Wilde, Oscar - Life and works (2)

Oscar Wilde

Wilde was born in 1854. He attended Trinity College in Dublin. Then, he went to Oxford, where he got a first-class degree in Classics. Here he adopted Walter Pater’s theories and became one of his disciples sharing the slogan “Art for Art’s Sake”. In Oxford he started to show everyone his eccentricity and extravagance. Not only about his clothes, but above all about his way of thinking. It meant he revealed himself as a Dandy. For a dandy, appearance and the latest fashion were really important.

By the way, it was impossible to be a true dandy without an extraordinary intelligence and wit. In 1881 he went to the USA to take some lectures n the American University about Aestheticism. They were successful, and he became one of the most important professor in the USA and Europe because he could teach very well. In 1883 he came back to Europe and he met a woman: Constance Lloyd and they’ve got married. They had two children: Vivian and Cyril. However, he soon got tired about this marriage. He just wanted to be adored by everyone. Men and women wore a lily ad a tribute! His aphorisms and his quotations were published in the best London magazine. In 1886 he wrote some short stories for his children: the Canterville, the Happy Prince. 1891 is the best and the worst year at the same: the best because he published his masterpiece: “The Picture of Dorian Gray”. Then, he met and fell in love with Lord Alfred Douglas. They started a homosexual affair; the worst because later this novel was considered immoral and Lord Alfred’s father wanted Wilde to be tried for homosexuality. In 1893 there is his fall down. He wrote a tragedy called “Salomé”, considered full of obscenity and he was imprisoned for immorality and homosexuality. For two years he stayed in prison and worked so hard; he wrote “De Profundis”: in the first part he wrote the way he abandoned him, in the second part he wrote the way he abandoned him. After he was released, he was penniless, wondering all over Europe and sleeping in his friends’ houses and cheap hotels. He stopped in France where he died (in Paris) in 1900. His shrine is full of lipstick around it.