In this depiction of his aesthetic life, there is no explicit remorse - in fact there is an explicit lack of remorse and rather a desire for novelty, new experience. The other half of the garden had its secrets for me also” (1026).

… But to have continued the same life would have been wrong because it would have been limiting, I had to pass on. Revisiting some of the lines about prophecy from my last post, Wilde writes that he doesn’t regret the life he lived for pleasure, but that a change from that lifestyle was necessary: “I don’t regret for a single moment having lived a life for pleasure. What does he recognize as his own faults or wrongs and what does he lay instead at the feet of Bosie or even the aesthetic lifestyle more broadly? It’s kind of amazing that a text can be both so self-reflective and blind at the same time. Though tragic and self-reflective, yes, it’s still important to interrogate how much Wilde really owns his faults and takes upon himself the moral revolution he seems to be outlining in this piece, rather than falling into the trap of martyrdom that even he seems to be outlining for himself. I tend to get bogged down in the sadness and the tragedy, particularly in this part of Wilde’s story, and ignore the other parts of the piece - those that are confusing or contradictory.

I appreciated hearing everyone else’s opinions of De Profundis this week in class.

Oscar wilde's de profundis