Oscar Wilde was an Irish author known for his wit and use of paradox in social comedies. He was also an accomplished storyteller. Wilde was born in Dublin in 1854 and was an outstanding student. He gained scholarships to Trinity College Dublin and Oxford University. Wilde published his first book, Poems, in 1881 and gave a lecture tour of the United States and Canada in 1882. Wilde’s only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, appeared in book form in 1891. Wilde was sentenced to two years hard labour in 1895 for “gross indecency.” After his release, he lived in Paris under the name of Sebastian Melmoth. Wilde died at the Hôtel d’Alsace on November 30, 1900, at the age of 46.
Oscar Wilde was an Irish author whose works include plays, poems, short stories, fairy tales, essays and a novel. He is known for his wit and his use of paradox in the dialogue of his social comedies. Wilde was also an accomplished storyteller and many people who knew him claimed that the works he wrote only scratched the surface of his creativity. In addition to his literary works, the author is famous for the sensational and tragic trial which ended with a two-year sentence of hard labor for homosexual acts.
Wilde was born in Dublin, Ireland in 1854. His mother, Jane Francesca Elgee, was an Irish nationalist and writer under the pen name Speranza. His father, Sir William Wilde, was also a writer and a renowned ear and eye surgeon. Oscar had an older brother, William, and a younger sister, Isola, whose tragic death from fever at the age of ten affected him deeply.
Oscar was an outstanding student, gaining scholarships to Trinity College Dublin and later to Oxford University. In 1878 he graduated with honors in his double major in classical moderations and literae humaniores. The writer returned to Dublin briefly after graduating, but left within a month when her fiancée, Florence Balcombe, announced her engagement to Bram Stoker. He will remain a resident of London until his self-imposed exile to France in 1897 following the end of his prison sentence.
Wilde published his first book, Poems, in 1881 and the following year he gave a lecture tour of the United States and Canada. He had made a name for himself while at Oxford as an advocate of aestheticism, or “art for art’s sake”, a literary and artistic movement which promoted beauty and pleasure above all else, and his lectures they dealt with this topic. The tour was hugely popular and stretched far beyond its original schedule.
In 1884, Wilde met and married Constance Lloyd. They had two sons, Cyril, born in 1885, and Vyvyan, born the following year. Oscar entered into his first serious same-sex relationship in 1885 with Robert Ross, who would remain a close and loyal lifelong friend of the author. Ross eventually became his literary executor and his ashes are buried in Wilde’s grave in Pere Lachaise Cemetery in Paris, France.
Wilde’s only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, appeared in book form in 1891 after being serialized in a magazine. The same year he met Lord Alfred Douglas, nicknamed Bosie, the object of his great and fatal passion. Douglas was a huge influence on the author’s life, and while Wilde’s stardom grew through his hugely popular society comedies, including Lady Windermere’s Fan and The Importance of Being Earnest, his personal life with Bosie is become increasingly obsessive and dangerous.
Douglas’s father, the Marquess of Queensberry, was outraged by Wilde’s affair with his son and repeatedly and violently confronted him in public and at the author’s home. In 1895, he left a card at Wilde’s club on which he had written: “For Oscar Wilde Posing as a Somdomite.” Wilde sued him for libel, but the case soon collapsed when the writer perjured himself during cross-examination. The trial was dismissed, but Queensberry’s defense had gathered evidence concerning Wilde’s sexual relations with a series of male prostitutes, and as a result he was arrested for “gross indecency” on April 6, 1895.
After two trials, the first of which failed to reach a verdict, Wilde was sentenced to two years hard labour, the maximum sentence. He was imprisoned in Reading Jail, where he wrote a scathing but moving 50,000-word letter to Bosie, published in its entirety in 1962 as De Profundis. After his release on May 19, 1897, the writer lived in Paris under the name of Sebastian Melmoth. He was penniless and his health was shattered by his time in prison. After his release, he wrote only one poem, “The Ballad of Reading Gaol,” about his experiences in prison. Wilde died at the Hôtel d’Alsace, where he spent his last days, on November 30, 1900 at the age of 46.
Oscar Wilde’s comedies and fairy tales, as well as The Picture of Dorian Gray, continue to be popular and loved. His plays are often produced and many of his plays have been adapted into films, some several times. The writer’s life has also been the subject of numerous books and films, most notably the 1997 film Wilde, starring Stephen Fry and based on the acclaimed biography by Richard Ellman.
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