• You are currently viewing our forum as a guest, which gives you limited access to view most discussions and access our other features. By joining our free community, you will have access to additional post topics, communicate privately with other members (PM), view blogs, respond to polls, upload content, and access many other special features. Registration is fast, simple and absolutely free, so please join our community today! Just click here to register. You should turn your Ad Blocker off for this site or certain features may not work properly. If you have any problems with the registration process or your account login, please contact us by clicking here.

Oscar Wilde

dynamiteninja

Man for all seasons
Joined
May 30, 2008
Messages
1,195
MBTI Type
INFJ
Enneagram
4w5
ENTP. Although portrayed as ENFJ in the film by the ENFJ Stephen Fry.
 

the state i am in

Active member
Joined
Feb 12, 2009
Messages
2,475
MBTI Type
infj
Enneagram
5w4
Instinctual Variant
sx/sp
ENTP. Although portrayed as ENFJ in the film by the ENFJ Stephen Fry.

why do you see entp? what enneagram? we hear 4w3 a lot, but i don't know if that makes a lot of sense for entp. how does he compare/contrast with shakespeare? i don't know much about oscar wilde.
 

Geno

New member
Joined
Apr 16, 2010
Messages
68
MBTI Type
ENTP
Enneagram
5
His quotes sound very entpish to me.
 

Forever_Jung

Active member
Joined
May 23, 2009
Messages
2,644
MBTI Type
ESFJ
I feel he's Ne dom for his quick wit, but I don't think he's NT. Once you read his later works, it becomes quite clear he is F, so I would say ENFP.
 

Geno

New member
Joined
Apr 16, 2010
Messages
68
MBTI Type
ENTP
Enneagram
5
I feel he's Ne dom for his quick wit, but I don't think he's NT. Once you read his later works, it becomes quite clear he is F, so I would say ENFP.

What later works are you talking about.


I do think that he probably mellowed with age.

Seemed to switch from entp to enfp.
 

Forever_Jung

Active member
Joined
May 23, 2009
Messages
2,644
MBTI Type
ESFJ
What later works are you talking about.


I do think that he probably mellowed with age.

Seemed to switch from entp to enfp.

Well they say prison broke his spirit. I speak of De Profundis and Ballad of Reading Gaol. Those were much more emotionally high-pitched than his previous works. However, I do think he was always an ENFP: Read his short stories (The Happy Prince is a great example) and you'll see the emphasis on emotional content, these were written early on in his literary career.
 

Alwyn

New member
Joined
May 15, 2010
Messages
29
MBTI Type
INTJ
Enneagram
5w4
I really like Oscar Wilde and I think he is one of my favourite authors. But I find it hard to type him.. I think he is definitely ENxP. The question is: is he F or T? NF idealistic or NT rational? Actually I can fit him in both descriptions...
It's too simple to say he is a F just because he showed emotions in his letter "de profundis" everyone has emotions and everyone show them sometimes to another person. By myself, as a T, I've written a letter with emotions in it to someone I loved. And Oscar loved Bosie, no matter how much complications or arguments exists in their "relationship".

ENTP: Ne, Ti, Fe, Si.
ENFP: Ne, Fi, Te, Si.
If I think about this I see him as an ENTP with a well developed Fe. I certainly can't see any Te in him, but because it is the third function, maybe it can be very undeveloped. I actually don't know much about this.

I think he was drawn to both people and ideas. He has a very quick wit and could react very fast with a clever remark. He used his intellect, but was also very charming and friendly, as I like to think. But I think all this can be true for ENFP and ENTP..
Is it true ENTPs are drawn more to ideas, knowledge and their understanding of the world and ENFPs more to people and interactions between them? If this is true I rather think of Oscar to be ENFP.
Or maybe he just was somewhere in the middle of the T/F scale.

As for the enneagram he's definitely type 4, but is he 4w3 or 4w5? If he is ENTP I would rather think 4w5 and if he is ENFP I would think 4w3. Or is this too stereotyped?
 

tinkerbell

New member
Joined
Aug 31, 2008
Messages
3,487
MBTI Type
ENTP
There is no way he is an F type given the way he treated his wife, brutal!
 

