Aspetto esteriore - Tesina per liceo linguistico

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Oscar Wilde was born in Dublin, Ireland, on 16 October 1854. He was

the son of William, a famous eye specialist and an expert of Irish antiques

and Jane Francesca Elgee, an Irish nationalist poet known by the

pseudonym of ‘Speranza’.

In 1863 Oscar and his family moved to a very smart quarter in Dublin

and his house became the meeting point of Dubliner artists and

intellectuals. He attended the Portora Royal School in Enniskillen. During

his years at the Portora he developed a devoted attachment to his silk

hat, a stovepipe of immense height, which in contravention of the rules

he rarely removed. In 1871 he attended the Trinity College in Dublin

where he became a confident young man and three years later he won

a scholarship for the Magdalene College of Oxford, where he had John

Ruskin and Walter Pater as teachers. Pater was the precursor (as Keats)

of the principle “the love of art for art’s sake” and he had an æsthetic

influence on Wilde and his ideals affected every aspect of his life.

In 1878 he left the Oxford University after being graduated in Classic

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subjects. He became famous for his genius and his eccentric style: his stylish

clothes made him a well-known figure in fashionable London circles and he loved to

decorate his apartment with peacock’s plumes and sunflowers. His talk, from being

witty or clever, began to assume an “oracular obscurity”, a hallmark of his

personality. He was appreciated by society for his acute intelligence and his

brilliant conversation, even insolent. In 1881 he wrote a very successful collection,

“Poems”.

In 1882 he spent a year in the United States, where he toured and met Constance

“Personal Impressions of America”,

Lloyd, his future wife. He wrote which will be

published in 1921, after his death. In this essay Wilde described American social

“The first thing that struck me on landing in America was that if

habits very well:

the Americans are not the best dressed people in the world, surely the people are

dressed more comfortably”. When he left for the US, Wilde took with him a set of

costumes, that he had especially made, to show during his conferences.

He returned to London where he married Constance Lloyd. Wilde described her as

“a grave, slight, violet-eyed little Artemis, with great coils of heavy brown hair,

which make her flower-like head droop like a blossom”. They had two sons, Cyril

(1885) and Vyvyan (1886). He collaborated with several magazines, including

<<The Lady’s World>>, a magazine directed to the more ambitious housewife.

“The Happy Prince and Other Tales”,

In 1888 he published a collection of fairy tales

The

for children, illustrated by Walter Crane. In this year he also published the tale “

Young King”. The portrait of

On the <<Blackwood’s Magazine>> was published “

Mr. W.H.”, a short story in which it is discussed the theory that Shakespeare’s

sonnets were inspired by his love for the actor William Hughes. The

On the American journal <<Lippincott’s Monthly>> appeared a first draft of “

Picture of Dorian Gray” which raised much controversy, from which Wilde defended

“Art is independent of the moral”.

himself saying that It was 1890. A year later

“The Picture of Dorian Gray” was bound in volumes and it was considered the

manifesto of the Aestheticism at the end of 19 century.

th The House of

In 1891 Oscar published his second volume of tales, “

Pomegranates”, “Intentions” “Salomé”,

and the play written in French. He met Lord

Alfred Douglas, called Bosie, with whom he began a troubled love affair. The

affection for Constance and his children never died, but changed. The intimacy

between Douglas and Wilde grew gradually but in 1892 they were already very

“Lady Windermere’s Fan”

close. The play was staged the same year and Wilde

“A Woman of no Importance”.

wrote He travelled around the English countryside,

renting homes that he shared with Bosie and where he retired to write. Lord

Douglas was beautiful, amusing, young but also reckless, arrogant and spendthrift

with an insane pride and an uncontrollable temper. All these qualities were

attractive to Wilde but the presence of his new companion distracted him from his

The Importance of Being

career as a writer, and he didn’t produce anything, up to “

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Earnest”, 1895, a play that takes place in the English countryside at the end of the

19 century. It’s important to understand Wilde’s point of view of society: he had

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always criticized upper class and its manners. Thank to his ability in conversation,

he could make fun of society without appearing rude and impolite.

1895 was a very important year. Wilde was, at that time, a successful man. He had

two plays running at the same time in London but Boise’s father accused him to be

“The love that dare not speaks its name in this century”,

homosexual. ” Oscar said

“is such a great affection as Plato made the very basis of his

at his trial,

philosophy, and such as you find in the sonnets of Michelangelo and Shakespeare.

It is that deep, spiritual affection that is as pure as it is perfect. It is in this century

misunderstood’”. The words spoken in his defense weren’t sufficient and he was

imprisoned in the Reading Gaol. Another humiliation was to come: during the

transfer by train to the prison he had to stand on the centre of platform of the

“Of all

station in convict dress and handcuffed for the world to look at. He wrote:

possible objects I was the most grotesque. When people said me they laughed.

Nothing could exceed their amusement. That was of course before they knew who I

was. As soon as they had been informed, they laughed still more”.

His rapid decline began: he was declared bankrupt and his name was removed

from some of his works. De Profundis”,

During his imprisonment he wrote “ a long letter to Bosie, in which

Oscar forgave him for his behavior but he was broken for allowing Bosie to

“I thought life was going to be

influence his life and his work as an artist. He wrote:

a brilliant comedy, and that you were to be one of many graceful figures in it”.

