Narcissistic Personality Disorder in Lord Alfred Douglas: A Psychological Insight into Oscar Wilde’s Letter De Profundis

Abstract

This essay, presented as a literary essay to honour Oscar Wilde’s memory in the 125th anniversary of his death, aims to cast some light on the psychology of lord Alfred Douglas by dealing with testimonies about his personality and behaviour, shown by Wilde in the letter he addressed to his lover during his imprisonment in Reading Gaol, from 1895 to 1897, called De Profundis. Taking the DSM-5-TR manual as a theoretical reference mixed with an innovative approach to the topic, the hypothesis that Alfred Douglas could be diagnosed with Narcissistic Personality Disorder has been formulated. This viewpoint, which has not been much studied to this day and could, therefore, give rise to ambiguity and discrepancies amongst scholars and thinkers, can ultimately serve as a conjectural exercise to, conceivably, understand the emotional abuse and toxicity that may have existed between the lovers. It also presents a plausible reason for the suffering and last erratic moves that led Wilde to his downfall, trying to find some closure to his experience through a new psychological insight. De Profundis is a text which requires further study and it can still be read nowadays as a powerful source of information about the author’s life and, arguably, as a testimony of what emotional abuse can do to a victim of a possible NPD manipulator.