Wilde, Oscar - Style and life

Wilde - Style and life

Oscar Wilde was born in Dublin in 1854. He was the son of a surgeon and of a woman who wrote and published patriotic poetry. He was an excellent student, in fact he obtained a scholarship to Trinity college, Dublin. There he won another scholarship to Magdalen college, Oxford. His greatest influences at Oxford were Ruskin, writer and professor of art, and Pater, 'father' of English Aestheticism.
Wilde, as a growing supporter of the Aesthetic movement, cultivated his celebrated image which reflected his belief in the pursuit of beauty.

From Oxford Wilde moved to London, expanding his social circle.
In 1881 Wilde published his first work: Poems. Most of 1882 was spent touring the United states and Canada where he had been invited to lecture on Aestheticism. Then he moved to Paris where met writers and Impressionist artists such as Zola, Hugo and Degas. Back in London he married Constance Lloyd in 1884 with whom he had two children.

A meeting with a 17-year-old, Robert Ross, who seduced him, introduced him to the physical side of homosexuality. In 1890 Wilde published The picture of Dorian Gray and in 1891 Wilde wrote his first play Lady Windermere's Fan.
He had success, but Wilde spent less and less time with his family. Douglas's father accused Wilde of being a 'posing sodomite'. Douglas encouraged Wilde to prosecute his father for libel. Wilde was soon arrested for two years with hard labour in Reading Gaol, where his physical and mental state deteriorated rapidly.
He could write but only in the form of a letter and he produced De profundis (1905). On his release from prison in 1897, Wilde immediately left for France. He died of cerebral meningitis in 1900 and was buried in Paris.