The Life of Oscar Wilde
Oscar Wilde started his life in the calm city in Dublin, Ireland in a wealthy family 1854 with both wealth and creativity in his pockets. Going through a journey of parties, friends, fame and threats Wilde ended up empty handed with almost anything in his pocket and his life ended in a cheap hotel in France.
Oscar Wilde was born in Dublin in October 1854. He was the second son of the eye-doctor Sir William Wilde and the journalist and poet Jane Wilde. Oscar´s mother Jane wrote, under the pseudonym Seperanza, revolutionary poems for Young Irelanders and she was also known to be a lifelong nationalist and an original, almost crazy. Young Oscar probably learned in early age how to express himself both in critical and deliberate ways in poetry and in other written works.
In 1874 Oscar Wilde moved from Ireland to Oxford to attend the Magdalen College. After his studies in Oxford, Oscar moved to London to start a literary career. Soon enough Wilde became a colorful and well-known character in the esthetic fellowship of Walter Paters that was a group of people who propagated art for it owns sake, and believed that beauty is more important than anything. As living in the Romantic era it was very important to live close to nature and not question the laws of it, also to let art and esthetic activity influence you as a person.
“Poems” was his first collection of poetry which was published in 1881. The collection did both receive positive and negative critics thus mostly positive. Therefore he went to the United States for giving lectures. When coming back he published the gothic novel The Picture of Dorian Grey which has become a gothic classic read in many classes in the modern society.
Wilde now started writing comedies with dialogues that are not only built up with beautiful sentences but also with a spirit of aphoristic. The year had become 1890 and Wilde did now have his real breakthrough, publishing comedies after comedies. His masterpiece The Importance of Being Earnest have become the most cited text after Shakespeare’s Hamlet. As this play came to life in theatres in London the tragic process that led Wilde to prison judged for homosexual activities began. After being imprisoned his plays died and all references and talk of him was hushed. Wilde later fled to France where he spent the rest of his life with not much in his pockets.
Wilde died of meningitis on November 30, 1900 at the age of 46 years. More than a century after his death, Wilde is still better remembered for his personal life, his enthusiastic personality and the homosexual activities which led to imprisonment instead for his literary accomplishments and achievements. However, his extraordinary, gothic but beautiful work, The Picture of Dorian Gray and his play The Importance of Being Earnest are still considered to be the greatest literary masterpieces of the late Victorian period.
// Hedwig Pettersson
Oscar Wilde was born in Dublin in October 1854. He was the second son of the eye-doctor Sir William Wilde and the journalist and poet Jane Wilde. Oscar´s mother Jane wrote, under the pseudonym Seperanza, revolutionary poems for Young Irelanders and she was also known to be a lifelong nationalist and an original, almost crazy. Young Oscar probably learned in early age how to express himself both in critical and deliberate ways in poetry and in other written works.
In 1874 Oscar Wilde moved from Ireland to Oxford to attend the Magdalen College. After his studies in Oxford, Oscar moved to London to start a literary career. Soon enough Wilde became a colorful and well-known character in the esthetic fellowship of Walter Paters that was a group of people who propagated art for it owns sake, and believed that beauty is more important than anything. As living in the Romantic era it was very important to live close to nature and not question the laws of it, also to let art and esthetic activity influence you as a person.
“Poems” was his first collection of poetry which was published in 1881. The collection did both receive positive and negative critics thus mostly positive. Therefore he went to the United States for giving lectures. When coming back he published the gothic novel The Picture of Dorian Grey which has become a gothic classic read in many classes in the modern society.
Wilde now started writing comedies with dialogues that are not only built up with beautiful sentences but also with a spirit of aphoristic. The year had become 1890 and Wilde did now have his real breakthrough, publishing comedies after comedies. His masterpiece The Importance of Being Earnest have become the most cited text after Shakespeare’s Hamlet. As this play came to life in theatres in London the tragic process that led Wilde to prison judged for homosexual activities began. After being imprisoned his plays died and all references and talk of him was hushed. Wilde later fled to France where he spent the rest of his life with not much in his pockets.
Wilde died of meningitis on November 30, 1900 at the age of 46 years. More than a century after his death, Wilde is still better remembered for his personal life, his enthusiastic personality and the homosexual activities which led to imprisonment instead for his literary accomplishments and achievements. However, his extraordinary, gothic but beautiful work, The Picture of Dorian Gray and his play The Importance of Being Earnest are still considered to be the greatest literary masterpieces of the late Victorian period.
// Hedwig Pettersson