Act Five
After Wilde's release he at last escaped to France, where he was rejected by most of the people with whom he had consorted and who had admired him in better days. Constance Wilde would send him an allowance, but would not see him (which he did not mind) or allow him to visit his children (which he did mind). A brief romantic reunion with Bosie cut off that little amount of income also, and Wilde waited three years to die. When death came, it came in a lonely Paris hotel room to a man stripped of all arrogance and beauty - a man not too unlike the withered cadaver that remains after the painting is violated in Dorian Gray.
Biography of Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
Oscar Wilde was born in Dublin, Ireland on October 16, 1854. He was educated at Trinity College, Dublin and Magdalen College, Oxford. He was considered a brilliant student. In 1878, his poem Ravenna won the Newdigate Prize. Shortly after leaving university his first volume of poetry was published. He moved to London in 1879. Wilde married Constance Lloyd, the daughter of a wealthy Dublin barrister, in 1884 and the couple had two sons. Wilde wrote fairy stories for his boys. These were later published as The Happy Prince and Other Tales. After being married for 11 years, Wilde had left his wife and began having a homosexual affair with Alfred Douglas. In May 1895, Wilde was prosecuted and imprisoned for homosexuality under the terms of the Criminal Law Amendment Act. He served two years in Old Bailey in London. Regrettable, his mother died while he was still in jail In 1897, after being released from Reading Prison, Wilde moved to France. A year later he wrote The Ballad of Reading Gaol, a poem inspired by his prison experience. Wilde's time in prison badly damaged his health and he died on November 30, 1900, in Paris, France, three years after leaving prison. He is buried in Pere Lachaise Cemetery in Paris, in a tomb designed by Epstein. Famous quotations by Oscar Wilde:
I always pass on good advice. It is the only thing to do with it. It is never of any use to oneself. The old believe everything, the middle-aged suspect everything, the young know everything. Those whom the gods love grow young. In America the young are always ready to give to those who are older than themselves the full benefits of their inexperience. Mere colour, unspoiled by meaning, and unallied with definite form, can speak to the soul in a thousand different ways. The imagination imitates. It is the critical spirit that creates. There is no such thing as an omen. Destiny does not send us heralds. She is too wise or too cruel for that. Children have a natural antipathy to books--handicraft should be the basis of education. Boys and girls should be taught to use their hands to make something, and they would be less apt to destroy and be mischievous. Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught. A man's face is his autobiography. A woman's face is her work of fiction. The past is of no importance. The present is of no importance. It is with the future that we have to deal. For the past is what man should not have been. The present is what man ought not to be. The future is what artists are. There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about. There are only two kinds of people who are really fascinating--people who know absolutely everything, and people who know absolutely nothing. If you are not too long, I will wait here for you all my life. The liar at any rate recognizes that recreation, not instruction, is the aim of conversation, and is a far more civilised being than the blockhead who loudly expresses his disbelief in a story which is told simply for the amusement of the company. Men marry because they are tired; women because they are curious. Both are disappointed. When a woman marries again it is because she detested her first husband. When a man marries again, it is because he adored his first wife. Women try their luck; men risk theirs. Between men and women there is no friendship possible. There is passion, enmity, worship, love, but no friendship. Men always want to be a woman's first love. That is their clumsy vanity. We women have a more subtle instinct about things. What (women) like is to be a man's last romance. It is better to have a permanent income than to be fascinating. Lord Illingworth: All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. Mrs. Allonby: No man does. That is his. The basis of optimism is sheer terror. One's past is what one is. It is the only way by which people should be judged. When the gods wish to punish us they answer our prayers. He must have a truly romantic nature, for he weeps when there is nothing at all to weep about. How strange a thing this is! The Priest telleth me that the Soul is worth all the gold in the world, and the merchants say that it is not worth a clipped piece of silver. The truth is rarely pure and never simple. Moderation is a fatal thing... Nothing succeeds like excess. Ambition is the last refuge of the failure. To regret one's own experiences is to arrest one's own development. To deny one's own experiences is to put a lie into the lips of one's life. It is no less than a denial of the soul. I choose my friends for their good looks, my acquaintances for their good characters, and my enemies for their intellects. A man cannot be too careful in the choice of his enemies. It is through Art, and through Art only, that we can realise our perfection. Most people die of a sort of creeping common sense, and discover when it is too late that the only things one never regrets are one's mistakes. I put all my genius into my life; I put only my talent into my works. It is absurd to divide people into good and bad. People are either charming or tedious. He was always late on principle, his principle being that punctuality is the thief of time.
Words and expressions from the texts:
celebrity
prominent
conversationalist
to assume smb’s characteristics
influential
to strive (strove, striven)
to distinguish oneself
superstitious
slothful
to matriculate
to embark on a lecture tour
tame life
disciple
cocky
to persecute
to sue smb for libel
to consort
stripped of all arrogance and beauty
Questions and topics for discussion:
What was Oscar Wilde famous for? What did he write? What were the most distinguished and noticeable features of his writing?
Describe Oscar Wilde’s childhood. What can you say about his family? How did his environment influence O. Wilde’s personality?
Oscar Wilde’s education.
Oscar Wilde’s private life.
Take two quotations from O. Wilde’s works (see above) and comment on them. How do you understand them?