him extravagant with money, overly confident and an entertainer. He had an intense Mercury in Scorpio opposition a quirky and outspoken Uranus square a flashy Leo Moon – focal point Moons are often found in charts of people in the public eye who crave an audience. His Mars in flamboyant Sagittarius was also in his 3^rd house of communication. Saturn in Gemini was in a creative square to Neptune which latter sat on his Descendant, suggesting an uncommitted approach to close relationships; with his Saturn on his Midheaven sextile the Moon and trine his Sun. He had an influential, though trapped Pluto in the 8^th in a stressed quincunx to Mars.

It’s not a very together chart – though the Harmonics bring more aspects into play with a very marked leaving-a-legacy 17H, a writer’s 21H, superstar 22H, break-through-genius 13H, and creative 5H and 7 H.

When he foolishly leapt into suing the Marquess of Queensberry, father of Lord Alfred Douglas, for libel for calling him a sodomite, the transiting Neptune Pluto in Gemini was crossing his midheaven. Not only is Neptune Pluto associated with scandals, it also warps judgement, leading to confusion and can ultimately lead to devastation. When he was sentenced his Solar Arc Pluto was conjunct his Saturn which is dead-halt and depressing.

His benighted mother evidently swore she’d never talk to him again if he backed down from the fight with the Marquess of Queensberry, such was her dislike of English aristocracy. Her persuasions effectively condemned him to death because of the toll a harsh prison regime took on his health. He died three years after being released.

His mother Jane, 27 December 1821, had a fanatical and erratic Sun, Uranus, Neptune in Capricorn which squared Oscar’s Venus; and her Saturn Jupiter in Aries fell in his 8^th opposition his Sun. Their relationship chart had a dominating, power-struggling composite Mars opposition Pluto. All such a waste since he could have spent productive years abroad without any problem. Even the authorities were making it easy for him to escape.