Seymour

Vaguely Precise
Joined
Sep 22, 2009
Messages
1,579
MBTI Type
INFP
Enneagram
5w4
Instinctual Variant
sx/so
There is no way he is an F type given the way he treated his wife, brutal!

I'm still not sure of his type. I read The Secret Life of Oscar Wilde, which is a tediously complete account of his sex life and how it may have influenced his writing. I need to go and read a more well-rounded biography, since The Secret Life focused on the sexual at the expense of all else. The Secret Life also habitually refers to Oscar Wilde as "Oscar," which I found pretty grating.

Regardless, Oscar Wilde was definitely a literary and verbal genius. He grew up interacting regularly with some of the best conversationalists of the period, and was clearly a master of conversation and witticisms.

It's also clear that soon after he married (if not before), Wilde rejected the morality of his culture, and instead adopted a value system that venerated seeking out sex with men whenever possible (that of the underground gay "Uranian" society of his day). The Uranians held that homosexual love was higher and more spiritual than heterosexual love, if far more dangerous and fraught. In what became Wilde's value system, rejecting love (sexually) was the sin, and expressing it a virtue.

So, it's not clear to me how much of what looks like horrifically selfish behavior on Wilde's part is the result of the only alternative value system available, and how much are a testament to Wilde's ability to overlook and rationalize to himself the harm he did others, and to justify it as necessary collateral damage from pursuing a "spiritual" good. It does seem clear that he spent a lot of time seeking out sex with younger men, and justified his behavior in various ways.

At some points he repented of his actions, but never for long. It's clear he had a self-destructive streak that expressed itself in several areas (pursuit of sex, drinking, spending money and his disastrous libel suit). One wonders if some of his drinking and pursuits of sex were to avoid thinking on other matters. I suspect he felt torn between value systems, which would also explain some of his vacillations at various points.

So, in some ways his actions speak of a very selfish Fi, for example:

Secret Life loc1273 said:
The secret of this doctrine of desire lay in the abandonment of all self-control, a surrender to a mood of endless, eternal and shifting desire. The mystery of moods, he told Harry, was infinitely fascinating. 'To be a master of these moods is exquisite, to be mastered by them more exquisite still.'

His art was also mostly about expression or exploration of the self:

Secret Life loc1453 said:
Oscar always considered himself first and foremost a poet. [...] Poetry was the medium through which Oscar expressed his most powerful and profound thoughts and emotions, and most of his poems are intensely personal and intensely autobiographical.

It's also amazing how transparently autobiographical most of his plays are, as well.

So, I do think it's arguable that he's an ENTP, who adopted the Fe system of the available gay subculture of his day. However, I think it's at least as arguable he was an ENFP, given his emotional focus and his need to aggrandize his sexual pursuits as spiritual.

Secret Life loc6450 said:
Besides which, Oscar's love for Bosie was part of a wider Uranian Cause which saw itself as embattled and besieged by what George Ives called 'all the powers of evil and ignorance.' [They were...] warriors and lovers willing and prepared to embrace death rather than surrender. Oscar saw his trials and imprisonment not only as a necessary tortures, rites of purification on his revelatory ascent towards the summit of the high hill, but also as trials and tests by fire and water of his Uranian faith. He had lived his Uranian faith and now he was ready to die for it. 'To have altered my life,' he wrote to Robbie Ross three years later, 'would have been to have admitted that Uranian love is ignoble. I hold it to be noble—more noble than other forms.'

And the above definitely sounds to me like a Feeling-based commitment to a cause.

As I said, I'm not 100% convinced what his type was, but I think it's an interesting topic. However, just arguing "he's witty because only ENTPs are witty" isn't by itself convincing (as people have done in other threads about Wilde). Also, mistreatment of others isn't confined to any single type, either. I do think his treatment of his wife was appalling... just not clear to me if it was done because of selfishness, commitment to another cause, self-delusion, survival instinct or some combination of all of the above.
 
