Oscar grew to love beauty and art for art's sake. Of Wilde's other close friends, Robert Sherard; Robert Ross, his literary executor; and Charles Ricketts variously published biographies, reminiscences or correspondence. I congratulate you on the great success of your performance, which persuades me that you think almost as highly of the play as I do. of Classical Moderations and Literae Humaniores (Greats). After two more trials he was convicted and sentenced to two years' hard labour, the maximum penalty, and was jailed from 1895 to 1897. With another scholarship, he went to Oxford in 1874 and studied with John Ruskin, yet disagreed with Ruskin's belief that art should be infused with a moral purpose. 5.0 out of 5 stars The Life of Oscar Wilde. Wilde soon moved to the little village of Bernaval-sur-Mer where he began his last serious work, The Ballad of Reading Gaol, about the execution of a murderer and celebrating the desire for freedom. On his release, he gave the manuscript to Ross, who may or may not have carried out Wilde's instructions to send a copy to Douglas (who later denied having received it). He had little money but quite a reputation as a conversationalist. As the man was in a semi-comatose condition, I did not venture to administer the Holy Viaticum; still I must add that he could be roused and was roused from this state in my presence. "[92] By the end fact and fiction have melded together. This he did in 1878, only briefly visiting Ireland twice after that. He had continued his interest in the theatre and now, after finding his voice in prose, his thoughts turned again to the dramatic form as the biblical iconography of Salome filled his mind. "[108] He nevertheless revised it extensively for book publication in 1891: six new chapters were added, some overtly decadent passages and homo-eroticism excised, and a preface was included consisting of twenty-two epigrams, such as "Books are well written, or badly written. An intimate friendship sprang up between Wilde and Douglas and by 1893 Wilde was infatuated with Douglas and they consorted together regularly in a tempestuous affair. Editor's note: Today (Oct 16) would have been Oscar Wilde's 166th birthday! [200] His moods fluctuated; Max Beerbohm relates how their mutual friend Reginald 'Reggie' Turner had found Wilde very depressed after a nightmare. Both author and producer assiduously revised, prepared and rehearsed every line, scene and setting in the months before the premiere, creating a carefully constructed representation of late-Victorian society, yet simultaneously mocking it. He was from an aristocratic family, good looking, young, and showed promise as a poet of sonnets. On 30th November 1900, Wilde died of cerebral meningitis at age 46 after being accepted into the Catholic Church the day before. Wilde's counsel, Sir Edward Clarke, was finally able to get a magistrate to allow Wilde and his friends to post bail. [23] No. [36] He learned tracts of the book by heart, and carried it with him on travels in later years. He seemed unrestrained by the Victorian prohibition against homosexuality, and became estranged from his family. George Orwell summarised, "In effect, the world will be populated by artists, each striving after perfection in the way that seems best to him. One Wilde biographer, Richard Ellman, wrote: "He was conducting, in the most civilized way, an anatomy of his society, and a radical reconsideration of its ethics." The porter, perhaps because of the misspelling or because he was unfamiliar with the word, put it in an envelope and addressed it to Wilde, leaving it in the hall letter rack. [31] Some elements disdained the aesthetes, but their languishing attitudes and showy costumes became a recognised pose. [10], In 1855, the family moved to No. [120] Salome was published jointly in Paris and London in 1893, but was not performed until 1896 in Paris, during Wilde's later incarceration. [238] Thomas Louis, who had earlier translated books on Wilde into French, produced his own L'esprit d'Oscar Wilde in 1920. Oscar Wilde Biography. I took pleasure where it pleased me ...". He also did a delicate pencil sketch of her, showing a sweet, wistful look. [155][note 6] Playing on this, he returned to the topic throughout his cross-examination. He had already begged Douglas to leave London for Paris, but Douglas complained bitterly, even wanting to give evidence; he was pressed to go and soon fled to the Hotel du Monde. [135] His account in De Profundis was less triumphant: "It was when, in my library at Tite Street, waving his small hands in the air in epileptic fury, your father... stood uttering every foul word his foul mind could think of, and screaming the loathsome threats he afterwards with such cunning carried out". [98], Wilde was concerned about the effect of moralising on art; he believed in art's redemptive, developmental powers: "Art is individualism, and individualism is a disturbing and disintegrating force. [118], 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. He presented a paper titled "Aesthetic Morality". He became more serious in 1878, when he met the Reverend Sebastian Bowden, a priest in the Brompton Oratory who had received some high-profile converts. [106], Reviewers immediately criticised the novel's decadence and homosexual allusions; The Daily Chronicle for example, called it "unclean", "poisonous", and "heavy with the mephitic odours of moral and spiritual putrefaction". Wilde considered including this pamphlet and "The Portrait of Mr. W. H.", his essay-story on Shakespeare's sonnets, in a new anthology in 1891, but eventually decided to limit it to purely aesthetic subjects. Oscar went to France and never set foot in England again. [78] He promptly renamed it as The Woman's World and raised its tone, adding serious articles on parenting, culture, and politics, while keeping discussions of fashion and arts. The self-realization of his homosexuality caused Wilde enormous torment as he juggled marriage, fatherhood and responsibility with his obsessive love for Lord Alfred Douglas, nicknamed Bosie. From Wooldridge's hanging, Wilde later wrote The Ballad of Reading Gaol. At university, Wilde read Greats; he demonstrated himself to be an exceptional classicist, first at Trinity College Dublin, then at Oxford. Oscar Wilde is one of the most quotable writers of all time, so here are his most famous quotes as declared throughout his life and works. When Wilde returned to London just before Christmas the Paris Echo referred to him as "le great event" of the season. [35] Pater argued that man's sensibility to beauty should be refined above all else, and that each moment should be felt to its fullest extent. 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