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Oscar Wilde


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Oscar Wilde (1854-1900), Irish dramatist, poet, and author wrote the darkly sardonic Faustian themed The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891);

In the centre of the room, clamped to an upright easel, stood the full-length portrait of a young man of extraordinary personal beauty, and in front of it, some little distance away, was sitting the artist himself, Basil Hallward, .... "I hate them for it,"cried Hallward. "An artist should create beautiful things, but should put nothing of his own life into them. We live in an age when men treat art as if it were meant to be a form of autobiography. We have lost the abstract sense of beauty. Some day I will show the world what it is; and for that reason the world shall never see my portrait of Dorian Gray."--Ch. 1

Ever the aesthete, Wilde himself was profoundly affected by beauty and lived and dressed flamboyantly compared to the typical Victorian styles and mores of the time. He was often publicly caricatured and the target of much moral outrage in Europe and America. His writings such as Dorian Gray with homoerotic themes also brought much controversy for him but he was part of the ever-growing movement of 'decadents' who advocated pacifism, social reform, and libertarianism. While many vilified him, he was making his mark with style and wit and enjoyed much success with many of his plays. Wilde was lauded by and acquainted with many influential figures of the day including fellow playwright George Bernard Shaw, American poets Walt Whitman and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and English author and social critic John Ruskin. His works have inspired countless fellow authors, have been translated to numerous languages, and have been adapted to the stage and screen many times over. Fiction by Wilde includes The Canterville Ghost (1887), The Happy Prince and Other Tales (1888), The Portrait of Mr. W. H. (1889), A House of Pomegranates (1891), Lord Arthur Savile's Crime (1891), and Intentions (essays, 1891). His plays include Vera, or the Nihilists (1880), The Duchess of Padua (1883), Lady Windermere's Fan (1892), A Florentine Tragedy (La Sainte Courtisane 1893), A Woman of No Importance (1893), Salomé (1894), An Ideal Husband (1895), and The Importance of Being Earnest (1895).

Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was born on 16 October 1854, in Dublin, Ireland, the second of three children born to writer Jane Francesca Agnes née Elgee (1821-1896) and surgeon Sir William Robert Wills Wilde (1815-1876). Wilde's mother was a prominent poet and nationalist; his father a successful ear and eye surgeon and noted philanthropist, knighted in 1864. Oscar had an older brother named William and a younger sister, Isola. After his initial years of schooling at home, in 1871 he entered Trinity College, Dublin, then went on to study the classics at Magdalen College, Oxford, England from 1874-1878. It was here that he came under the influence of writer and critic Walter Pater (1839-1894) and helped found the Aesthetic Movement, "art for art's sake". Wilde excelled in his studies, winning many prizes and awards including Oxford's Newdigate Prize for his poem "Ravenna" (1878);

Adieu! Adieu! yon silver lamp, the moon,
Which turns our midnight into perfect noon,
Doth surely light thy towers, guarding well
Where Dante sleeps, where Byron loved to dwell.

After school Wilde settled in London and continued to write poetry; his first collection simply titled Poems was published in 1881. That same year he set off on a long tour of America and Canada to deliver lectures on aestheticism. He arrived back in Europe in 1883 and while not further lecturing lived in Paris, France. In 1884 Wilde married Constance Mary Lloyd (1858-1898) with whom he would have two sons; Cyril (1885-1915), who was killed during World War I, and Vyvyan (1886-1976), who would become an author, penning his memoir Son of Oscar Wilde (1954) and publishing Oscar Wilde: A Pictorial Biography in 1960. The Wildes settled in Chelsea, London where Oscar continued to write and work for such magazines as the Pall Mall Gazette and became editor of Woman's World in 1887.

