Editing Oscar Wilde (section)

=== Magdalen College, Oxford ===
At Magdalen, he read [[Greats]] from 1874 to 1878. He applied to join the [[Oxford Union]], but failed to be elected.{{sfn|Toughill|2008|pp=183-185}}

[[File:Oscar Wilde (1854-1900), by Hills & Saunders, Rugby & Oxford 3 april 1876.jpg|thumb|upright|alt=Oscar Wilde posing for a photograph, looking at the camera. He is wearing a checked suit and a bowler hat. His right foot is resting on a knee-high bench, and his right hand, holding gloves, is on it. The left hand is in the pocket.|Oscar Wilde at Oxford in 1876]]

Attracted by its dress, secrecy and ritual, Wilde petitioned the Apollo [[Masonic Lodge]] at Oxford, and was soon raised to the Sublime Degree of Master Mason.{{sfn|Ellmann|1988|p=39}} During a resurgent interest in [[Freemasonry]] in his third year, he commented he "would be awfully sorry to give it up if I secede from the Protestant Heresy".{{sfn|Ellmann|1988|p=65}} Wilde's active involvement in Freemasonry lasted only for the time he spent at Oxford; he allowed his membership of the Apollo University Lodge to lapse after failing to pay subscriptions.<ref>{{cite web |title=Oscar Wilde A University Mason |url=http://www.freemasons-freemasonry.com/beresiner8.html |publisher=PS Review of Freemasonry |access-date=3 August 2016 |archive-date=31 July 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160731185846/http://www.freemasons-freemasonry.com/beresiner8.html |url-status=live}}</ref>

Catholicism deeply appealed to him, especially its rich liturgy, and he discussed converting to it with clergy several times. In 1877, Wilde was left speechless after an audience with [[Pope Pius IX|Pope Pius&nbsp;IX]] in Rome.{{sfn|Ellmann|1988|p=70}} He eagerly read the books of [[John Henry Newman|Cardinal Newman]], a noted Anglican priest who had converted to Catholicism and risen in the church hierarchy. He became more serious in 1878, when he met the Reverend Sebastian Bowden, a priest in the [[Brompton Oratory]] who had received some high-profile converts. Neither Mahaffy nor Sir William, who threatened to cut off his son's funding, thought much of the plan; but Wilde, the supreme individualist, balked at the last minute from pledging himself to any formal creed, and on the appointed day of his baptism into Catholicism, he sent Father Bowden a bunch of altar lilies instead. Wilde did retain a lifelong interest in Catholic theology and liturgy.{{sfn|Sandulescu|1994|pp=375–376}}

While at Magdalen College, Wilde became well known for his role in the [[Aesthetic movement|aesthetic]] and [[decadent movement]]s. He wore his hair long, openly scorned "manly" sports{{snd}}though he occasionally boxed{{sfn|Ellmann|1988|p=39}}{{snd}}and decorated his rooms with [[peacock]] feathers, lilies, [[sunflower]]s, blue china and other ''objets d'art''. He entertained lavishly, and once remarked to some friends, "I find it harder and harder every day to live up to my blue china."{{sfn|Ellmann|1988|pp=43-44}} The line spread famously; aesthetes adopted it as a slogan, but it was criticized as being terribly vacuous.{{sfn|Ellmann|1988|pp=43–44}} Some elements disdained the aesthetes, but their languorous attitudes and showy costumes became a recognisable pose.{{sfn|Breen|2000|pp=22–23}} When four of his fellow students physically assaulted Wilde, he fended them off single-handedly, to the surprise of his detractors.{{sfn|Ellmann|1988|p=44}} By his third year Wilde had truly begun to develop himself and his myth, and considered his learning to be more expansive than what was within the prescribed texts. He was [[Rustication (academia)|rusticated]] for one term, after he had returned late to a college term from a trip to Greece with Mahaffy.{{sfn|Ellmann|1988|p=78}}

Wilde did not meet [[Walter Pater]] until his third year, but had been enthralled by his ''Studies in the History of the Renaissance'', published during Wilde's final year in Trinity.{{sfn|Ellmann|1988|p=46}} Pater argued that man's sensibility to beauty should be refined above all else, and that each moment should be felt to its fullest extent. Years later, in ''[[De Profundis (letter)|De Profundis]]'', Wilde described Pater's ''Studies...'' as "that book that has had such a strange influence over my life".{{sfn|Holland|Hart-Davis|2000|p=735}} He learned tracts of the book by heart, and carried it with him on travels in later years. Pater gave Wilde his sense of almost flippant devotion to art, though he gained a purpose for it through the lectures and writings of critic [[John Ruskin]].{{sfn|Ellmann|1988|p=95}} Ruskin despaired at the self-validating aestheticism of Pater, arguing that the importance of art lies in its potential for the betterment of society. Ruskin admired beauty, but believed it must be allied with, and applied to, moral good. When Wilde eagerly attended Ruskin's lecture series ''The Aesthetic and Mathematic Schools of Art in Florence'', he learned about aesthetics as the non-mathematical elements of painting. Despite being given to neither early rising nor manual labour, Wilde volunteered for Ruskin's project to convert a swampy country lane into a smart road neatly edged with flowers.{{sfn|Ellmann|1988|p=95}}

Wilde won the 1878 [[Newdigate Prize]] for his poem "[[s:Ravenna|Ravenna]]", which reflected on his visit there in the previous year, and he duly read it at [[Encaenia]].{{sfn|Ellmann|1988|p=93}} In November 1878, he graduated Bachelor of Arts with a [[First class honours|double first]], having been placed in the first class in Classical Moderations (the first part of the course) and then again in the final examination in [[Literae Humaniores]] (Greats). Wilde wrote to a friend, "The dons are '{{linktext|astonied}}' beyond words&nbsp;– the Bad Boy doing so well in the end!"<!--Do not change this! It appears as 'astonied' in the letter. "Astonied" is a word, and the single quotation marks are the subject's also. -->{{sfn|Holland|Hart-Davis|2000|p=70}}{{sfn|Ellmann|1988|p=94}}