Oscar Wilde's Autobiography

Author: (English) Oscar Wilde
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-05-01
Features: A century after Wilde's comedies still have London audiences roaring with laughter, his witty sayings are still frequently quoted, bringing a smile of understanding without feeling outdated. For a hundred years, his biographies have led curious readers from Dublin to Oxford, from London to Paris, to revisit the real and illusory world of this Irish genius. — Yu Guangzhong
Wilde's De Profundis is a long letter written to his homosexual partner, Douglas. This letter was composed in the last few months of Wilde's imprisonment, and he was only allowed to use paper and pen before his sentence was about to expire, but only once a time and only a single sheet of blue prison paper the size of a double page. The letter is filled with the intertwined emotions of love and hatred for Douglas, as well as a concentration on the prison paper. It is also a profound expression of Wilde's artistic and life philosophies. For Wilde, prison was not the beginning of a new life, nor was it a place of repentance to seek social forgiveness. Prison was merely a witness to the poet being completely abandoned by life. The original rebel had now become an despairing figure struggling in the mire of sorrow. Completely isolated, Wilde longed to re-establish his connection with the world, and the only thing that could help him achieve this was sorrow. Sorrow brought him another leap in artistic realization, becoming a new extreme way for him to grasp life. Sorrow fulfilled his value as a "human being." He believed that the great meaning of life lay hidden in sorrow, and that people could find joy in sorrow. Thus, he sang the praises of "enjoying life in sorrow."
As a representative of aestheticism in late 19th-century Britain, Wilde's life had both the glory of being celebrated under the spotlight of his extraordinary talent and the tragedy of falling into an eternal spiritual hell due to his unrestrained and infamous behavior. In moments of happiness, he was a carefree bird freely eating the fruit of joy in the heavens and on earth. In moments of rebellion, he was a Satan diving into the depths of hell to seize a notorious name. In moments of sorrow, he was a saint weeping all day, heartbroken and grief-stricken. Wilde was such a contradictory unity. To dissect this complex contradiction is to gain profound insights into the personality of a genius and the "personality" of the era in which he lived.
Born into an illustrious family in Dublin, Wilde was the second son, with the full name Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde. His father, Sir William Wilde, was a surgeon, and his mother was a poet and writer. Wilde was an excellent student, earning a scholarship to Trinity College, Dublin, and in 1874, he entered Magdalen College, Oxford. At Oxford, Wilde was influenced by the aestheticism of Walter Pater and John Ruskin, and he encountered neo-Hegelian philosophy, Darwin's theory of evolution, and the works of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, which set the direction for his later career as a pioneer of aestheticism. Although young Wilde had not yet won a literary award, his eye-catching attire, witty remarks, and eccentric personality had already made him a small celebrity in society, with some magazines even publishing satirical articles about him. In 1882, Wilde gave a brilliant lecture tour in the United States. Two years later, he married Constance Lloyd, and their two sons, Cyril and Vyvyan, were born in 1885 and 1886, respectively. In 1887, Wilde became the executive editor of a women's magazine, where some of his novels, essays, and poems were published.
Wilde's works were renowned for their exquisite language, original ideas, and clear perspectives. His novel The Picture of Dorian Gray, published in 1891, and his essay The Soul of Man Under Socialism, also published in 1891, were both highly successful, but it was his plays that truly brought Wilde fame. It can be said that every one of his plays was warmly received, with a period when three of his works were simultaneously performed on London stages. The upper-class society of Queen Victoria's Britain was corrupt and decadent, with intense conflicts between old and new trends. Wilde's free-spirited and bold political stance quickly made him a victim of this conflict. In 1895, the Marquess of Queensberry, after his son, Lord Alfred "Bosie" Douglas, had dealings with Wilde, caused a rift between father and son and openly accused Wilde of being a "somdomite." In anger, Bosie demanded Wilde sue the Marquess for libel, but Wilde not only failed to win the lawsuit but was also charged with "committing acts of gross indecency." Under the harsh criminal law of the time, Wilde was convicted and served two years of hard labor in Reading and Beltonville prisons. During these two years, Wilde ceased playwriting and instead conceived of poems like The Ballad of Reading Gaol and a confessional work, De Profundis, in which the influence of aestheticism was hard to discern.
While Wilde was incarcerated, Constance and the two children changed their surname to Holland and moved to Italy, while most of his friends avoided him, with only a few, like the playwright George Bernard Shaw, standing up for him. Upon his release in 1897, Wilde immediately left Britain, utterly disappointed and with no desire to return. Later, he tried to reunite with Constance for the sake of the two children, but Bosie also expressed a desire to reconcile with Wilde. In the end, Wilde abandoned the two children and chose Bosie. During his time in France under a pseudonym, Wilde completed and published The Ballad of Reading Gaol, and then traveled with Bosie through Italy, but the two separated again after a few months. In 1900, Wilde finally converted to Catholicism with the help of his friend Robert "Robbie" Ross. He died on November 30, 1900, in Paris at the H?tel d’Alsace, at the age of 46, accompanied only by Robbie and another friend.
[Editor] Representative Works
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[Editor] Novels
The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891)
The Soul of Man Under Socialism (1891)
De Profundis (1897. Originally a long letter written to Douglas, published in 1905 after Wilde's death)
[Editor] Collections of Fairy Tales
The Happy Prince and Other Tales (1888)
A House of Pomegranates (1891)
[Editor] Poetry
Poems (1881)
Sphinx (1894)
The Ballad of Reading Gaol (1898) (Wilde's poetry is filled with exaggerated metaphors, ancient literary rhythms, and subtle descriptions of senses and desires, reflecting the characteristics of aestheticist poetry)
[Editor] Plays
Vera (1880)
Lady Windermere's Fan (1892)
The Duchess of Padua (1893)
Salomé (1893. Written in French)
A Woman of No Importance (1892) (Premiered at the Theatre Royal Haymarket in 1893)
The Importance of Being Earnest (1895)
An Ideal Husband (1895)
[Editor] The Dissemination of Wilde's Works in China
Architect Wang Daliang translated The Picture of Dorian Gray into Du Liankui, with the setting changed to Taipei at the time.