In 1891 Wilde met English poet Lord Alfred Douglas "Bosie" (1870-1945), son of John Douglas, 9th Marquess of Queensberry (1844-1900). It was the beginning of a tumultuous relationship that would cause many problems for Oscar and eventually lead to his downfall. Alfred had a tempestuous relationship with his father which did not help matters. He disapproved of his son's lifestyle and when he learned of his openly living with Wilde, he set out to defame Wilde. For the opening performance of The Importance of Being Earnest in 1895 at St. James's Theatre in London the Marquess planned to publicly expose and humiliate Wilde. Oscar took legal steps to protect himself against the 'brute' but he ultimately won a case whereby Wilde was charged with "gross indecency" for homosexual acts. The outcome of the sensational trial was a sentence of two years hard labour which Wilde served most of at the Reading Gaol outside of London. After Wilde was imprisoned Constance had her and her sons' last names changed to Holland. Now prisoner C. 3.3, Wilde turned to his pen and wrote many essays, poems, and letters including one to Alfred, "De Profundis" (a heavily edited version was first published in 1905; the complete version in 1962). After his release from prison in May of 1897, Wilde wrote "Ballad of Reading Gaol" (1898) about the injustice of the death penalty and the hanging of Charles Thomas Wooldridge;

Yet each man kills the thing he loves
By each let this be heard,
Some do it with a bitter look,
Some with a flattering word,
The coward does it with a kiss,
The brave man with a sword!

Adopting the name Sebastian Melmoth, Wilde went to Paris, penniless, and is said to have reunited with his friend and lover of many years, Canadian journalist Robert Baldwin "Robbie" Ross (1869-1918), who was also executor of Wilde's estate. He took up residence in the Hôtel d'Alsace on rue des Beaux-Arts. On his deathbed, Ross by his side, Wilde was baptised into the Roman Catholic Church and received Extreme Unction. Oscar Wilde died of meningitis on 30 November 1900. He now rests in Père Lachaise cemetery in Paris; Ross' ashes were added to the angel-adorned tomb in 1950.

All trials are trials for one's life, just as all sentences are sentences of death; and three times have I been tried. The first time I left the box to be arrested, the second time to be led back to the house of detention, the third time to pass into a prison for two years. Society, as we have constituted it, will have no place for me, has none to offer; but Nature, whose sweet rains fall on unjust and just alike, will have clefts in the rocks where I may hide, and secret valleys in whose silence I may weep undisturbed. She will hang the night with stars so that I may walk abroad in the darkness without stumbling, and send the wind over my footprints so that none may track me to my hurt: she will cleanse me in great waters, and with bitter herbs make me whole.--"De Profundis"

Biography written by C. D. Merriman for Jalic Inc. Copyright Jalic Inc. 2008. All Rights Reserved.


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Recent Forum Posts on Oscar Wilde

Oscar wilde: The long road

At the start of my travelling-pioneering life, in 1962, the first collection, a monumental edition, of The Letters of Oscar Wilde were published. I was far too busy at the time dealing with 9 subjects in Ontario’s grade 13 curriculum, with my burgeoning erotic inclinations, my incipient bipolar disorder, the nature and direction of the new religio-political commitment I had recently been socialized into over the years 1953 to 19621 and, in October of that same year, a socio-historical event that took our global society as close as it has yet been to a nuclear war.2 –Ron Price: refer to 1the Baha’i Faith and 2 the Cuban Missile Crisis. That edition of his letters went out of print but, when I was working in the Northern Territory of Australia, a new edition became available. I was still too busy and there was so much else going on in my life at that time: work, family, a new Baha’i community, just getting through the day....and so it was that it was not until I retired from full-time, part-time and casual work that I had any idea of your brilliance, Oscar. Your life was inseparable from your work; indeed, until that retirement in my own life, my writing was by far the less important part of my life, too, by far. I became like you, Oscar, my own public relations expert, inventing and reinventing myself, perfecting ads all over the place. I’ve got to hand it to you, dear Oscar, you were a clever dude with those words. You said: I was a problem for which there was no solution; I can resist everything except, of course, temptation; if you want to tell people the truth, make them laugh, otherwise they’ll kill you; and, man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask and he will tell you the truth1-------and on and on you went evolving, as a conscious process of your self-expression and your self-dramatization, discovering the artistic context which best matched your temperament and character, devoting your career to investigating the most elusive subject matter: the self, creating an expressive medium for your findings, for your many voices, many personae and your wide range of tones and masks....Me, too, Oscar, me too on the long, stony and tortuous road. 1 Oscar Wilde Quotes, “The Quotations Page,” www.quotationspage.com. Ron Price 12 June 2009

Posted By Ron Price at Fri 12 Jun 2009, 5:52 AM in Wilde, Oscar || 0 Replies

"Women give to men the very gold of their lives. But ..."

