What do you think is Oscar Wilde's best fictional work? I'm thinking in terms of the best work from a critical perspective, as opposed to purely from a favourite point of view, though I don't suppose it matters either way. I'm only going to include serious contenders so sorry if you think "Vera" is his best work.
Obviously it is going to be difficult to compare works written in different forms, but let's not be picky.
Last edited by LitNetIsGreat; 06-29-2009 at 06:47 PM.
His life.
Cool.Originally Posted by MarkBastable
"I've put my talent into my work and my genius into my life" and all that.
Maaaa, nobody is voting...
I did! I did! One of my favorite books is The Picture of Dorian Gray
"All gods are homemade, and it is we who pull their strings, and so, give them the power to pull ours." -Aldous Huxley
"Sooner murder an infant in its cradle than nurse unacted desires." -William Blake
Yeah! Yoo hoo, thank you.
The Importance of Being Earnest is hilarious. Gets my vote.
The Ballard of Reading Jail.
I suspect that the reason that the ability to write good prose and good dialogue go hand in hand is simply that a good writer knows how to listen. At this nadir of his life, he listened to himself and expressed it in his inimatable manner.
I voted for The Picture of Dorian Gray..I only read 2 of those list-Lady Windereme's fan is quite good as well. The Importance of Being Earnest appears to be in my Reading List next month
"The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function. One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless and yet be determined to make them otherwise."
-- F. Scott Fitzgerald
Sorry, I'm quite late to this poll. I had a hard time choosing between the novel and some of his top plays, but I ended going with the novel, since Neely asked us to think in of it from a critical perspective.
Though his collection of short stories and the Ballad have their own charms. I was also briefly tempted to vote for Salome, just for its shock factor. But I resisted.
I would have to reply with his poems they just show soo much potential and creativity.
I love almost every poem this Legendary Man Made.
R.I.P Oscar Wilde
We All Love You.
Twilight In the shadows of the creatures that lay across the grass,Memories ending my sympathy and Blood being my Redemption
-BleaK DecembeR-
That's right. His poems are mostly underrated. I've even read somewhere that they were plagiarized from earlier poets. This was an accusation leveled also against Salome. But 'all art begins in imitation', and anyway I think what Oscar Wilde did was better than what his predecessors had done on the same themes.
There are also his translations of excerpts from Aeschylus and Euripides. They are the best translations I've come across.
That's right. His poems are mostly underrated. I've even read somewhere that they were plagiarized from earlier poets. This was an accusation leveled also against Salome. But 'all art begins in imitation', and anyway I think what Oscar Wilde did was better than what his predecessors had done on the same themes.
There are also his translations of excerpts from Aeschylus and Euripides. They are the best translations I've come across.
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