Oscar Wilde Biographie Essay, Research Paper
Wilde, Oscar ( Fingal O & # 8217 ; Flahertie Wills )
b. , Oct. 16, 1854, Dublin, Ire.
d. Nov. 30, 1900, Paris, Fr.
Irish humor, poet, and playwright whose repute grounds on his comedian
chef-d’oeuvres Lady Windermere & # 8217 ; s Fan ( 1892 ) and The Importance of Being
Earnest ( 1895 ) . He was a spokesman for the late 19th-century Aesthetic
motion in England, which advocated art for art & # 8217 ; s interest ; and he had to endure from
celebrated civil and condemnable suits which affecting his homosexualism and caused his
stoping in imprisonment ( 1895-97 ) .
Wilde was born of professional and literary parents. Wilde was the 2nd boy of Sir William
Wilde, who was Ireland & # 8217 ; s taking ear and oculus sawbones ( Augenchirurg ) , who besides published
books on archeology, folklore, and the ironist Jonathan Swift ; his female parent ( Lady Jane Francesca Wilde ) can be described as an ambitious and radical poet and an authorization on Celtic myth and folklore.She was a outstanding figure in Dublin literary society.
He had a brother, his name was William, who was one twelvemonth older than Oscar and a sister, who was
three old ages younger and she died, when she was 10 old ages old after a bad unwellness. The
household was rather comfortable.
Wilde attended the Portora Royal School, Enniskillen ( 1864-/71 ) and his favorite topics were poesy and the classics.
Wilde excelled as a pupil of classical literature. His consecutive scholarships at Trinity College, Dublin ( 1871-74 ) , and Magdalen College, Oxford ( 1874-78 ) induced them to present him with a grade with honours.By agencies of his long verse form, Ravenna, he won the coveted ( heftig begehrt ) Newdigate Prize in 1878.This implied a immense advancement for him because he became well-known, non merely as a classical bookman, a poser and a humor but besides as a poet.
Since 1879, after his surveies in Dublin and Oxford, he settled in London.There he shortly became celebrated for his superb conversation and his showy mode of frock and behaviour.At a clip when most Victorian work forces wore sober wool suits and stiff white shirts Wilde frequently appeared in excessive frock with velvet coat edged with plait, kneebreeches, silk stockings, a soft loose shirt with a broad neckband, and a big, streamlined, amply colored tie.
Wilde was profoundly impressed by the instructions
of the English authors John Ruskin and Walter Pater on the cardinal importance of art in life. Walter Pater was an English critic, litterateur, and humanist whose protagonism of & # 8220 ; art for art & # 8217 ; s sake & # 8221 ; became a cardinal
philosophy of the motion known as Aestheticism.This author began what is normally known as the & # 8220 ; aesthetic motion & # 8221 ; by replacing the older Victorian insisting on the moral intent of art by observing the value of Art for Art & # 8217 ; s interest.
Particularly Walter Pater & # 8217 ; s emphasis on the aesthetic strength by which life should be lived exerted particular influence on Oskar. Like
many in his coevals, Wilde was determined to follow Pater & # 8217 ; s pressing & # 8220 ; to fire ever with [ a ]
hard, gemlike flame. & # 8221 ; But Wilde besides delighted in impacting an aesthetic airs ; this, combined
with suites at Oxford decorated with objets d & # 8217 ; art, resulted in his celebrated comment: & # 8220 ; Oh, would
that I could populate up to my bluish China! & # 8221 ;
In the early 1880s, when Aestheticism was the fury and desperation of literary London, Wilde
established himself in societal and artistic circles by his humor and floridness. Soon the periodical
Punch made him the satiric object of its hostility to the Aesthetes for what was considered their unmasculine devotedness to art ; and in their amusing opera Patience, Gilbert and Sullivan based
the character Bunthorne, a & # 8220 ; animal poet, & # 8221 ; partially on Wilde. Wishing to reenforce the association,
Wilde published, at his ain disbursal, Poems ( 1881 ) , which echoed, excessively dependably, his
discipleship ( J ngerschaft, Anh ngerschaft ) to the poets Algernon Swinburne, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and John Keats.
Eager for farther acclamation, Wilde agreed to talk ( Vortrag, Vorlesung ) in the United States and Canada in 1882, denoting on his reaching in New York City that he had & # 8220 ; nil to declare but his genius. & # 8221 ; Despite widespread ill will in the imperativeness to his languid ( tr Ge, schlaff, ersch pft ) poses ( Position, Haltung ) and aesthetic costume of velvet jacket, articulatio genus knee pantss, and black silk stockings, Wilde for 12 months exhorted the Americans to love beauty and art ; so he returned to Great Britain to talk on his feelings of America.
