Ugala is a theatre in Viljandi , Estonia .
90-452: The theatre was founded in 1920 opening on January 10 of that year. The first production was Oscar Wilde 's " Salome ". 58°21′43″N 25°35′18″E / 58.362013°N 25.588253°E / 58.362013; 25.588253 This article about an Estonian building or structure is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . This article about a theatre building in Europe
180-631: A hanging took place. Charles Thomas Wooldridge had been a trooper in the Royal Horse Guards . He was convicted of cutting the throat of his wife, Laura Ellen, earlier that year at Clewer , near Windsor . He was aged 30 when executed. Wilde wrote the poem in 1897, beginning it in Berneval-le-Grand and completing it in Naples. The poem narrates the execution of Wooldridge; it moves from an objective story-telling to symbolic identification with
270-511: A scholarship by competitive examination in his second and, in his finals, won the Berkeley Gold Medal in Greek, the university's highest academic award. He was encouraged to compete for a demyship , a half-scholarship worth £95 per year (equivalent to £11,100 in 2023), at Magdalen College, Oxford , which he won easily. At Magdalen, he read Greats from 1874 to 1878. He applied to join
360-684: A bachelor in London. The 1881 British Census listed Wilde as a boarder at 1 (now 44) Tite Street , Chelsea, where Frank Miles , a society painter, was the head of the household. Lillie Langtry was introduced to Wilde at Frank Miles' studio in 1877. The most glamorous woman in England, Langtry assumed great importance to Wilde during his early years in London, and they remained close friends for many years; he tutored her in Latin and later encouraged her to pursue acting. She wrote in her autobiography that he "possessed
450-671: A bunch of altar lilies instead. Wilde did retain a lifelong interest in Catholic theology and liturgy. While at Magdalen College, Wilde became well known for his role in the aesthetic and decadent movements . He wore his hair long, openly scorned "manly" sports – though he occasionally boxed – and decorated his rooms with peacock feathers, lilies, sunflowers , blue china and other objets d'art . He entertained lavishly, and once remarked to some friends, "I find it harder and harder every day to live up to my blue china." The line spread famously; aesthetes adopted it as
540-440: A dance in their home at Drumacon, Co Cavan . One of the sisters had brushed against the flames of a fire or a candelabra and her dress caught fire; in various versions, the man she was dancing with carried her and her sister down to douse the flames in the snow, or her sister ran her down the stairs and rolled her in the snow, causing her own muslin dress to catch fire too. Until his early twenties, Wilde summered at Moytura House,
630-676: A family to support, in mid-1887 Wilde became the editor of The Lady's World magazine, his name prominent on the cover. 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. Two pieces of fiction were usually included, one to be read to children, the other for adult readers. Wilde worked hard to solicit good contributions from his wide artistic acquaintance, including those of Lady Wilde and his wife, Constance, while his own "Literary and Other Notes" were themselves popular and amusing. The initial vigour and excitement which he brought to
720-526: A febrile illness. His poem " Requiescat " was written in her memory; the first stanza reads: Tread lightly, she is near Under the snow Speak gently, she can hear The daisies grow. Until he was nine Wilde was educated at home, where a French nursemaid and a German governess taught him their languages. He joined his brother Willie at Portora Royal School in Enniskillen , County Fermanagh, which he attended from 1864 to 1871. At Portora, although he
810-684: A full-page reprint in the Lady's Pictorial . ... When the National Republican discussed Wilde, it was to explain 'a few items as to the animal's pedigree.' And on 22 January 1882, the Washington Post illustrated the Wild Man of Borneo alongside Oscar Wilde of England and asked 'How far is it from this to this?'" When he visited San Francisco, the San Francisco Chronicle reported, "The city
900-589: A long poem commemorating the harsh rhythms of prison life. Oscar Wilde was born at 21 Westland Row , Dublin (now home of the Oscar Wilde Centre , Trinity College), the second of three children born to an Anglo-Irish couple: Jane, née Elgee , and Sir William Wilde . Oscar was two years younger than his brother, William (Willie) Wilde . Jane Wilde was a niece (by marriage) of the novelist, playwright and clergyman Charles Maturin , who may have influenced her own literary career. She believed, mistakenly, that she
990-485: A member of the Royal Horse Guards, had a blue uniform—but justified this poetic licence because the second line would make no sense if it said "For blood and wine are blue ". The poem has been translated into countless languages, including French (1898) by Henry Durand-Davray, Spanish (1898), German (1900), Russian (1904), and many others. The 1902 German translation by Emma Clausen is the earliest translation of
