About Oscar Wilde
Oscar Wilde (1854-1900), was an Irish poet, writer, novelist and playwright, born in Dublin. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of London's most popular playwrights in the early 1890s. He is remembered for his epigrams, his novel “The Picture of Dorian Gray”, his plays, as well as the circumstances of his imprisonment and early death. He is also best known for his poems “Ravenna” (1878), a poem for which he was awarded the Newdigate Prize, and “Helas!” (1881), an introspective poem reflecting his questioning of art, passion, and morality. Wilde also wrote many important poems, including “Requiescat” (1881), a moving elegy dedicated to his sister who died young, “The Garden of Eros” (1881), a lyrical homage to beauty and love, typical of his aesthetic style, and “Symphony in Yellow” (1889), a short, impressionistic poem that plays with color and imagery.Even during his student years at Oxford, he stood out for his artistic predilections (“Art for Art's Sake”) and for his eccentricities, especially in his manner of dress. Attracted to paradox, sensitive in essays such as “Intentions” (1891), [which is a short collection of four essays, each giving, in its own way, an insight into Oscar Wilde's ideas on Art], endowed with a caustic irony and great eloquence, he cultivated, in addition to the essay, the most diverse genres: poetry, theater, short stories, and the novel, with his masterpiece “The Picture of Dorian Gray” (1891). As a playwright, he achieved resounding success with “Lady Windermere's Fan” (1892), “A Woman of No Importance” (1893), and “The Importance of Being Earnest” (1895), three works of sparkling dialogue. He had reached the height of his literary glory when he was accused of homosexuality by the father of his friend Lord Alfred Douglas, the Marquess of Queensberry. Wilde sued for libel, which he lost. He was sentenced to two years of hard labor. He was released from prison in 1897, broken, exhausted, and ruined, and went to take refuge in Paris, where he died three years later.
These misfortunes inspired such moving works as “The Ballad of Reading Gaol” (1898), a long poem commemorating the harrowing experience of prison life; and “De Profundis”, a long letter addressed to his lover, which stand in stark contrast to his earlier writing. Wilde has been criticized for being a superficial writer and for squandering his talent. Perhaps, in fact, having “bad feelings” or going against the grain of public opinion is not enough to create good literature.
Oscar Wilde died in Paris on November 30, 1900, in poverty, at the age of 46.
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