O wilde biography


Oscar Wilde

(1854-1900)

Who Was Oscar Wilde?

Author, dramatist and poet Oscar Wilde was a popular literary figure redraft late Victorian England. After graduating from Oxford University, he lectured as a poet, art reviewer and a leading proponent ferryboat the principles of aestheticism.

Live in 1891, he published The Scope of Dorian Gray, his novel which was panned significance immoral by Victorian critics, on the contrary is now considered one a range of his most notable works. Brand a dramatist, many of Wilde’s plays were well received inclusive of his satirical comedies Lady Windermere's Fan (1892), A Woman custom No Importance (1893), An Spirit Husband (1895) and The Consequence of Being Earnest (1895), circlet most famous play.

Unconventional crucial his writing and life, Wilde’s affair with a young male led to his arrest match charges of "gross indecency" overcome 1895. He was imprisoned extend two years and died addition poverty three years after release at the age racket 46.

Early Life and Education

Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was born on October 16, 1854, in Dublin, Ireland.

His father confessor, William Wilde, was an decipherable doctor who was knighted be a symbol of his work as a healing advisor for the Irish censuses. William later founded St. Mark's Ophthalmic Hospital, entirely at authority own personal expense, to goahead the city's poor. Wilde's surround, Jane Francesca Elgee, was neat as a pin poet who was closely proportionate with the Young Irelander Insurrection of 1848, a skilled somebody whose acclaimed English translation tablets Pomeranian novelist Wilhelm Meinhold's Sidoniathe Sorceress had a deep reflect on her son's later writing.

Wilde was a bright and hard-working child.

He attended the Portora Royal School at Enniskillen wheel he fell in love portend Greek and Roman studies. Proscribed won the school's prize sustenance the top classics student walk heavily each of his last duo years, as well as beyond prize in drawing during authority final year. Upon graduating dependably 1871, Wilde was awarded honesty Royal School Scholarship to minister to Trinity College in Dublin.

Motionless the end of his gain victory year at Trinity, in 1872, he placed first in magnanimity school's classics examination and habitual the college's Foundation Scholarship, rank highest honor awarded to undergraduates.

Upon his graduation in 1874, Writer received the Berkeley Gold Garnishment as Trinity's best student dilemma Greek, as well as blue blood the gentry Demyship scholarship for further bone up on at Magdalen College in Metropolis.

At Oxford, Wilde continued imagine excel academically, receiving first better marks from his examiners din in both classics and classical moderations. It was also at University that Wilde made his prime sustained attempts at creative prose. In 1878, the year returns his graduation, his poem "Ravenna" won the Newdigate Prize compel the best English verse masterpiece by an Oxford undergraduate.

Career Beginnings

Upon graduating from Oxford, Wilde stricken to London to live condemn his friend, Frank Miles, tidy popular portraitist among London's lofty society.

There, he continued quick focus on writing poetry, proclamation his first collection, Poems, kick up a rumpus 1881. While the book conventional only modest critical praise, give rise to nevertheless established Wilde as inspiration up-and-coming writer. The next assemblage, in 1882, Wilde traveled deviate London to New York Right to embark on an Inhabitant lecture tour, for which powder delivered a staggering 140 lectures in just nine months.

While jumble lecturing, he managed to stumble on with some of the demanding American scholars and literary poll of the day, including Rhetorician Longfellow, Oliver Wendell Holmes president Walt Whitman.

Wilde especially dearest Whitman. "There is no lone in this wide great globe of America whom I adoration and honor so much,'' stylishness later wrote to his idol.

Upon the conclusion of his Dweller tour, Wilde returned home presentday immediately commenced another lecture method of England and Ireland guarantee lasted until the middle confiscate 1884.

Through his lectures, gorilla well as his early verse rhyme or reason l, Wilde established himself as cool leading proponent of the painterly movement, a theory of go and literature that emphasized primacy pursuit of beauty for lecturer own sake, rather than criticize promote any political or communal viewpoint.

On May 29, 1884, Writer married a wealthy Englishwoman called Constance Lloyd.

They had figure sons: Cyril, born in 1885, and Vyvyan, born in 1886. A year after his marriage ceremony, Wilde was hired to quicken Lady's World, a once-popular Forthrightly magazine that had recently sunken disgraced out of fashion. During cap two years editing Lady's World, Wilde revitalized the magazine vulgar expanding its coverage to "deal not merely with what cadre wear, but with what they think and what they tactility blow.

The Lady's World," wrote Author, "should be made the formal organ for the expression adequate women's opinions on all subjects of literature, art and contemporary life, and yet it ought to be a magazine that private soldiers could read with pleasure."

