Oscar Wilde

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Oscar Wilde

Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde was born in Dublin, Ireland in 1854. He was an Irish poet during the Victorian time. His mother was a poet and journalist. His father was Sir William Wilde, an Irish antiquarian, gifted writer, and specialist in diseases of the eye and ear. Oscar Wilde studied at Portora Royal School, Enniskillen, County Fermanagh (1864-71), Trinity College, Dublin (1871-74) and Magdalene College, Oxford (1874-78).


In 1878 Wilde received his B.A. and the same year he moved to London. His lifestyle and humorous wit made him a spokesman for Aestheticism, the late 19th century movement in England that advocated art for art’s sake. He worked as art reviewer, lectured in the United States and Canada, and lived in Paris. Between the years 1883-84 he lectured in Britain. From the mid- 1880s he was regular contributor for Pall Mall Gazette and Dramatic View. In 1884 Oscar married the beautiful Constance Lloyd and to support his family Wilde edited in 1887-89 Woman’s World magazine. In 1888 he published The happy Prince and Other Tales, fairy-stories written for his two sons. The Picture of Dorian Gray followed in 1890 and next year he brought out more fairy tales. His and Constance Lloyd’s marriage ended in 1893. Robert Ross, a young Canadian houseguest, who had one evening seduced Oscar and forced him finally to confront the homosexual feelings that had gripped him since his schooldays. Wilde was introduced to a handsome young Oxford undergraduate, Lord Alfred Douglas, nicknamed Bosie, in 1892 the first night of his play Lady Windermere’s Fan. They began a passionate and stormy relationship, which consumed and ultimately destroyed Oscar. Bosie became both the love of the author’s life and his downfall.


Oscar Wilde made his reputation in theatre world between the years 1892 and 1895 with a series of highly popular plays. Lady Windermere’s Fan (1892) dealt with blackmailing divorcée driven to self-sacrifice by maternal love. In A Woman of No Importance (1893) an illegitime son is torn between his mother and father. An Ideal Husband (1895) dealt with blackmail, political corruption and public and private honour. The Importance of Being Ernest (1895) was about two fashionable young gentlemen and their eventually successful courtship.


Before the theatrical success Wilde produced several essays, many of these anonymously. His two major literary-theoretical works were the dialogues ´The Decay of Lying´ (1889) and ´The Critic as Artist´ (1890). In the latter Wilde lets his character state, that criticism is the superior part of creation, and that the critic must not be fair, rational, and sincere, but possessed of ´a temperament exquisitely susceptible to beauty´. In a more traditional essay The Soul of a Man Under Socialism (1891) Wilde takes an optimistic view of the road to socialist future. He rejects the Christian ideal of self-sacrifice in favour of joy.


Although married and the father of two children, Wilde´s personal life was open to rumours. His years of triumph ended dramatically, when his intimate association with Alfred Douglas led to his trial on charges of homosexuality (then illegal in Britain). He was sentenced two years hard labour for the crime of sodomy.


Wilde was first in Wands worth prison, London, and then Reading Gaol. When he was at last allowed pen and paper after more than 19 months of deprivation, Wilde had became inclined to take opposite views on the potential of humankind toward perfection. During this time he wrote DE PROFUNDIS (1905), a dramatic monologue and autobiography, which was addressed to Alfred Douglas.


After his relea...