In 1884 Wilde married Constance Lloyd, the girl of a outstanding Irish barrister ; two kids,
Cyril and Vyvyan, were born, in 1885 and 1886. Besides in 1886 he met Robert Ross, a 17 twelvemonth old adult male, who became Oscar+s lover, but besides a good friend.
Meanwhile, Wilde was a referee for the Pall Mall Gazette and so became editor of Woman & # 8217 ; s World ( 1887-89 ) . During this period of apprenticeship as a author, he published & # 8221 ; The Happy Prince and Other Tales & # 8221 ; ( 1888 ) , which reveals his gift for romantic fable ( Sinnbild, Gleichnis ) in the signifier of the fairy narrative.
In the concluding decennary of his life, Wilde wrote and published about all of his major work. In his
merely novel, & # 8220 ; The Picture of Dorian Gray & # 8221 ; ( published in Lippincott & # 8217 ; s Magazine, 1890, and in book
signifier, revised and expanded by six chapters, 1891 ) , Wilde combined the supernatural elements
of the Gothic novel with the indefinable wickednesss of Gallic decadent ( verfallene, entartete ) fiction. Critics charged immorality despite Dorian & # 8217 ; s suicide ; Wilde, nevertheless, insisted on the amoral ( ohne moralisch Wertung ) nature of art regardless of an seemingly moral ending. & # 8221 ; Intentions & # 8221 ; ( 1891 ) , dwelling of antecedently published essays, restated ( neu formulieren, wiederholt feststellen ) his aesthetic attitude toward art by borrowing thoughts from the Gallic poets Th ophile Gautier and Charles Baudelaire and the American painter James McNeill Whistler. In the same twelvemonth, two volumes of narratives and faery narratives besides appeared, attesting to his extraordinary originative ingeniousness: & # 8221 ; Lord Arthur Savile & # 8217 ; s Crime, , and Other Stories & # 8221 ; and & # 8221 ; A House of Pomegranates. & # 8221 ;
But Wilde & # 8217 ; s greatest success were his society comedies. Within the conventions of the Gallic
& # 8220 ; well-made drama & # 8221 ; ( with its societal machinations and unreal devices to decide struggle ) , he employed
his self-contradictory, aphoristic humor to make a signifier of comedy new to the 19th-century English
theater. His first success, & # 8221 ; Lady Windermere & # 8217 ; s Fan & # 8221 ; ( 1892 ) , demonstrated that this humor could regenerate ( neu beleben ) the rusty ( rostige ) machinery of Gallic drama.With this comedy Wilde & # 8217 ; s calling as a succesful playwright began ( he had his discovery with the drama & # 8220 ; Lady Windermere+s Fan & # 8221 ; ) .In
the same twelvemonth, dry runs of his macabre drama & # 8221 ; Salom & # 8220 ; ( calamity ) , written in French and designed, as he said, to do his audience frisson ( bef rchten, schaudern, besorgt sein ) by its word picture of unnatural passion, were halted by the censor because it contained scriptural characters. It was published in 1893, and an English interlingual rendition appeared in 1894 with Aubrey Beardsley & # 8217 ; s celebrated illustrations.
A 2nd society comedy, & # 8221 ; A Woman of No Importance & # 8221 ; ( produced 1893 ) , convinced the critic
William Archer that Wilde & # 8217 ; s plays & # 8220 ; must be taken on the really highest plane of modern English
drama. & # 8221 ; In rapid sequence, Wilde & # 8217 ; s concluding dramas, & # 8220 ; An Ideal Husband & # 8221 ; and & # 8220 ; The Importance of Being
Earnest & # 8221 ; , were produced early in 1895. In the latter, his greatest accomplishment, the conventional
elements of travesty ( Posse, Theater, Schwank ) are transformed into satiric quips, apparently fiddling but pitilessly ( unbarmherzig, grausam, schonungslos ) exposing Victorian lip services ( Heuchelei, Scheinheiligkeit ) .With this new sort of authorship he was delighted and successful in mocking Victorian sentiments and thoughts about the moral earnestness of great art.The secret plan of & # 8220 ; The Importance of B
eing Earnest” is brightly constructed, but it is besides composed of events of the most unlikely and fiddling signifiance.Wilde’s dazzingly witty, absolutely polished duologue is the existent substance of this play.The clever ( geistreich ) and witty duologue glosses the societal conventions of the Victorian period.