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#17328520327351080-651: A number of favourite haunts in London. These included the Café Royal in Piccadilly, Hatchards bookstore in Piccadilly, and the department stores Liberty & Co. on Great Marlborough Street and Harrods in Knightsbridge; Wilde was among Harrods' first selected customers who were granted extended credit. Criticism over artistic matters in The Pall Mall Gazette provoked a letter of self-defence, and soon Wilde
1170-517: A painful duty", and of Marion Crawford that "he immolated himself on the altar of local colour". Wilde had been regularly writing fairy stories for magazines. He published The Happy Prince and Other Tales in 1888. In 1891 he published two more collections, Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories , and in September A House of Pomegranates was dedicated "To Constance Mary Wilde". " The Portrait of Mr. W. H. ", which Wilde had begun in 1887,
1260-410: A prison cell". Originally the first edition—with no assurance of a second edition—was planned for only 400 copies, but when Wilde calculated the printing expenses, he realised that even selling all 400 would not cover costs, and at his instigation Smithers instructed the printing house to double the number of copies and keep the printing plates in hopes of a reprinting. As publication day approached, Wilde
1350-532: A remarkably fascinating and compelling personality", and "the cleverness of his remarks received added value from his manner of delivering them." Wilde regularly attended the theatre and was especially taken with star actresses such as Ellen Terry and Sarah Bernhardt . In 1880 he completed his first play, Vera; or, The Nihilists , a tragic melodrama about Russian nihilism, and distributed privately printed copies to various actresses whom he hoped to interest in its sole female role. A one-off performance in London
1440-549: A second woman. Sir William acknowledged paternity of his children and provided for their education, arranging for them to be raised by his relatives. The family moved to No 1 Merrion Square in 1855. With both Sir William and Lady Wilde's success and delight in social life, the home soon became the site of a "unique medical and cultural milieu". Guests at their salon included Sheridan Le Fanu , Charles Lever , George Petrie , Isaac Butt , William Rowan Hamilton and Samuel Ferguson . Wilde's sister, Isola Francesca Emily Wilde,
1530-673: A series of longer prose pieces which were published in the major literary-intellectual journals of the day. In January 1889, The Decay of Lying: A Dialogue appeared in The Nineteenth Century , and Pen, Pencil and Poison , a satirical biography of Thomas Griffiths Wainewright , in The Fortnightly Review , edited by Wilde's friend Frank Harris . Two of Wilde's four writings on aesthetics are dialogues: though Wilde had evolved professionally from lecturer to writer, he retained an oral tradition of sorts. Having always excelled as
1620-421: A short but serious essay on the question, Wilde tossed the theory to the three characters of the story, allowing it to unfold as background to the plot – an early masterpiece of Wilde's combining many elements that interested him: conversation, literature and the idea that to shed oneself of an idea one must first convince another of its truth. Ransome concludes that Wilde succeeds precisely because
1710-442: A slogan, but it was criticized as being terribly vacuous. Some elements disdained the aesthetes, but their languorous attitudes and showy costumes became a recognisable pose. When four of his fellow students physically assaulted Wilde, he fended them off single-handedly, to the surprise of his detractors. By his third year Wilde had truly begun to develop himself and his myth, and considered his learning to be more expansive than what
1800-514: A steady income which he did not outlive, as he died less than three years after the Ballad first appeared. It has been suggested that Wilde was, to some degree, inspired by poem IX in A. E. Housman 's A Shropshire Lad (1896), which alludes to the hanging of condemned prisoners: They hang us now in Shrewsbury jail: The whistles blow forlorn, And trains all night groan on
1890-407: A strange influence over my life". He learned tracts of the book by heart, and carried it with him on travels in later years. Pater gave Wilde his sense of almost flippant devotion to art, though he gained a purpose for it through the lectures and writings of critic John Ruskin . Ruskin despaired at the self-validating aestheticism of Pater, arguing that the importance of art lies in its potential for