Wilde was released in May 1897 and moved to France. After his prison experience

he was a devastated man. He became a tragic figure. In Berneval-sur-Mer he wrote

“The Ballad of Reading Gaol”.

his best poem, In France he found the support that

English society didn’t give him during his hard imprisonment. However his

affections and his heart had always remained in England. The 30 of November

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1900 Oscar Wilde died, alone, at the Hotel d’Alsace in Paris.

Robbie Ross, his most loyal friend, spent the ten years after Wilde’s death rescuing

and rebuilding his reputation from the oblivion into which a moment of blindness

and madness had flung it.

I would like to remember Oscar Wilde in his own words:

I made art a philosophy, and philosophy an art: I altered the minds of men, and

“

the color of things: I awoke the imagination of my century so that it created myth

and legend around me: I summed up all things in a phrase, all existence in an

epigram: whatever I touched I made beautiful”.

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The Picture of Dorian Gray The Happy Prince and Other

Tales

The first time I read this novel was 3 years

ago. I remember of always being attracted In 1888, Oscar Wilde published a collection

by the title of the book. One day I was at of gently ironic short fables, written for

my friend’s house and I asked her mother children and to amuse also adult readers,

to lend me that book. I immediately entitled “The Happy Prince and Other

started reading it at loud voice, while my Tales”. The “Other Tales” included “The

friend was listening to me. Every word and Selfish Giant”, one of his most popular

sentence was like a link to another works. The Selfish Giant owned a beautiful

world…my world. I was so enthusiastic by garden. All the children of the village

that story that I started of taking notes of wondered to get in even if in the garden

all the quotes, sentences and description was always winter, because of the Giant’ s

that I liked most. I had to give “The egoism, who prohibited kids to trespass

Picture” back to my mother’s friend the high wall around the garden. One day,

because I put too many marks in it and I the Giant left and the children decided to

decided to buy one by my own. When I try to go beyond the wall. The poor

finished reading it, I was so confused. I children had a place to play. The summer

learned a lot of things about myself. The came to the Giant’ s park. After 7 years the

things that I’ve never understood about Giant came back and he saw a touching

myself were printed just beneath my and lovely scene: the summer had come,

eyes. Also Dorian Gray, became obsessed all the flowers of his park had flourished

by one book. He could not free himself and in every tree there was a little child. In

from its influence. “[…] The whole book the farthest corner of the garden was still

seemed to him to contain the story of his winter because the smallest child could not

own life […]”. reach the branches of the tree. The Selfish

Giant understood how selfish he had been

Well…my life is not Dorian Gray’s life (and and his heart melted. He came out his

I hope it will never become) but for the hiding place but when all the children saw

first time a book wasn’t just a book that him, they ran away. Only the smallest boy

told a story, with fantastic creatures and didn’t run because his eyes were full of

unreal characters, but a place where I can tears for not having the chance to climb

find out answers whenever I like to. From the tree. The Giant took him gently in his

that moment on, Oscar Wilde became my hand and put him into the tree. The little

favorite writer and the person that knows child was so happy that kissed the Selfish

me so well to give me advice and answers Giant. When all the other children

to the questions of my life. understood that the Giant was a good one,

they started to play again in the park. One

day, the smallest children got down the

tree and he was never seeing again. The

Giant missed him and grew older and

feebler. He could not play anymore and

used to look over the children from the

window. “I

I have many beautiful flowers”

” he

“ flowers

said, “but

but the children are the most

“

beautiful flowers of all”.

”. From that window,

all

one day, the Giant saw that the little boy

had came back. He was mad with joy.

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Oscar Wilde, in The Picture of Dorian When he got closer to the child he saw

Gray, has Lord Henry Wotton refers to it that the poor boy was wounded. The little

as “the strangest book he had ever read”; child said that those were the wounds of

said that it contained all “the sins of the Love and that was time to go with him to

world”. The newspapers seized upon the another garden, the Paradise. The smallest

work as ‘disgusting’, ‘stupid and vulgar’ or child and the Selfish Giant left together to

even ‘unmanly, sickening, vicious and the kingdom of heaven.

tedious’. The Plot of “The Happy Prince”

The Plot Far away from here, there is a little town.

The protagonist is Dorian Gray a young In the center of the town there is a

and charming gentleman who’s beautiful golden statue. This statue is

appreciated for his kindness and beauty. dedicated to the Happy Prince who has

One day, the painter Basil Hallward never cried. The statue is the pride of the

decides to portray him in a framework town! Everyone admires it! One day, a

that can express the purity and the little Swallow decides to rest on the Happy

innocence of the boy. The paint is Prince’s shoulder. It’ s winter and the

beautiful! Lord Henry Wotton, a cynical Swallow is roosting to prepare herself to a

gentleman and Basil’s friend, persuades long trip to Egypt, so she can survive.

Dorian that the only virtue in life is youth Every night the Happy Prince asks her to

and the lad, being afraid of getting old, take a gold leaf to the poor people that live

prays that the portrait may grow old while in the town. One night, the Swallow