Wilde chiefly pokes merriment at conventional Victorian earnestness ( one of the most of import values of the Victorian period ) by suiting solemn ( feierlich, w rdige, formell ) moral linguistic communication to frivolous ( wertlos, geringf gig, leichtfertig ) and pathetic action.Through the copiousness of his histories, verse forms, and essays, he distinguished himself as the most celebrated title-holder of the & # 8220 ; art for art & # 8217 ; s sake & # 8221 ; credo.
In many of his plants, exposure of a secret wickedness or injudiciousness and attendant shame ( Schande, Ungnade ) is a cardinal design. If life imitated art ( non art imitates life ; but life imitates art! ) , as Wilde insisted in his essay & # 8220 ; The Decay of Lying & # 8221 ; ( 1889 ) , he was himself come closing ( ann hern ) the form in his foolhardy chase of pleasance. In add-on, his close friendly relationship with Lord Alfred Douglas, whom he had met in 1891, infuriated the Marquess of Queensberry, Douglas & # 8217 ; male parent. This passionate relationship signifies Oscar & # 8217 ; s decline.Oscar and Alfred seemed to be inseparable.Especially, Alfred & # 8217 ; s male parent was unable to get by with this relationship.Accused, eventually, by the Marquess of being a sodomist ( one twenty-four hours the marquis sent a message to his boy: , ,Oscar Wilde, presenting as Sodomite & # 8221 ; ) , Wilde, urged ( gedr ngt, gen tigt ) by Douglas, sued ( klagen degree Fahrenheit R, verklagen wegen, flehen um ) for condemnable libel ( Schm hschrift, Verleumdung, Beleidigung ) .
Wilde & # 8217 ; s instance collapsed, nevertheless, when the grounds turned against him, and he dropped the suit.As a affair of fact he becames the accused individual in this test alternatively of the Marquess. Urged to fly to France by his friends, Wilde refused, unable to believe that his universe was at an terminal.
In this test he was accused of being homosexual and he was accused of mistreating younger male childs.
Wilde testified ( aussagen, bezeugen ) brightly, but the jury failed to make a finding of fact. In the retrial he was
found guilty and sentenced ( Urteil f llen ber, verurteilen Zu ) , in May 1895, to two old ages of difficult labor ( Zuchthaus ) . Most of his sentence was served at Reading Gaol, where he wrote a long missive to Douglas
( published in 1905 in a drastically cut version as & # 8220 ; De Profundis & # 8221 ; ) filled with recrimination ( Gegenbeschuldigung ) against the younger adult male for promoting him in dissipation ( Verschwendung, Aufl Sung ) and deflecting him from his work.
In May 1897 Wilde was released, a insolvent, and instantly went to France, trusting
to restore himself as a writer.After the release he adopted the name of & # 8220 ; Sebastian Melmoth & # 8221 ; . In 1899 Constance ( his married woman had already changed her name into & # 8221 ; Holland & # 8221 ; for the intent of being safe ) died after an operation and that is why he had no opportunity to see his kids once more. His lone staying work, nevertheless, was & # 8220 ; The Ballad of Reading Gaol & # 8221 ; ( 1898 ) , uncovering his concern for inhumane prison conditions. Despite changeless money jobs and inordinate ingestion of intoxicant he maintained, as George Bernard Shaw said, & # 8220 ; an unconquerable merriment of psyche & # 8221 ; that sustained him, and he was visited by such loyal friends as Max Beerbohm and Robert Ross, subsequently his literary executor ; he was besides reunited with Douglas. Three old ages after his release he all of a sudden died of ague meningitis brought on by an ear infection. In his semiconscious concluding minutes, he was received into the Roman Catholicchurch, which he had long admired.
( Qellen: ENCYCLOP+DIA BRITANNICA, MEYERS ENZYKLOP-DISCHES LEXIKON, JUGENDLEXIKON, AESTHETICISM AND VICTORIAN PERIOD )
Sein Untergang begann, ALSs ihm im Jahre 1891 der 21j hrige Student Lord Alfred Douglas
( kurz, ,Bosie & # 8221 ; ) vorgestellt wurde. Der Dichter und der Student waren sofort Feuer und
Flamme f reinander. Schon in Wilde+s eigener Studienzeit pflegte Er nicht unbedingt
platonische Bekanntschaften zu seinen Kollegen. Die beiden wurden in Greater londons
Gesellschaft immer gemeinsam angetroffen, sie schienen untrennbar voneinander Zu sein.