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#17328520327351980-516: A student, Wilde worked with Mahaffy on the latter's book Social Life in Greece . Wilde, despite later reservations, called Mahaffy "my first and best teacher" and "the scholar who showed me how to love Greek things". For his part, Mahaffy boasted of having created Wilde; later, he said Wilde was "the only blot on my tutorship". The University Philosophical Society also provided an education, as members discussed intellectual and artistic subjects such as
2070-457: A student, he was still eligible to enter. Its subject, "Historical Criticism among the Ancients" seemed ready-made for Wilde – with both his skill in composition and ancient learning – but he struggled to find his voice in the long, flat, scholarly style. Unusually, no prize was awarded that year. With the last of his inheritance from the sale of his father's houses, he set himself up as
2160-472: A swampy country lane into a smart road neatly edged with flowers. Wilde won the 1878 Newdigate Prize for his poem " Ravenna ", which reflected on his visit there in the previous year, and he duly read it at Encaenia . In November 1878, he graduated Bachelor of Arts with a double first , having been placed in the first class in Classical Moderations (the first part of the course) and then again in
2250-532: A thin volume of very mediocre verse", would improperly influence the behaviour of men and women. According to biographer Michèle Mendelssohn, Wilde was the subject of anti-Irish caricature and was portrayed as a monkey, a blackface performer and a Christy's Minstrel throughout his career. " Harper's Weekly put a sunflower-worshipping monkey dressed as Wilde on the front of the January 1882 issue. The drawing stimulated other American maligners and, in England, had
2340-472: A thoroughly healthy organism, and insure the material well-being of each member of the community. It will, in fact, give Life its proper basis and its proper environment". At the same time, he stressed that the government most amenable to artists was no government at all. Wilde envisioned a society where mechanisation has freed human effort from the burden of necessity, effort which can instead be expended on artistic creation. George Orwell summarised, "In effect,
2430-401: A trooper in the Royal Horse Guards, was brought to Reading to await his trial for murdering his common-law wife (and promptly presenting himself and confessing to a policeman) on 29 March 1896. On 17 June, Wooldridge was sentenced to death and returned to Reading for his execution which took place on Tuesday, 7 July 1896—the first hanging at Reading in 18 years. Though Wilde observed Wooldridge in
2520-614: A villa his father had built in Cong, County Mayo . There the young Wilde and his brother Willie played with George Moore . Wilde left Portora with a royal scholarship to read classics at Trinity College Dublin (TCD), from 1871 to 1874, sharing rooms with his older brother Willie Wilde . Trinity, one of the leading classical schools, placed him with scholars such as R. Y. Tyrell , Arthur Palmer , Edward Dowden and his tutor, Professor J. P. Mahaffy , who inspired his interest in Greek literature . As
2610-622: A wealthy Queen's Counsel (lawyer). She happened to be visiting Dublin in 1884 when Wilde was lecturing at the Gaiety Theatre . He proposed to her, and they married on 29 May 1884 at the Anglican St James's Church, Paddington , in London. Although Constance had an annual allowance of £250, which was generous for a young woman (equivalent to £32,900 in 2023), the Wildes had relatively luxurious tastes. They had preached to others for so long on
2700-439: A wit and raconteur, he often composed by assembling phrases, bons mots and witticisms into a longer, cohesive work. 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. There lies its immense value. For what it seeks is to disturb monotony of type, slavery of custom, tyranny of habit, and
2790-919: Is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Oscar Wilde Oscar Fingal O'Fflahertie Wills Wilde (16 October 1854 – 30 November 1900) was an Irish poet and playwright. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of the most popular playwrights in London in the early 1890s. He is best remembered for his epigrams and plays, his novel The Picture of Dorian Gray , and his criminal conviction for gross indecency for homosexual acts. Wilde's parents were Anglo-Irish intellectuals in Dublin . In his youth, Wilde learned to speak fluent 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
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2880-694: Is divided into two camps, those who thought Wilde was an engaging speaker and an original thinker, and those who thought he was the most pretentious fraud ever perpetrated on a groaning public." Though his press reception was hostile, Wilde was well received in diverse settings across America: he drank whiskey with miners in Leadville, Colorado , and was fêted at the most fashionable salons in many cities he visited. His earnings, plus expected income from The Duchess of Padua , allowed him to move to Paris between February and mid-May 1883. While there he met Robert Sherard , whom he entertained constantly. "We are dining on
