Outside the English Literature classroom, today Oscar Wilde is best known in popular culture for his many witty, pithy, and wide-ranging quotes. He is more formally known as an Irish poet and playwright who spent most of his professional career and adulthood in London. University educated in Ireland and at Oxford, he was already well known for his amusing and telling wit. He was a good student, finishing with very high marks and was awarded a number of academic prizes. His most significant works include the plays, The Importance of Being Earnest (1895) and Lady Windemere’s Fan (1892). His only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray was published in 1891.
Wilde embraced the ideas of the Aestheticism movement, which advocated the idea of living life as art. This was the era of the Pre-Raphaelites and early Art Nouveau, both of which incorporate an ornate, lush beauty. Shortly after his arrival in London he became a celebrity, a status he maintained for the rest of his life. Wilde was criticized in some circles for encouraging the feminization of men with his flamboyant manners, lack of interest in traditional manly pursuits, paying much attention to attire and young, effeminate boys, and decorating his rooms with peacock feathers, lilies, china, and other objets d’art. He took some of his inspiration from art critic John Ruskin, whose strong interest in "art for art's sake" was tinged with homoeroticism. Despite mixed reviews, Wilde’s 1882 American tour was a resounding success, even in Colorado mining towns. Critics have discussed and argued over Wilde’s sexuality since the nineteenth century. While he did fall in love with and marry a woman, Constance Lloyd, and had two sons with her, his overall lifetime behavior strongly suggests that he was, at minimum, bisexual. The couple separated in 1893, around the time that Wilde was convicted of "gross indecency," and ordered to serve two years of hard labor. Mrs. Wilde changed her surname and the surnames of the couple's sons to Holland.
Wilde’s health declined while he was in prison. Upon his release he went to Paris to live in self-imposed exile. He continued to write during this time, most notably the poem "The Ballad of Reading Gaol." Near penniless, his physical, and some say, mental, health continued to suffer. He died in Paris of cerebral meningitis in 1900, at the age of forty-six.
Image: Oscar Wilde in his favorite coat. New York, 1882.
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