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Cemetière Père Lachaise is a beautiful, historic place with an air of mystery and the macabre, yet it is an place that is often overlooked on most tourist itineraries.
On the outskirts in the 20th arrondissement, there are many reasons to visit: the pastoral beauty, the quiet and tranquil atmosphere, the interesting history of how it came to be, and of course, the graves of the famous people who are buried there.
One can visit anytime that it’s open (generally daylight hours). But going with a tour guide is highly recommended. Your guide can tell you stories and give you insights you would never come by on your own.
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When I visit, I always enter through the back gate at Métro Gambetta, off l’avenue du Père-Lachaise. Entering this way, our group will meander through the tree-lined paths heading downhill, which makes for an easier stroll, for sure.
Once inside, I always make my first stop the grave of Oscar Wilde, one of my literary heroes. The story of the tomb is in itself almost as interesting as the life of Wilde.
Wilde, of course, is most famous for being one of the world’s first celebrities whose entire life was his oeuvre — work of art.
Wilde wrote plays, including Salome (1891). He was a poet and literary critic. He was a huge sensation when he lectured in the United States and Canada. He was well-known for his biting wit, wearing flamboyant outfits, often replete with a giant flower. His scintillating conversational skills made Wilde one of the best-known personalities of his day.
Throughout his life he continued to refine his ideas about art, arguing that it was supreme over everything else in the world. Artists, he claimed, show us the world. We cannot see anything until an artist show it to us. And beauty, the beautiful, stood above all else in life.
He is famous as well for his many, pithy witticisms, including:
We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.
Be yourself. Everyone else is already taken.
Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go.
To look at a thing is very different from seeing it.
Every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future.
His only novel was, The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890). Wilde wrote several other plays, including An Ideal Husband (1895) and The Importance of Being Earnest (1895).
He died in Paris on the 30th of November, 1900 in a cheap hotel, the Hôtel d'Alsace (now known as L'Hôtel), on the rue des Beaux-Arts. By this time Wilde was virtually alone, friendless and penniless, in exile from England. Convicted of “gross indecency” on 25 May 1895, and sentenced to two years' hard labour, the sentence, harsh prison conditions and dreadful food broke his body and his spirit.
After his release on 19 May 1897, he wrote the poem, The Ballad of Reading Gaol while in exile in Berneval-le-Grandand and in Naples, Italy.
Wilde’s tombstone was commissioned by an anonymous donor, and was done by the sculptor Jacob Epstein, and from the start, the monument was steeped in controversy. Supporters of Wilde thought the monument should pay homage to Wilde’s life and works, such as "The Young King", something that invoked homoerotica. Wilde’s critics believed he should have no monument at all.
The epitaph is a verse from The Ballad of Reading Gaol:
And alien tears will fill for him
Pity's long-broken urn,
For his mourners will be outcast men,
And outcasts always mourn.
Up until 2014, the monument stood exposed. A tradition of kissing his gravestone with lipstick grew until it was covered in kisses. In 2014, a glass barrier was erected to protect the monument from damage, which was caused by periodic cleanings.
Two years after the barrier was erected, English actor Stephen Fry mentioned the practice of kissing Oscar Wilde's tomb in a speech on Wilde given at the Jaipur Literature Festival:
Here's this man who believed when he died that his name would be toxic for generations to come. For hundreds of years his work wouldn't be read. He would stand for nothing but perversion. Utter disgust of a society that couldn't bear people like him.....His tomb in Père Lachaise Cemetery, in Paris. It had to be restored because the polished stone of its surface had corroded through kissing. Thousand and thousands. ....
Wouldn't it be allowed once to just wake him up for five minutes just to tell him that, then he can go back to sleep again?
Amen.
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