2970-766: The Oxford Union , but failed to be elected. Attracted by its dress, secrecy and ritual, Wilde petitioned the Apollo Masonic Lodge at Oxford, and was soon raised to the Sublime Degree of Master Mason. During a resurgent interest in Freemasonry in his third year, he commented he "would be awfully sorry to give it up if I secede from the Protestant Heresy". Wilde's active involvement in Freemasonry lasted only for
3060-513: The SS Arizona , arriving on 2 January 1882, and disembarking the following day. Originally planned to last four months, the tour continued for almost a year owing to its commercial success. Wilde sought to transpose the beauty he saw in art into daily life. This was a practical as well as philosophical project: in Oxford he had surrounded himself with blue china and lilies, and now one of his lectures
3150-407: The 1880s, Wilde was a close friend of the artist James McNeill Whistler and they dined together on many occasions. At one of these dinners, Whistler produced a bon mot that Wilde found particularly witty, Wilde exclaimed that he wished that he had said it. Whistler retorted "You will, Oscar, you will." Herbert Vivian – a mutual friend of Wilde and Whistler – attended
3240-444: 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 ,
3330-446: The C.3.3. The poem brought him a small income for the rest of his life. The poem consists of 109 stanzas of 6 lines, of 8-6-8-6-8-6 syllables, and rhyming ABCBDB. Some stanzas incorporate rhymes within some or all of the 8-syllable lines. The whole poem is grouped into 6 untitled sections of 16, 13, 37, 23, 17 and 3 stanzas. A version with only 63 of the stanzas, divided into 4 sections of 15, 7, 22 and 19 stanzas, and allegedly based on
3420-599: The Duchess tonight", Wilde would declare before taking him to an expensive restaurant. In August he briefly returned to New York for the production of Vera , the rights of which he had sold to the American actress Marie Prescott . The play was initially well received by the audience, but when the critics wrote lukewarm reviews, attendance fell sharply and the play closed a week after it had opened. In London, he had been introduced in 1881 to Constance Lloyd , daughter of Horace Lloyd,
3510-489: The Victorian prohibition against homosexuality. By Richard Ellmann 's account, he was a precocious seventeen-year-old who "so young and yet so knowing, was determined to seduce Wilde". According to Daniel Mendelsohn , Wilde, who had long alluded to Greek love , was "initiated into homosexual sex" by Ross, while his "marriage had begun to unravel after his wife's second pregnancy, which left him physically repelled". Wilde had
3600-532: 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 due to an absolute prohibition on
3690-463: The betterment of society. Ruskin admired beauty, but believed it must be allied with, and applied to, moral good. When Wilde eagerly attended Ruskin's lecture series The Aesthetic and Mathematic Schools of Art in Florence , he learned about aesthetics as the non-mathematical elements of painting. Despite being given to neither early rising nor manual labour, Wilde volunteered for Ruskin's project to convert
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3780-508: The book sold out its first print run of 750 copies, it was not generally well received by the critics: Punch , for example, said that "The poet is Wilde, but his poetry's tame". By a tight vote, the Oxford Union condemned the book for alleged plagiarism . The librarian, who had requested the book for the library, returned the presentation copy to Wilde with a note of apology. Biographer Richard Ellmann argues that Wilde's poem " Hélas! "
3870-593: The church hierarchy. 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. Neither Mahaffy nor Sir William, who threatened to cut off his son's funding, thought much of the plan; but Wilde, the supreme individualist, balked at the last minute from pledging himself to any formal creed, and on the appointed day of his baptism into Catholicism, he sent Father Bowden
3960-505: The church was closed, the records were moved to the nearby St. Ann's Church, Dawson Street . A Catholic priest in Glencree, County Wicklow, also claimed to have baptised Wilde and his brother Willie. In addition to his two full siblings, Wilde had three paternal half-siblings, who were born out of wedlock before the marriage of his father: Henry Wilson, born in 1838 to one woman, and Emily and Mary Wilde, born in 1847 and 1849, respectively, to
4050-486: The criminal classes – to which I now belong – for once I will be read by my peers – a new experience for me". The finished poem was published by Leonard Smithers on 13 February 1898 under the name "C.3.3.", which stood for cell block C , landing 3 , cell 3 . This ensured that Wilde's name – by then notorious – did not appear on the poem's front cover. It was not commonly known, until the 7th printing in June 1899, that C.3.3.
