Oscar Wilde

From Wikipedia the free encyclopedia Oscar Fingal OFlahertie Wills Wilde 16 October 1854 30 November 1900 was an Irish writer and poet After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s he became one of Londons most popular playwrights in the early 1890s Today he is remembered for his epigrams plays and the circumstances of his imprisonment followed by his early death Wildes parents were successful Dublin intellectuals and their son showed his intelligence early by becoming fluent in French and German At university Wilde read Greats he proved himself to be an outstanding classicist first at Dublin then at Oxford 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 to which he would later convert 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 in the United States of 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 most wellknown 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 1890 The opportunity to construct aesthetic details precisely and combine them with larger social themes drew Wilde to write drama He wrote Salome 1891 in French in Paris but it was refused a licence 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 1895 was still on stage in London Wilde sued the father of his lover Lord Alfred Douglas for libel After a series of trials Wilde was convicted of gross indecency with other men and imprisoned for two years held to hard labour In prison he wrote De Profundis 1905 a long letter which 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 1898 a long poem commemorating the harsh rhythms of prison life He died destitute in Paris at the age of fortysix Description above from the Wikipedia article Oscar Wilde licensed under CCBYSA full list of contributors on Wikipedia