Biography
Oscar Wilde (1854-1900), born in Dublin, was the most brilliant wit of the late Victorian era and one of the defining figures of aesthetic and decadent literature. Wilde's social comedies—Lady Windermere's Fan (1892), A Woman of No Importance (1893), An Ideal Husband (1895), and his masterpiece The Importance of Being Earnest (1895)—established him as the foremost English-language dramatist of his generation. His darker works, including the Symbolist tragedy Salomé (1891, written in French; later set by Richard Strauss), the novel The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890), and the long poem The Ballad of Reading Gaol (1898), show a different side. Wilde was arrested in 1895 on charges of 'gross indecency' with men, convicted, and sentenced to two years' hard labour at Reading Gaol. He emerged destroyed and died in Paris in 1900 as a Catholic convert. His grave at Père Lachaise has become a pilgrimage site.
On Stagelog
Loading stats...