4140-523: The dignitaries and writers who received him during his lecture tours. Aestheticism was sufficiently in vogue to be caricatured by Gilbert and Sullivan in Patience (1881). Richard D'Oyly Carte , an English impresario, invited Wilde to make a lecture tour of North America, simultaneously priming the pump for the US tour of Patience and selling this most charming aesthete to the American public. Wilde journeyed on
4230-575: The dinner and recorded it in his article The Reminiscences of a Short Life , which appeared in The Sun in 1889. The article alleged that Wilde had a habit of passing off other people's witticisms as his own – especially Whistler's. Wilde considered Vivian's article to be a scurrilous betrayal, and it directly caused the broken friendship between Wilde and Whistler. The Reminiscences also caused great acrimony between Wilde and Vivian, Wilde accusing Vivian of "the inaccuracy of an eavesdropper with
4320-658: The emerging philosophy of aestheticism , 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
4410-423: The end of the second volume, Wilde left The Woman's World . The magazine outlasted him by only a year. Wilde's period at the helm of the magazine played a pivotal role in his development as a writer and facilitated his ascent to fame. Whilst Wilde the journalist supplied articles under the guidance of his editors, Wilde the editor was forced to learn to manipulate the literary marketplace on his own terms. During
4500-618: The final examination in Literae Humaniores (Greats). Wilde wrote to a friend, "The dons are ' astonied ' beyond words – the Bad Boy doing so well in the end!" After graduation from Oxford, Wilde returned to Dublin, where he met again Florence Balcombe , a childhood sweetheart. She became engaged to Bram Stoker and they married in 1878. Wilde was disappointed but stoic. He wrote to Balcombe remembering; "the two sweet years –
4590-465: The job began to fade as administration, commuting and office life became tedious. At the same time as Wilde's interest flagged, the publishers became concerned about circulation: sales, at the relatively high price of one shilling, remained low. Increasingly sending instructions to the magazine by letter, Wilde began a new period of creative work and his own column appeared less regularly. In October 1889, Wilde had finally found his voice in prose and, at
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#17328520327354680-458: The layout of the work. However, even the printing house hired to do the book demanded a change—for fear that the prison doctor would sue over the line which originally read "While the coarse-mouthed doctor gloats", it was changed to "While some coarse-mouthed doctor gloats". As one biographer, Leonard Cresswell Ingleby , said, "Never, perhaps, since Gray 's Elegy had a poem been so revised, pruned, and polished over and over again as this cry from
4770-581: The literary criticism is unveiled with such a deft touch. Though containing nothing but "special pleading" – it would not, he says "be possible to build an airier castle in Spain than this of the imaginary William Hughes" – we continue listening nonetheless to be charmed by the telling. "You must believe in Willie Hughes," Wilde told an acquaintance, "I almost do, myself." Wilde, having tired of journalism, had been busy setting out his aesthetic ideas more fully in
4860-492: The maximum penalty, and was jailed from 1895 to 1897. During his last year in prison he wrote De Profundis (published posthumously in abridged form in 1905), 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),
4950-506: The method of a blackmailer" and banishing Vivian from his circle. Vivian's allegations did not diminish Wilde's reputation as an epigrammatist. London theatre director Luther Munday recounted some of Wilde's typical quips: Wilde said of Whistler that "he had no enemies but was intensely disliked by his friends", of Hall Caine that "he wrote at the top of his voice", of Rudyard Kipling that "he revealed life by splendid flashes of vulgarity", of Henry James that "he wrote fiction as if it were
5040-536: The next week was moved to Pentonville prison , where "hard labour" consisted of many hours of pointless effort in walking a treadmill or picking oakum (separating the fibres in scraps of old navy ropes), and allowed to read only the Bible and The Pilgrim's Progress . Prisoners were not allowed to speak to each other, and, out of their solitary cells, were required to wear a cap with a sort of thick veil so they would not be recognised by other prisoners. A few months later he
5130-433: The original draft, was included in the posthumous editions of Wilde's poetry edited by Robert Ross, "for the benefit of reciters and their audiences who have found the entire poem too long for declamation". On 25 May 1895 Wilde was convicted and sentenced to two years' hard labour—a punishment that was considered more severe than mere penal servitude. He was first sent, briefly, to Newgate Prison for initial processing, and