"Women give to men the very gold of their lives. But they invariably want it back in such very small change."(O. Wilde):flare: PLz can you help me with this quote... :bawling:what does it mean? :sick:Does it mean that women don't let men to develop or fulfull their dreams???

Posted By Regina61285 at Mon 9 Mar 2009, 6:41 PM in Wilde, Oscar || 6 Replies

Wilde reading group

From his plays to essays. Anyone interested? Cheers

Posted By subterranean at Sat 28 Feb 2009, 2:09 PM in Wilde, Oscar || 0 Replies

Nowadays people know the price of everything and the value of nothing

It's a beautiful and true to life quote. I love Oscar's imagination and wit. He is amazing. The things that has more value in life has no price, you can't buy happiness. And people don't give the value those things deserve, for example a friend or a family who is always there when you need them or someone that "borrow an ear" to your problems. I'd like to know ur opinion

Posted By Regina61285 at Thu 12 Feb 2009, 8:48 AM in Wilde, Oscar || 3 Replies

Be yourself, everyone else is taken (Oscar Wilde)

This is another short essay.I hope you enjoy it Be yourself, everyone else is taken (Oscar Wilde) In order to be oneself, one has to take risks, to accept that one is not perfect and to be courageous enough to say what one really thinks. Nowadays, it’s a tremendous act of bravery to be original instead of a pathetic replication of someone else. Role models are just that, and they are not necessarily someone to imitate to the letter, an image to clone or a mind to reproduce. “Most people are other people; their thoughts are someone else’s opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.” –Oscar Wilde. Lacking spontaneity, originality or individuality is the worst flaw one can has, for a mediocre copy of someone else is taking one’s place. It is considered that the “different” is wrong; people should follow societies’ expectations and norms, which are implicitly or explicitly stated as acceptable for human behavior. The “odd” can be not only dangerous, but also a potential element of corruption. Consequently, “GOOD” people fear the ones who “set a bad example”, so the “rotten” people are a problem to solve by DISCRIMINATING, PERSECUTING or ATTACKING in repeatedly situations. Thus, it’s believed that it’s easier to fulfill society’s expectation, for life would be quite more successful and profitable. However, as Oscar Wilde said, “to be natural is such a difficult pose to keep up”; to be someone else all the time is so torturing and tiresome that it can be said to be impossible. It’s true that people who speak up their minds find a strong opposition from society, but at least they know who they are and are able to think by themselves. First of all, to have an opinion, a style, a way of thinking and a defined character and personality is fantastic. Being diversity a lot more profitable than sameness, which is awfully boring, it must be encouraged in order to have a developing society. Evolution and developing is the result of original ideas. There are many examples of great minds who dared to think different and astonished the world like Columbus, Martin Luther king, Nietzsche, Leonardo Da Vinci, etc. The most remembered and respected people are the ones who were able to give new ideas, concepts and views of the world. The world needs originality, for there is more than enough imitations in the world. Being open and honest will lead to the liberation from “social masks” also called hypocrisy, which is the real decadence of a society. There is a tendency to disregard our principles to stay out of trouble, to hide our insecurities and to fit in with others. Besides, in the masses you are one more, but alone you are nothing. What a pity! Potential great minds wasted! If one does the same as others, which is the purpose of one’s life? Individuality is formed from committing mistakes and learning from them, from different kinds of experiences, from ideals and principles and, of course, from not jumping on the bandwagon. Individuality is an extraordinary quality very few people have. The complication in achieving individuality may be the difficulty that being different implies-cowardice- or the incapacity to think, both are possible. In conclusion, to follow the crowd is ok for mediocre people, but not for the ones who want to be respected and listened. Leave your mask, follow your ideals instead of a crowd, and defend your point of view as a reasonable person and you will learn so many things about others and about yourself. Our existence is important; we shouldn’t hide our personality, but use it to make the world a more interesting place to live in. “Be a first rate version of yourself, not a second rate version of someone else”- Judy Garland.

