Oscar Wilde
Oscar Wilde (Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde) (✦16 October 1854, † 30 November 1900) was an Irish writer, poet, and prominent aesthete. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of London's most popular playwrights in the early 1890s. Today he is remembered for his epigrams, plays, and the tragedy of his imprisonment, followed by his early death.
Wilde's parents were successful Dublin intellectuals, and their son showed his intelligence early, becoming fluent in French and German. At university, Wilde read Greats and proved himself to be an outstanding classicist, first at Dublin, then at Oxford. However, he became known for his involvement in the rising philosophy of aestheticism (led by two of his tutors, Walter Pater and John Ruskin) though he also profoundly explored Roman Catholicism (and later converted on his deathbed). After university Wilde moved to London, into fashionable cultural and social circles. As a spokesman for aestheticism, he tried his hand at various literary activities; he published a book of poems, lectured America and Canada on the new "English Renaissance in Art" and then returned to London where he worked prolifically as a journalist. Known for his biting wit, flamboyant dress, and glittering conversation, Wilde had become one of the major personalities of his day.
At the turn of the 1890s, he refined his ideas about the supremacy of art in a series of dialogues and essays; and incorporated themes of decadence, duplicity, and beauty into his only novel, "The Picture of Dorian Gray". The opportunity to construct aesthetic details precisely, combined with larger social themes, drew Wilde to writing drama. He wrote "Salome" (1891) in French in Paris, but it was refused a license. Unperturbed, Wilde produced four society comedies in the early 1890s, which made him one of the most successful playwrights of late Victorian London.
At the height of his fame and success, whilst his masterpiece, "The Importance of Being Earnest", was still on stage in London, Wilde sued his lover's father for libel. After a series of trials, Wilde was convicted of gross indecency with other men and imprisoned for two years, held to hard labor. In prison he wrote "De Profundis", a long letter that discusses his spiritual journey through his trials, forming a dark counterpoint to his earlier philosophy of pleasure. Upon his release he left immediately for France, never to return to Ireland or Britain. There he wrote his last work, "The Ballad of Reading Gaol", a long poem commemorating the harsh rhythms of prison life. He died destitute in Paris at the age of forty-six.
| Oscar Wilde quotation: "When the Gods wish to punish us, they grant our wishes |
Works
- "The Picture of Dorian Gray"
- Wikipedia article: The Picture of Dorian Gray
The first version of "The Picture of Dorian Gray" was published as the lead story in the July 1890 edition of Lippincott's Monthly Magazine, along with five others. The story begins as Gray's portrait is being completed, and he talks with the libertine Lord Henry Wotton, who has a curious influence on him. When Gray, who has a "face like ivory and rose leaves" sees his finished portrait he breaks down, distraught that his beauty will fade, but the portrait stays beautiful, inadvertently making a Faustian bargain. For Wilde, the purpose of art would guide life if beauty alone were its object. Thus Gray's portrait allows him to escape the corporeal ravages of his hedonism, (and Miss Prism mistakes a baby for a book in The Importance of Being Earnest), Wilde sought to juxtapose the beauty he saw in art onto daily life.
Reviewers immediately criticized the novel's content and decadence, and Wilde vigorously responded in print. Writing to the Editor of the Scots Observer, he clarified his stance on ethics and aesthetics in art "If a work of art is rich and vital and complete, those who have artistic instincts will see its beauty and those to whom ethics appeal more strongly will see its moral lesson." He nevertheless revised it extensively for book publication in 1891: six new chapters were added, some overt decadence passages and homo-eroticism excised, and a preface consisting of twenty-two epigrams, such as "Books are well written, or badly written. That is all. " was included. Contemporary reviewers and modern critics have postulated numerous possible sources of the story, a search Jershua McCormack argues is futile because Wilde "has tapped a root of Western folklore so deep and ubiquitous that the story has escaped its origins and returned to the oral tradition." Wilde claimed the plot was "an idea that is as old as the history of literature but to which I have given a new form". Modern critics have considered the novel to be technically mediocre: the conceit of the plot has guaranteed its fame, but the device is never pushed to its full.
- "Salome"
- Wikipedia article: Salome (play)
The original 1891 version of the play was in French. Three years later an English translation was published. The play tells in one act the Biblical story of Salome, stepdaughter of the tetrarch Herod Antipas, who, to her stepfather's dismay but to the delight of her mother Herodias, requests the head of Jokanaan (John the Baptist) on a silver platter as a reward for dancing the Dance of the Seven Veils.
Wilde was received at the 'salons litteraires', including the famous Mardis of Stephane Mallarme, a renowned symbolist poet of the time. Wilde's two plays during the 1880s, "Vera"; or, "The Nihilists and The Duchess of Padua", had not met with much success. He had continued his interest in the theater and now, after finding his voice in prose, his thoughts turned again to the dramatic form as the biblical iconography of Salome filled his head. One evening, after discussing the depiction of Salome throughout history, he returned to his hotel to notice a blank copybook lying on the desk, and it occurred to him to write down what he had been saying. He wrote a new play, Salome, rapidly and in French. A tragedy, it tells the story of Salome, the stepdaughter of the tetrarch Herod Antipas, who, to her stepfather's dismay but mother's delight, requests the head of Jokanaan (John the Baptist) on a silver platter as a reward for dancing the "Dance of the Seven Veils". When Wilde returned to London just before Christmas the Paris Echo, a newspaper, referred to him as "le great event" of the season. Rehearsals of the play, including Sarah Bernhardt, began but the play was refused a license by the Lord Chamberlain, since it depicted biblical characters. Salome was published jointly in Paris and London in 1893 but was not performed until 1896 in Paris, during Wilde's later incarceration.
Trivia
- Oscar Wilde was renowned for his ability to converse on any subject imaginable. Once, at a dinner party, some of his companions decide to test this:
- "What would be a good subject ... how about the Queen. Yes, the Queen!"
- Oscar Wilde was quiet for a moment, then looked up and said, "The Queen ... is not a subject."
- South African scientists found evidence that Wilde died of a recurring ear infection that spread to the brain, not from meningitis caused by syphilis. Oscar died in a Paris hotel on November 30, 1900. The doctor who came to the ear infection conclusion believed "the syphilis rumor persisted because it suited the scandal and controversy of the writer's homosexuality."
See also [ La Bella Donna Della Mia Mente ]
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