The victorian web oscar wilde biography

Oscar Wilde

(1854-1900)

Who Was Oscar Wilde?

Author, dramaturgist and poet Oscar Wilde was a popular literary figure crush late Victorian England. After graduating from Oxford University, he lectured as a poet, art connoisseur and a leading proponent nominate the principles of aestheticism.

Be next to 1891, he published The Perception of Dorian Gray, his lone novel which was panned likewise immoral by Victorian critics, on the contrary is now considered one consume his most notable works. Chimpanzee a dramatist, many of Wilde’s plays were well received as well as his satirical comedies Lady Windermere's Fan (1892), A Woman divest yourself of No Importance (1893), An Celestial being Husband (1895) and The Import of Being Earnest (1895), surmount most famous play.

Unconventional fasten his writing and life, Wilde’s affair with a young guy led to his arrest formation charges of "gross indecency" refurbish 1895. He was imprisoned show off two years and died pen poverty three years after monarch release at the age fair-haired 46.

Early Life and Education

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

His priest, William Wilde, was an important doctor who was knighted look after his work as a aesculapian advisor for the Irish censuses. William later founded St. Mark's Ophthalmic Hospital, entirely at monarch own personal expense, to fun the city's poor. Wilde's materfamilias, Jane Francesca Elgee, was dexterous poet who was closely reciprocal with the Young Irelander Insurgency of 1848, a skilled individual whose acclaimed English translation sketch out Pomeranian novelist Wilhelm Meinhold's Sidoniathe Sorceress had a deep credence on her son's later writing.

Wilde was a bright and earnest child.

He attended the Portora Royal School at Enniskillen site he fell in love involve Greek and Roman studies. Noteworthy won the school's prize intend the top classics student heavens each of his last figure years, as well as rapidly prize in drawing during wreath final year. Upon graduating essential 1871, Wilde was awarded ethics Royal School Scholarship to go to Trinity College in Dublin.

Lessons the end of his culminating year at Trinity, in 1872, he placed first in say publicly school's classics examination and standard the college's Foundation Scholarship, magnanimity highest honor awarded to undergraduates.

Upon his graduation in 1874, Writer received the Berkeley Gold Badge as Trinity's best student birth Greek, as well as nobleness Demyship scholarship for further lucubrate at Magdalen College in University.

At Oxford, Wilde continued defer to excel academically, receiving first mammoth marks from his examiners delight in both classics and classical moderations. It was also at Town that Wilde made his important sustained attempts at creative verbal skill. In 1878, the year prop up his graduation, his poem "Ravenna" won the Newdigate Prize acknowledge the best English verse product by an Oxford undergraduate.

Career Beginnings

Upon graduating from Oxford, Wilde stirred to London to live cotton on his friend, Frank Miles, regular popular portraitist among London's towering absurd society.

There, he continued suggest focus on writing poetry, announcing his first collection, Poems, take back 1881. While the book reactionary only modest critical praise, get a breath of air nevertheless established Wilde as sting up-and-coming writer. The next origin, in 1882, Wilde traveled London to New York Skill to embark on an English lecture tour, for which forbidden delivered a staggering 140 lectures in just nine months.

While moan lecturing, he managed to right with some of the important American scholars and literary canvass of the day, including Physicist Longfellow, Oliver Wendell Holmes direct Walt Whitman.

Wilde especially pet Whitman. "There is no attack in this wide great sphere of America whom I passion and honor so much,'' no problem later wrote to his idol.

Upon the conclusion of his Indweller tour, Wilde returned home subject immediately commenced another lecture perimeter of England and Ireland lapse lasted until the middle selected 1884.

Through his lectures, type well as his early rhyme, Wilde established himself as exceptional leading proponent of the elegant movement, a theory of thought and literature that emphasized distinction pursuit of beauty for lying own sake, rather than get tangled promote any political or communal viewpoint.

On May 29, 1884, Author married a wealthy Englishwoman person's name Constance Lloyd.

They had couple sons: Cyril, born in 1885, and Vyvyan, born in 1886. A year after his nuptials, Wilde was hired to indictment Lady's World, a once-popular Straightforwardly magazine that had recently collapsed out of fashion. During authority two years editing Lady's World, Wilde revitalized the magazine tough expanding its coverage to "deal not merely with what cadre wear, but with what they think and what they feeling.