S

Stansmith

Guest
I get more Ti-Fe than Fi-Te from what I've read so far. He's also either a 4w3, or a 4w3-fixed 7, in my opinion.
 

small.wonder

So she did.
Joined
Feb 8, 2013
Messages
965
Enneagram
4w5
Instinctual Variant
sx/so
I've always thought of him as a 3w4, thought I agree with [MENTION=18664]Stansmith[/MENTION] about the 7-fix. His tone and general desire to be scandalous and glittery reminds me of other 3w4's I know as well.
 

five sounds

MyPeeSmellsLikeCoffee247
Joined
Jul 17, 2013
Messages
5,393
MBTI Type
ENFP
Enneagram
729
Instinctual Variant
sx/sp
ENFP 7w8 3w4 9w1 sx/so
 

skylights

i love
Joined
Jul 6, 2010
Messages
7,756
MBTI Type
INFP
Enneagram
6w7
Instinctual Variant
so/sx
Strikes me as 4w3 sx/so. Very into the aesthetic and drama of his life. Incredibly magnetic. MBTI, I don't know.
 
S

Stansmith

Guest
I've always thought of him as a 3w4, thought I agree with [MENTION=18664]Stansmith[/MENTION] about the 7-fix. His tone and general desire to be scandalous and glittery reminds me of other 3w4's I know as well.

Good point. How do you think someone with a 4w3-fix would behave in comparison?
 
A

Anew Leaf

Guest
The vibe I get from him is that the 3w4 just tickles past 4w3. Where the image viewed by others surpasses the view he has of himself in a way. Such as his lovely line "The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about."

Definitely sx/so. I want to say ENTP over ENFP.
 

small.wonder

So she did.
Joined
Feb 8, 2013
Messages
965
Enneagram
4w5
Instinctual Variant
sx/so
Good point. How do you think someone with a 4w3-fix would behave in comparison?

Do you mean to ask how a 3w4 with a 7-fix would differ from a 4w3 with a 7-fix? I think that's what you mean, because a 3w4 couldn't have a 4w3 fix (because their heart type is already 3w4).

I think a 4w3 with a 7-fix would obviously be very similar to a 3w4 with a 7-fix but potentially more concerned with authenticity, introspection, and true identity. I think Wilde is a 3w4 rather, because I don't believe he valued authenticity as much as he did flash and mirrors. Being perceived as witty and successful (albeit different) seem to have been his main aims, no matter who he had to become.

His quotes also just scream 3w4 to me, I can't explain that specifically though unfortunately. Just a feeling.
 

Chad of the OttomanEmpire

Give me a fourth dot.
Joined
Jun 9, 2013
Messages
1,053
MBTI Type
NeTi
Enneagram
478
Instinctual Variant
sx/so
I haven't read anything in depth on Oscar Wilde, but I gathered he was a soc/sx 4w3, 7-fixed, Ne-dom.

As for the enneagram he's definitely type 4, but is he 4w3 or 4w5? If he is ENTP I would rather think 4w5 and if he is ENFP I would think 4w3. Or is this too stereotyped?
Maybe a bit stereotyped. I currently type as 4w5 (100% sure) and Ne-dom (pretty sure). I'm not sure of my secondary function--I wouldn't be a typical ENFP, but there's abundant evidence of both Fi- and Ti-usage. It's non-differentiated as far as I am concerned, but I am aware that my 5-wing might only be making me think I'm a Ti-user.

Perhaps Wilde was in a similar position?

There is no way he is an F type given the way he treated his wife, brutal!
Feelers can't be cruel??
 

Stephano

Almöhi
Joined
Aug 8, 2012
Messages
1,105
MBTI Type
NFP
F=subjective decisions,
T=objective decisions

not
F=softy
T=mean

Oscar Wilde was gay. He was even in in prison for that. Maybe that explains why he treated his wife bad.
 
Top