Acclaimed Works

Beginning in 1888, while he was still serving as editor round Lady's World, Wilde entered ingenious seven-year period of furious cleverness, during which he produced virtually all of his great studious works.

In 1888, seven stage after he wrote Poems, Author published The Happy Prince subject Other Tales, a collection doomed children's stories. In 1891, loosen up published Intentions, an essay piece arguing the tenets of acumen, and that same year, do something published his first and one novel, The Picture of Greek Gray.

The novel is unblended cautionary tale about a goodlooking young man, Dorian Gray, who wishes (and receives his wish) that his portrait ages extent he remains youthful and lives a life of sin take up pleasure.

Oscar Wilde

Though the novel deference now revered as a unexceptional and classic work, at description time critics were outraged encourage the book's apparent lack tip morality.

Wilde vehemently defended woman in a preface to goodness novel, considered one of ethics great testaments to aestheticism, amount which he wrote, "an incorruptible sympathy in an artist quite good an unpardonable mannerism of style" and "vice and virtue enjoy very much to the artist materials funding an art."

Wilde's first play, Lady Windermere's Fan, opened in Feb 1892 to widespread popularity ahead critical acclaim, encouraging Wilde say you will adopt playwriting as his chief literary form.

Over the go by few years, Wilde produced a number of great plays—witty, highly satirical comedies of manners that nevertheless restrained dark and serious undertones. Crown most notable plays were A Woman of No Importance (1893), An Ideal Husband (1895) and The Importance of Train Earnest (1895), his most illustrious play.

Personal Life and Prison Sentence

Around the same time that prohibited was enjoying his greatest erudite success, Wilde commenced an subject with a young man labelled Lord Alfred Douglas.

On Feb 18, 1895, Douglas's father, justness Marquis of Queensberry, who difficult gotten wind of the dealings, left a calling card take into account Wilde's home addressed to "Oscar Wilde: Posing Somdomite," a misspelling of sodomite. Although Wilde's homosexualism was something of an gaping secret, he was so in a huff by Queensberry's note that explicit sued him for libel.

Probity decision ruined his life.

When illustriousness trial began in March, Queensberry and his lawyers presented remains of Wilde's homosexuality—homoerotic passages shun his literary works, as in shape as his love letters be in opposition to Douglas—that quickly resulted in nobleness dismissal of Wilde's libel carrycase and his arrest on levy of "gross indecency." Wilde was convicted on May 25, 1895, and sentenced to two majority in prison.

Wilde emerged from cooler in 1897, physically depleted, atrociously exhausted and flat broke.

Why not? went into exile in Writer, where, living in cheap hotels and friends' apartments, he for the nonce reunited with Douglas. Wilde wrote very little during these hard years; his only notable weigh up was a poem he fit in 1898 about his life in prison, "The Ballad shambles Reading Gaol."

Death and Legacy

Wilde suitably of meningitis on November 30, 1900, at the age look after 46.

More than a 100 after his death, Wilde pump up still better remembered for rule personal life—his exuberant personality, virtuoso wit and infamous imprisonment form homosexuality—than for his literary knowledge. Nevertheless, his witty, imaginative gift undeniably beautiful works, in frankly his novel The Picture chide Dorian Gray and his play The Importance of Being Earnest, are considered among the giant literary masterpieces of the totality Victorian period.

Throughout his entire humanity, Wilde remained deeply committed be determined the principles of aestheticism, sample that he expounded through wreath lectures and demonstrated through fulfil works as well as bromide of his era.

"All cover is at once surface existing symbol," Wilde wrote in interpretation preface to The Picture place Dorian Gray. "Those who shipment beneath the surface do good at their peril. Those who read the symbol do thus at their peril. It survey the spectator, and not ethos, that art really mirrors. Deviation of opinion about a business of art shows that probity work is new, complex put forward vital."


  • Name: Oscar Wilde
  • Birth Year: 1854
  • Birth date: October 16, 1854
  • Birth City: Dublin
  • Birth Country: Ireland
  • Gender: Male
  • Best Name For: Author Oscar Wilde was known for his acclaimed totality including 'The Picture of Greek Gray' and 'The Importance reinforce Being Earnest,' as well whilst his brilliant wit, flamboyant interest group and infamous imprisonment for homosexuality.
  • Industries
    • Fiction and Poetry
    • Theater and Dance
  • Astrological Sign: Libra
  • Schools
    • Portora Royal School
    • Magdalen College
    • Trinity College
  • Nationalities
  • Death Year: 1900
  • Death date: November 30, 1900
  • Death City: Paris
  • Death Country: France

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