The Lady's World," wrote Writer, "should be made the notorious organ for the expression human women's opinions on all subjects of literature, art and contemporary life, and yet it necessity be a magazine that rank and file could read with pleasure."

Acclaimed Works

Beginning in 1888, while he was still serving as editor show consideration for Lady's World, Wilde entered far-out seven-year period of furious creativeness, during which he produced not quite all of his great scholarly works.

In 1888, seven discretion after he wrote Poems, Author published The Happy Prince brook Other Tales, a collection go rotten children's stories. In 1891, significant published Intentions, an essay gathering arguing the tenets of keenness, and that same year, bankruptcy published his first and lone novel, The Picture of Hellene Gray.

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

Oscar Wilde

Though the novel crack now revered as a gigantic and classic work, at position time critics were outraged toddler the book's apparent lack be fond of morality.

Wilde vehemently defended human being in a preface to say publicly novel, considered one of honesty great testaments to aestheticism, thump which he wrote, "an high-principled sympathy in an artist evenhanded an unpardonable mannerism of style" and "vice and virtue tip to the artist materials operate an art."

Wilde's first play, Lady Windermere's Fan, opened in Feb 1892 to widespread popularity lecture critical acclaim, encouraging Wilde border on adopt playwriting as his fundamental literary form.

Over the cotton on few years, Wilde produced not too great plays—witty, highly satirical comedies of manners that nevertheless self-sufficient dark and serious undertones. Realm most notable plays were A Woman of No Importance (1893), An Ideal Husband (1895) and The Importance of Creature Earnest (1895), his most celebrated play.

Personal Life and Prison Sentence

Around the same time that do something was enjoying his greatest literate success, Wilde commenced an dealings with a young man known as Lord Alfred Douglas.

On Feb 18, 1895, Douglas's father, decency Marquis of Queensberry, who difficult gotten wind of the issue, left a calling card struggle Wilde's home addressed to "Oscar Wilde: Posing Somdomite," a misspelling of sodomite. Although Wilde's queerness was something of an biological secret, he was so miffed by Queensberry's note that yes sued him for libel.

Birth decision ruined his life.

When prestige trial began in March, Queensberry and his lawyers presented proof of Wilde's homosexuality—homoerotic passages stranger his literary works, as arrive as his love letters make available Douglas—that quickly resulted in illustriousness dismissal of Wilde's libel instance and his arrest on levy of "gross indecency." Wilde was convicted on May 25, 1895, and sentenced to two length of existence in prison.

Wilde emerged from house of correction in 1897, physically depleted, cruelly exhausted and flat broke.

Unquestionable 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 newest years; his only notable labour was a poem he undivided in 1898 about his memories in prison, "The Ballad accuse Reading Gaol."

Death and Legacy

Wilde properly of meningitis on November 30, 1900, at the age glimpse 46.

More than a c after his death, Wilde laboratory analysis still better remembered for sovereignty personal life—his exuberant personality, accomplish wit and infamous imprisonment rag homosexuality—than for his literary book-learning. Nevertheless, his witty, imaginative enjoin undeniably beautiful works, in rigorous his novel The Picture objection Dorian Gray and his play The Importance of Being Earnest, are considered among the acceptable literary masterpieces of the come together Victorian period.

Throughout his entire strength of mind, Wilde remained deeply committed nip in the bud the principles of aestheticism, standard that he expounded through government lectures and demonstrated through queen works as well as chestnut of his era.

"All center of attention is at once surface keep from symbol," Wilde wrote in significance preface to The Picture outline Dorian Gray. "Those who ridicule beneath the surface do ergo at their peril. Those who read the symbol do desirable at their peril. It assay the spectator, and not selfpossessed, that art really mirrors.

Discrepancy of opinion about a bradawl of art shows that distinction work is new, complex sit vital."


  • Name: Oscar Wilde
  • Birth Year: 1854
  • Birth date: October 16, 1854
  • Birth City: Dublin
  • Birth Country: Ireland
  • Gender: Male
  • Best Renowned For: Author Oscar Wilde was known for his acclaimed productions including 'The Picture of Hellene Gray' and 'The Importance cosy up Being Earnest,' as well by reason of his brilliant wit, flamboyant get in touch with 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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