Introduction
Oscar Wilde lived a short life: it was shortened, blighted and humiliated - social hypocrisy, the letter of the law and the arrogance of decadent behavior of the poet.
Oscar Fingal (according to some sources - Fringal) O'Flaherty Wills Wilde was born on October 6, 1854 in the family of Sir William Wilde, Dublin ophthalmologist with the world-famous author of dozens of books on medicine, history and geography. "The dirtiest man in all of Ireland" this was saying about him. However, in England, he was appointed court surgeon, and later made a lord. In Stockholm, he was given the Order of the Polar Star. In Germany, medical researchers and still revere his genius. Oscar's mother was Lady Jane Francesca Wilde - dame, in tastes and manners which was a touch of theatricality immoderate. She liked symbolic gestures. His poems she signed Speranza - Hope, stressing that his love for Ireland, its sympathy liberation movement, as well as their special mission. Her sympathy was sincere, but not without an external, ostentatious gesture. In her literary salon and spent his early youth, the future writer. From such eccentric parents Oscar rare inherited the ability to work and curiosity, dreamy and somewhat exalted mind, underline the interest in the mysterious and fantastic, a tendency to invent and tell extraordinary stories.
Oscar Wilde as a writer
There are two distinctly different periods in the Wilde’s work. Most of the works of different genres has been written in the first period (1881 - 1895): a poem, aesthetic treatises, fairy tales, his only novel "The Picture of Dorian Gray," the drama "Salome" and comedy. The second period (1895 - 1898) belongs only to works in which fully reflected the spiritual crisis suffered by the writer in the last years of his life ("De Profundis", "The Ballad of Reading Gaol").
Wilde's poetic heritage is not too extensive. It is represented by two books of poems: "Poems" (1888) and "Poems are not included in the collections, 1887-1893", as well as several lyrical and epic poems, the best known of which is acquired written shortly after his release from prison, "The Ballad of Reading Gaol" (1898). In the poetry of Oscar Wilde hard, many times tinkering written, sought elegance of each poem, giving preference to the most far-reaching, difficult and long-forgotten verse and Renaissance poetic genre - Canzone, Villanelle et al., Which was undoubtedly a sign of the influence of the Pre-Raphaelites. The main content of his poems Wilde made love, peace intimate passions and experiences. Also one of the genres in which Wilde poet reached the highest expression became "instant" Sketches of rural and more urban landscape - the so-called "impressions" (for example, the poem "Symphony in Yellow", which bears a distinct impressionistic in nature and built on the game color and sound combinations; "Les Silhouettes" and others.
Most of the first collection of poems Wilde handled esthetic comparisons and images. Reading critical literature about the works of Oscar Wilde, everywhere come across the same phrase: " a poem devoid of genuine poetic feeling So replaces images of wildlife stylized paintings" sapphire sea and burning, like a hot opal sky " monotonous flashing gold, marble, ivory and other valuables quickly causing boredom, although all this would be enough to jewelers all over the world, and so on. "
Indeed, for Wilde's "creation of nature becomes more beautiful if it reminds us of the work of art, but a work of art does not win in the beauty of what it reminds us of the creation of nature." Nevertheless, the author allows himself to doubt such a critical evaluation. None of the critics no direct reference to the fact that Oscar Wilde was the first and almost the only one of the decadent, so skillfully uses this kind of metaphor.
Already in the first collection of early poems Wilde appeared decadence peculiar mood of extreme pessimism. A striking example is the poem "Ex tenebris" ("Out of the darkness"), imbued with a sense of despair and loneliness. In the poem "Vita nuova" ("New Life") Wilde talks about life, "full of bitterness." In the poem "The Vision", he confesses that of the ancient tragedians his closest Euripides - a man who "got tired of never-ending moan of man." The same intonation pain, suppressed bitterness and self-denial is impossible not to hear and in the sonnet "Repentance", dedicated to the project many years and has become fatal for the writer Oscar Wilde attachment to Alfred Douglas.
Wilde’s pose and esthetic extremes are sure to catch the eye, but clear and uncompromising protest based on a rigid position of the artist, taking into account the history of art, the conditions for its development and the actual state. Oscar Wilde's position is clear: it is against the landing, "imitation truth" philistine words and empty rhetoric. In short, against all that, claiming a place in art, art is not. This feature positions and views Wilde found expression in his tales and novels.
Fairy tales are the most popular of all, written by Oscar Wilde, and the best of them, as well as his stories, certainly beyond the literature of decadence, which, in turn, serves as a testament to how close the writer was within the boundaries of decadent aesthetics.
Released in May 1897 from prison, Wilde immediately went to France. He never saw his sons - Cyril and Vivian - and wife. He is living out its last few months in poverty and loneliness dirty rooming house on the outskirts of Paris. Oscar Wilde died on November 30, 1900 at the forty-fifth year of life.
Conclusion
During his stay in prison Alfred Douglas Wilde wrote: "When you're not on a pedestal you are not interesting." I do not think that today, at least one sane person would agree with that. Wilde was one of those bourgeois writers, whose work reflected the contradictory many features of the collapse of bourgeois ideology. That is why a satirical writer's talent has not received its full development opportunities. However, despite all the contradictions in the work of Wilde, his, and only his irony, the ability to capture all facets of life in the label, sharpened paradoxes, brilliant dialogue and ownership of classic simplicity phrases secured him a place among the prominent British writers of all time.
Well, everything flows, everything changes in this life. Only art forever. Oscar Wilde made a worthy contribution to its development. "This artist" and undeniable talent, he fully expressed itself in his works - with the advantages and disadvantages, woven in a single coil
Works Cited
Ellmann, Richard (1988). Oscar Wilde. New York: Vintage Books. ISBN 978-0-394-75984-5.
Hyde, H. M. (1964). Oscar Wilde: The Aftermath. New York: Farrar Straus ltd.
Beckson, Karl E. (1998). The Oscar Wilde Encyclopedia. AMS Studies in the Nineteenth Century, no. 18. New York: AMS Press. ISBN 978-0-404-61498-0. Detailed reference work on Wilde, the majority of entries discuss his works; his biography, times, and contemporary literary movements are also covered.