5220-544: The plot. He excelled academically, particularly in the subject of classics , in which he ranked fourth in the school in 1869. His aptitude for giving oral translations of Greek and Latin texts won him multiple prizes, including the Carpenter Prize for Greek Testament. He was one of only three students at Portora to win a Royal School scholarship to Trinity in 1871. In 1871, when Wilde was seventeen, his elder half-sisters Mary and Emily died aged 22 and 24, fatally burned at
5310-475: The poem in any language done by a woman writer. Several passages from the poem have become famous: Yet each man kills the thing he loves By each let this be heard. Some do it with a bitter look, Some with a flattering word. The coward does it with a kiss, The brave man with a sword! The line is a nod to Shakespeare 's The Merchant of Venice , when Bassanio asks "Do all men kill
5400-473: 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,
5490-471: The press: the Springfield Republican , for instance, commented on Wilde's behaviour during his visit to Boston to lecture on aestheticism, suggesting that Wilde's conduct was more a bid for notoriety rather than devotion to beauty and the aesthetic. T. W. Higginson , a cleric and abolitionist, wrote in "Unmanly Manhood" of his general concern that Wilde, "whose only distinction is that he has written
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#17328520327355580-559: The prison yard only from a distance, he dedicated The Ballad of Reading Gaol to Wooldridge as C. T. W. Wilde was released from prison on 18 May 1897, and promptly went to France, never returning to Britain. He died in Paris, at the age of 46, on 30 November 1900. While in France, surviving on an allowance from his wife of three pounds a week—deliberately meagre to discourage the sort of high living that had led to his 'downfall'—Wilde endeavoured to find additional money. In August 1897, he sent
5670-523: The prisoners as a whole. No attempt is made to assess the justice of the laws which convicted them, but rather the poem highlights the brutalisation of the punishment that all convicts share. Wilde juxtaposes the executed man and himself with the line "Yet each man kills the thing he loves". Wilde too was separated from his wife and sons. He adopted the proletarian ballad form, and suggested it be published in Reynold's Magazine , "because it circulates widely among
5760-429: The publisher Leonard Smithers an initial draft of the Ballad, which made such an impression that Smithers was enthusiastic about publishing it and even approached Aubrey Beardsley to do an illustration for it (which was not done). Thereafter there was a very active correspondence between the two of them, as Wilde was repeatedly revising and expanding the text, and supervising from afar the choice and size of typeface and
5850-489: The rail To men that die at dawn. Although there is no specific documentation to show Wilde's active revising after the appearance of the first edition, there were some slight changes made in the second edition, which was printed only two weeks after the first edition went on sale. For example, in the first edition a line read "And his step was light", and in the second edition it becomes "And his step seemed light". These tiny alterations persisted through
5940-428: The reader: he concludes that "there is really a great deal to be said of the Willie Hughes theory of Shakespeare's sonnets." By the end fact and fiction have melded together. Arthur Ransome wrote that Wilde "read something of himself into Shakespeare's sonnets" and became fascinated with the "Willie Hughes theory" despite the lack of biographical evidence for the historical William Hughes' existence. Instead of writing
6030-482: The reduction of man to the level of a machine." In his only political text, The Soul of Man Under Socialism , he argued political conditions should establish this primacy – private property should be abolished, and cooperation should be substituted for competition. He wrote "Socialism, Communism, or whatever one chooses to call it, by converting private property into public wealth, and substituting co-operation for competition, will restore society to its proper condition of
6120-465: The seventh edition, the last edition handled by Smithers, and thereafter to most of the reprints. Since Smithers had the printers retain the plates from the first edition, it seems plausible that these were deliberate revisions done at Wilde's request. Wilde did acknowledge (evidently to several people, since numerous separate sources recalled this) a glaring error in the very first line of the poem, "He did not wear his scarlet coat"—because Wooldridge, as
