Oscar Wilde: Queer Nature

December 2018

Writer, broadcaster, curator and filmmaker Philip Hoare discusses Oscar Wilde’s role in “queer nature” and in particular, his relationship to the sea. Hoare riffs on Wilde’s documented love of swimming to take in other watery, poetic dandies from literary history–from Lord Byron and Mary Shelley to Edward Carpenter, Walt Whitman, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Wilfred Owen, Virginia Woolf and Sylvia Plath.

This event took place as part of the public programme for The Oscar Wilde Temple

  1. Philip Hoare’s publications include biographies of Stephen Tennant (1990) and Noël Coward (1995), as well as Wilde’s Last Stand (1997), Spike Island (2001), England’s Lost Eden (2005) and The Sea Inside (2013). His book Leviathan or, The Whale won the 2009 BBC Samuel Johnson Prize for non-fiction. His latest book, RISINGTIDEFALLINGSTAR was published in 2017.

    An experienced broadcaster, curator and filmmaker, Hoare wrote and presented the BBC Arena film The Hunt for Moby-Dick. He is Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Southampton, and curator of the Moby-Dick Big Read, a free, online rendition of Melville’s novel, with readings by Tilda Swinton, Stephen Fry, David Attenborough, Fiona Shaw, Simon Callow and John Waters, amongst others.

  2. Francis Ware

Studio Voltaire
1A Nelsons Row
London SW4 7JR


Open Wednesday–Sunday, 10 am–5 pm.

Registered Charity No: 1082221. Registered Company No: 03426509. VAT No: GB314268026