Posted By Regina61285 at Wed 11 Feb 2009, 7:55 PM in Wilde, Oscar || 4 Replies

“To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.”(O. Wilde)

This is a short essay based of Wilde's quotation hope you fine it interesting.:blush: “To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.”(Oscar wilde) Nowadays people kill themselves to eke out a living, improve their living conditions or keep their high standard of living, but they forget to live. A Scottish proverb says; "be happy while you're living, for you're a long time dead." In fact, people don’t live, but they survive each day, for they are too busy, too tired, too stressed and too worried to really enjoy the pleasures of life. Everyone says; “time flies.” Thus, hours become days and days become years and years become a wasted precious life, and what for? Of course, for a better living. It’s believed that to be successful in life and improve your conditions you have to work hard and never stop, because if you stop, another person will come and take your place. Besides, as the present society demands a lot of effort to survive and keep a decent living, pleasures are the first thing to be put off when wanting to achieve any goal. However, if you postpone your enjoyment until you have time, money and/or proper conditions arrive that time may never come or come too late and your priceless life will be wasted. The strains of modern life force people to live in such a hurry that they don’t even have time to enjoy the beautiful world we live in. People forget to take delight of the bonny things nature provides us. It costs no money and takes almost no time. "This world, after all our science and sciences, is still a miracle; wonderful, magical and more, to whosoever will think of it." - Thomas Carlyle. Being ambitious, human beings always want more than what they actually need or would really enjoy like a collector. People accumulate things for others to enjoy them, for they value their lives by the things they possess, which is a quite sad way of appreciating life since they’ll never be satisfied. “The true perfection of man lies not in what man has, but in what man is.” Oscar Wilde. If people at bedtime review of the day ask themselves how much they delight the day, they’ll probably conclude that they miss another chance of feeling alive. Responsibilities are absolutely necessary as well as a job and material things, but life goes beyond that. How many people at their deathbed regret for not taking the opportunities they had to live, to have adventures and experiences? There is nothing better than to look back your past and be able to say; “I lived and lived very well. I made mistakes and I learned from them.” Additionally, there is the other group of people who have all the time of the world to have a life, but they prefer to mind other’s business. Gossip people’s lives are so empty, so tasteless, and so dead that they just exist and, what is worse, they don’t know how to live. In conclusion, our time is not eternal. Each second, minute, hour, day we waste is gone forever. To overwork for something you won’t enjoy is as silly as having the opportunity to live but to prefer to exist in order to talk about the ones who do live. Once we value more what we are than what we have, maybe our goals would change and feel what to be alive means. Thus, after feeling really alive, our life will be neither empty nor wasted but full of precious experiences.

Posted By Regina61285 at Wed 11 Feb 2009, 7:54 PM in Wilde, Oscar || 4 Replies

The Ballad of Reading Gaol

Since there isn't a thread for this, I thought I'd start one. Is anyone else as touched by this poem as I was? I thought it was deeply haunting, especially the repeating chorus.

Posted By Wilde woman at Sun 8 Feb 2009, 3:04 AM in Wilde, Oscar || 1 Reply

The Selfish Giant

Yes, I know this story is chock full of religious symbolism, and I am not religious, but every time I read it aloud I start crying, it is just so touching. I wonder if anyone else feels the same. I don't feel it is a complex story as such, but I really recommend that others read this story aloud, as with Oscar Wilde's other children's stories. Farewell my friends.

Posted By Silas Thorne at Sat 13 Dec 2008, 9:06 PM in Wilde, Oscar || 2 Replies

Oral Presentation on Oscar Wilde...

Nevermind.

Posted By Morrissey at Sun 27 Apr 2008, 4:06 AM in Wilde, Oscar || 0 Replies

Oscar Wilde?

Hi, Am thinking about getting into some of Oscar Wilde's novels, anyone have any recommendations of which i should start with? :)

Posted By Birdy123 at Sun 13 Apr 2008, 6:22 AM in Wilde, Oscar || 3 Replies

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