6210-633: The subject of design that people expected their home to set new standards. No 16 Tite Street was duly renovated in seven months at considerable expense. The couple had two sons, Cyril (1885) and Vyvyan (1886). Wilde became the sole literary signatory of George Bernard Shaw 's petition for a pardon of the anarchists arrested (and later executed) after the Haymarket massacre in Chicago in 1886. In 1886, while at Oxford, Wilde met Robert Ross . Ross, who had read Wilde's poems before they met, seemed unrestrained by
6300-510: The sweetest years of all my youth" during which they had been close. He also stated his intention to "return to England, probably for good". This he did in 1878, only briefly visiting Ireland twice after that. Unsure of his next step, Wilde wrote to various acquaintances enquiring about Classics positions at Oxford or Cambridge. The Rise of Historical Criticism was his submission for the Chancellor's Essay prize of 1879, which, though no longer
6390-460: The things they do not love?" A passage from the poem was chosen as the epitaph on Wilde's tomb ; And alien tears will fill for him, Pity's long-broken urn, For his mourners will be outcast men, And outcasts always mourn. For he has a pall, this wretched man, Such as few men can claim; Deep down below a prison-yard, Naked, for greater shame, He lies, with fetters on each foot, Wrapt in
6480-578: The time he spent at Oxford; he allowed his membership of the Apollo University Lodge to lapse after failing to pay subscriptions. Catholicism deeply appealed to him, especially its rich liturgy, and he discussed converting to it with clergy several times. In 1877, Wilde was left speechless after an audience with Pope Pius IX in Rome. He eagerly read the books of Cardinal Newman , a noted Anglican priest who had converted to Catholicism and risen in
6570-410: The work of Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Algernon Charles Swinburne weekly. Wilde quickly became an established member – the members' suggestion book for 1874 contains two pages of banter sportingly mocking Wilde's emergent aestheticism. He presented a paper titled Aesthetic Morality . At Trinity, Wilde established himself as an outstanding student: he came first in his class in his first year, won
6660-676: The world will be populated by artists, each striving after perfection in the way that seems best to him." The Ballad of Reading Gaol The Ballad of Reading Gaol is a poem by Oscar Wilde , written in exile in Berneval-le-Grand and Naples , after his release from Reading Gaol ( / r ɛ . d ɪ ŋ . dʒ eɪ l / ) on 19 May 1897. Wilde had been incarcerated in Reading after being convicted of gross indecency with other men in 1895 and sentenced to two years' hard labour in prison. During his imprisonment, on Tuesday, 7 July 1896,
6750-536: Was Ireland's leading oto - ophthalmologic (ear and eye) surgeon and was knighted in 1864 for his services as medical adviser and assistant commissioner to the censuses of Ireland. He also wrote books about Irish archaeology and peasant folklore. A renowned philanthropist, his dispensary for the care of the city's poor at the rear of Trinity College Dublin (TCD), was the forerunner of the Dublin Eye and Ear Hospital, now located at Adelaide Road. On his father's side Wilde
6840-624: Was a contributor to that and other journals during 1885–87. Although Richard Ellmann has claimed that Wilde enjoyed reviewing, Wilde's wife would tell friends that "Mr Wilde hates journalism". Like his parents before him, Wilde supported Ireland's cause, and when Charles Stewart Parnell was falsely accused of inciting murder , he wrote a series of astute columns defending the politician in the Daily Chronicle . His flair, having previously been put mainly into socialising, suited journalism and rapidly attracted notice. With his youth nearly over and
6930-415: Was a sincere, though flamboyant, attempt to explain the dichotomies the poet saw in himself; one line reads: "To drift with every passion till my soul / Is a stringed lute on which all winds can play". The book had further printings in 1882. It was bound in a rich, enamel parchment cover (embossed with gilt blossom) and printed on hand-made Dutch paper; over the next few years, Wilde presented many copies to
7020-447: Was a work of art." When asked to explain reports that he had paraded down Piccadilly in London carrying a lily, long hair flowing, Wilde replied, "It's not whether I did it or not that's important, but whether people believed I did it". Wilde believed that the artist should hold forth higher ideals, and that pleasure and beauty would replace utilitarian ethics. Wilde and aestheticism were both mercilessly caricatured and criticised in
7110-420: Was actually Wilde. The first edition, of 800 copies, sold out within a week, and Smithers announced that a second edition would be ready within another week; that was printed on 24 February, in 1,000 copies, which also sold well. A third edition, of 99 numbered copies "signed by the author", was printed on 4 March, on the same day a fourth edition of 1,200 ordinary copies was printed. A fifth edition of 1,000 copies
