Search Results - Wilde, Oscar

Oscar Wilde

Wilde photographed by [[Napoleon Sarony]] in 1882 '''Oscar Fingal O'Fflahertie Wills Wilde'''}} (16 October 185430 November 1900) was an Irish author, poet and playwright. After writing in different literary styles throughout the 1880s, he became one of the most popular and influential dramatists in London in the early 1890s. He was a key figure in the emerging Aestheticism movement of the late 19th century and is regarded by many as the greatest playwright of the Victorian era. Wilde is best known for his Gothic novel ''The Picture of Dorian Gray'' (1890), his epigrams, plays and bedtime stories for children, as well as his criminal conviction in 1895 for gross indecency for homosexual acts.

Wilde's parents were Anglo-Irish intellectuals in Dublin. In his youth, Wilde became conversant in French and German. At university, he read Greats; he demonstrated himself to be an exceptional classicist, first at Trinity College Dublin, then at Magdalen College, Oxford. He became associated with the emerging philosophy of aestheticism during this time, led by two of his tutors, Walter Pater and John Ruskin. After university, Wilde moved to London into fashionable cultural and social circles.

Wilde tried his hand at various literary activities: he wrote a play, published a book of poems, lectured in the United States and Canada on "The English Renaissance" in art and interior decoration, and then returned to London where he lectured on his American travels and wrote reviews for various periodicals. Known for his biting wit, flamboyant dress and glittering conversational skill, Wilde became one of the best-known 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 what would be his only novel, ''The Picture of Dorian Gray'' (1890). Wilde returned to drama, writing ''Salome'' (1891) in French while in Paris, but it was refused a licence for England complicated by a prohibition on the portrayal of biblical subjects on the English stage. Undiscouraged, 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, while ''An Ideal Husband'' (1895) and ''The Importance of Being Earnest'' (1895) were still being performed in London, Wilde issued a civil writ against John Sholto Douglas, the 9th Marquess of Queensberry for criminal libel. The Marquess was the father of Wilde's lover, Lord Alfred Douglas. The libel hearings unearthed evidence that caused Wilde to drop his charges and led to his own arrest and criminal prosecution for gross indecency with other males. The jury was unable to reach a verdict and so a retrial was ordered. In the second trial Wilde was convicted and sentenced to two years' hard labour, the maximum penalty, and jailed from 1895 to 1897. During his last year in prison he wrote ''De Profundis'' (published posthumously in abridged form in 1905, and in full in 1962 in his ''Complete Letters''), a long letter that discusses his spiritual journey through his trials and is a dark counterpoint to his earlier philosophy of pleasure. On the day of his release, he caught the overnight steamer to France, never to return to Britain or Ireland. In France and Italy, he wrote his last work, ''The Ballad of Reading Gaol'' (1898), a long poem commemorating the harsh rhythms of prison life. Provided by Wikipedia
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  1. 1

    El Abanico de Lady Windermere : La Importancia de Llamarse Ernesto by Wilde, Oscar

    Published 1967
    Book
  2. 2

    El Ruiseñor y la Rosa y Otros Cuentos - Poemas en Prosa by Wilde, Oscar

    Published 1976
    Book
  3. 3

    La Importancia de Llamarse Ernesto by Wilde, Oscar

    Published 1943
    Book
  4. 4

    El fantasma de Canterville y otros Cuentos by Wilde, Oscar

    Published 2002
    Book
  5. 5

    Cuentos y Narraciones by Wilde, Oscar

    Published 1953
    Book
  6. 6

    El Crimen de Lord Arturo Savile : Y 5 cuentos escogidos by Wilde, Oscar

    Published 1931
    Book
  7. 7

    El Retrato de Dorian Gray by Wilde, Oscar

    Published 1984
    Book
  8. 8

    La tragedia de mi vida by Wilde, Oscar

    Published 1936
    Book
  9. 9

    El Principe Feliz, El Ruiseñor y la Rosa y otros cuentos by Wilde, Oscar

    Published 2010
    Book
  10. 10

    The Importance of Being Earnest by Wilde, Oscar

    Published 2008
    Book
  11. 11

    The Picture of Dorian Gray by Wilde, Oscar

    Published 2023
    Book
  12. 12

    The Canterville Ghost. by Wilde, Oscar

    Published 2008
    Book
  13. 13

    The Picture of Dorian Gray. by Wilde. Oscar

    Published 2008
    Book
  14. 14

    El Abanico de Lady Windermere by Wilde, Oscar

    Published 1941
    Book
  15. 15

    El Retrato de Dorian Gray by Wilde, Oscar

    Published 1982
    Book
  16. 16

    El Retrato de Dorian Gray by Wilde, Oscar

    Published 1932
    Book
  17. 17

    El fantasma de Canterville y otros cuentos / by Wilde, Oscar

    Published 2013
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  18. 18

    El pescador y su alma / by Wilde, Oscar

    Published 2023
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  19. 19

    De profundis by Wilde, Oscar

    Published 2009
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  20. 20

    Una casa de granadas by Wilde, Oscar

    Published 2009
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