Zing!

In the spirit of the Christmas Season, or lack thereof, have Oscar Wilde's opinion on Alexander Pope:

“There are two ways of disliking poetry; one way is to dislike it, the other is to read Pope.”

Today Dorothy Parker takes on Oscar Wilde:

If with the literate I am
Impelled to try an epigram,
I never seek to take the credit;
We all assume that Oscar said it.

Have a Wilde One!

Happy birthday, dear Oscar Wilde, wit until the end.

Though his witticisms and one-liners have so entered into the collective subconscious the Amateur Historian has been reluctant to post about them, she cannot help but mention her favorite.

Wilde spent his last few years in the Hôtel d'Alsace, where he kept up with his pleasures and with various intellectual circles. About a month before his death, Wilde quite glibly informed his friends, "My wallpaper and I are fighting a duel to the death. One of us has got to go."