Der Vater des Studenten, der Marquess of Queensberry, fand an dieser Beziehung
lebhaften Anstox. Der Marquess chitchat jegliche Beziehung zu seinem Sohn auf. Weiter drohte
Er Wilde, ihn Zu verpr geln, sollte Er je wieder seinen Sohn treffen. Er liex eines Tages
Wilde eine Nachricht zukommen, die folgenden Text enthielt: , ,Oscar Wilde, sitting as
Sodomite & # 8221 ; . Sodomie wird, nach einer Stelle im Alten Testament, ALSs die, ,wiedernat rliche
Bet tigung Massachusetts Institute of Technology den Angeh rigen diethylstilbestrols gleichen Geschlechts & # 8221 ; definiert. Doch es war keine
Beleidigung in dem Sinne, district attorney der Marquess nur von, ,posierend ALSs Sodomit & # 8221 ; sprach.
Trotzdem strengte Wilde einen Prozex an, der jedoch bald den Kl ger zum Angeklagten
machte. Es wurden Namen und Adressen von Jugendlichen gefunden, die alle gold der
unteren sozialen Schicht kamen und alle Kontakt Zu Wilde hatten. Die erste
Hauptverhandlung war am 3. April 1895. Die beklagte Seite muxte nun Beweise liefern, dice
dice Beschuldigung des Marquess untermauerten. Man beschuldigte Wilde diethylstilbestrols Mixbrauches
junger M nner. Es wurden mehrere Briefe vorgelesen, die Oscar Wilde an seinen, ,Bosie & # 8221 ;
schrieb. Sie wurden vom Gericht ALSs nicht anst xig eingestuft. Die Anw lte diethylstilbestrols Marquess
konnten Wilde nicht schaden, das cheapness Er selbst ALSs er unter Eid gold Eitelkeit bei seinem
Alter log. Dieser kleine Fehler schadete seiner Glaubw rdigkeit immens. Es folgte eine Lange
Diskussion ber die Ansichten des Dichters ber Literatur und Moral. Seine Aussage, dax
Literatur und Moral nichts miteinander Zu tun hatten, ersch tterten die Ansichten diethylstilbestrols
gegnerischen Anwaltes. Doch Wilde konnte auch hier wieder berzeugen. Doch am
n chsten Verhandlungstag, ALSs Wilde wieder im Zeugenstand war, fielen viele Namen von
Jugendlichen, Massachusetts Institute of Technology denen sich Wilde abgegeben hatte. Langsam kristallisierte sich heraus,
dax an diesem ehrenwerten Mann nichts ehrenwertes war. Aus dem noch vor kurzem so
lebenslustigem Dichter wurde ein gebrochener Mann. Am n chsten Tage sollten Zeugen
vorgef hormone replacement therapy werden, doch Wilde zog Seine Anklage Zu zur ck. Es half nichts. Noch am
selben Tag wurde Er verhaftet Massachusetts Institute of Technology der Beschuldigung der widernat rlichen Unzucht. Die
gesamte Bev lkerung Londons war nun gegen ihn.
Es kam zu einer Panikstimmung. Leute, dice intestine gekleidet waren, oder einfach nur gew hlt
sprachen, muxten f rchten, , ,Oscar & # 8221 ; geschimpft zu werden. Wilde+s S hne, 10 und 9
Jahre elevation, wurden gold der Schule genommen, um eine Ansteckung der Mitsch Lir Zu
vermeiden. Die zweite Hauptverhandlng war im April 1895 und dauerte 5 Tage an. Einsteinium
wurden diesmal Zeugen vorgef hormone replacement therapy, die Wilde jedoch ALSs Erpresser beschuldigte. Die
Geschworenen waren sich beim Urteilsspruch nicht einig, daher muxte dice Verhandlung im
Mai wiederholt werden. Diesmal Massachusetts Institute of Technology einer Dauer von 6 Tagen. Wilde wurde zur
H chststrafe, 2 Jahren harter Zwangsarbeit, verurteilt. Im Gef ngnis, dem Reading Caol,
erlebte er eine schlimme Zeit. Er durfte nicht Massachusetts Institute of Technology Mitgefangenen reden und wurde wegen
kleinster Vergehen bestraft. Erst sp ter besserte sich dice Lage f R ihn. Am 19. Mai 1897
wurde Er entlassen und reiste sofort nach Frankreich Bachelor of Arts. Dort lebte er forthin unter dem
Namen Sebastian Melmoth. Sein gesamter Besitz wurde verkauft. Seine Frau sah er nie
wieder, denn sie hatte sich unter dem Namen, ,Holland & # 8221 ; bereits woanders niedergelassen.
Sein genialer Schaffensdrang war gebrochen. Er verfiel dem Alkohol und starb schliexlich
an cerebraler Meningitis. Er bekam ein Armenbegr bnis und once viele Jahre. Viele Jahre
sp ter bekam Er ein eigenes Grab.