7200-597: Was advertised in November 1881 with Mrs. Bernard Beere as Vera, but withdrawn by Wilde for what was claimed to be consideration for political feeling in England. He had been publishing lyrics and poems in magazines since entering Trinity College, especially in Kottabos and the Dublin University Magazine . In mid-1881, at 27 years old, he published Poems , which collected, revised and expanded his poems. Though
7290-457: Was born on 2 April 1857. She was named in tribute to Iseult of Ireland , wife of Mark of Cornwall and lover of the Cornish knight, Sir Tristan . She shared the name Francesca with her mother, while Emily was the name of her maternal aunt. Oscar would later describe how his sister was like "a golden ray of sunshine dancing about our home" and he was grief stricken when she died at the age of nine of
7380-464: Was descended from a Dutch soldier, Colonel de Wilde, who came to Ireland with King William of Orange 's invading army in 1690, and numerous Anglo-Irish ancestors. On his mother's side, Wilde's ancestors included a bricklayer from County Durham , who emigrated to Ireland sometime in the 1770s. Wilde was baptised as an infant in St. Mark's Church, Dublin , the local Church of Ireland ( Anglican ) church. When
7470-563: Was first published in Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine in July 1889. It is a short story which reports a conversation in which the theory that Shakespeare's sonnets were written out of the poet's love of the boy actor " Willie Hughes ", is advanced, retracted, and then propounded again. The only evidence for this is two supposed puns within the sonnets themselves. The anonymous narrator is at first sceptical, then believing, and finally flirtatious with
7560-622: Was moved to Wandsworth Prison , which had a similar regimen. While he was there, he was required to declare bankruptcy, by which he lost virtually all his possessions including his books and manuscripts. On 23 November 1895 he was again moved, to the prison at Reading, which also had similar rules, where he spent the remainder of his sentence, and was assigned the third cell on the third floor of C ward—and thereafter addressed and identified only as "C.3.3."—prisoners were identified only by their cell numbers and not by name. About five months after Wilde arrived at Reading Gaol, Charles Thomas Wooldridge ,
7650-401: Was not as popular as his older brother, Wilde impressed his peers with the humorous and inventive school stories he told. Later in life, he claimed that his fellow students had regarded him as a prodigy for his ability to speed read , claiming that he could read two facing pages simultaneously and consume a three-volume book in half an hour, retaining enough information to give a basic account of
7740-418: Was occasionally seized by a sort of panic over his finances and the risks of the poem failing to sell well, and made some half-hearted efforts to sell the poem's copyright for immediate cash; there were only a few disappointing nibbles and no such sale was made. However, the poem sold very well and very quickly, and caused such a stir that subsequent printings also sold well for more than a year, assuring Wilde of
7830-561: Was of Italian ancestry, and under the pseudonym "Speranza" (the Italian word for 'hope'), she wrote poetry for the revolutionary Young Irelanders in 1848; she was a lifelong Irish nationalist . Jane Wilde read the Young Irelanders' poetry to Willie and Oscar, inculcating a love of these poets in her sons. Her interest in the neo-classical revival showed in the paintings and busts of ancient Greece and Rome in her home. Sir William Wilde
7920-458: Was on interior design. In a British Library article on aestheticism and decadence, Carolyn Burdett writes, "Wilde teased his readers with the claim that life imitates art rather than the other way round. His point was a serious one: we notice London fogs, he argued, because art and literature has taught us to do so. Wilde, among others, 'performed' these maxims. He presented himself as the impeccably dressed and mannered dandy figure whose life
8010-445: Was printed on 17 March, and a sixth edition was printed in 1,000 copies on 21 May 1898. So far the book's title page had identified the author only as C.3.3., although many reviewers, and of course those who bought the numbered and autographed third edition copies, knew that Wilde was the author, but the seventh edition, printed on 23 June 1899, actually revealed the author's identity, putting the name Oscar Wilde, in square brackets, below
8100-780: Was within the prescribed texts. He was rusticated for one term, after he had returned late to a college term from a trip to Greece with Mahaffy. Wilde did not meet Walter Pater until his third year, but had been enthralled by his Studies in the History of the Renaissance , published during Wilde's final year in Trinity. 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. Years later, in De Profundis , Wilde described Pater's Studies... as "that book that has had such
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