Oscar Wilde (Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde) was an Irish playwright and poet. His earlier writing in the 1880s contains different forms. In the early 1890s, he became one of the most prevalent playwrights in London. Oscar Wilde is best known for his plays, his novel The Picture of Dorian Gray, imprisonment, his criminal opinions for uncivilized offensiveness, and his death at the age of 46.
Wilde was a spokesman for aestheticism. He worked at various literary activities. He turned out to be one of the best-known personalities of his time because of his biting wit, impressive conversational skills, and showy dressing. In the late 1890s, he advanced his ideas about the authority of art in essays and dialogues. He also employed the themes of depravity, beauty, and duplicity. These themes are found in his only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray.
Wilde started writing drama with an opportunity to construct artistic specifics precisely. He combines these artistic specifics with the larger social themes. In 1891, he wrote Salome in French. The play was not published in England because the English stage prohibited portraying Biblical subjects. In the early 1890s, Wilde also published four comedies of society. These comedies made him one of the effective playwrights of late-Victorian England.
In 1895, Oscar Wilde wrote The Importance of Being Earnest. This play attained the height of fame and success and was widely performed on stage for a long period of time. During that time, Oscar Wilde charged the lover of his father, Marquess of Queensberry, for criminal defamation. The defamation trial made Oscar Wilde drop his charges against Marquess and caused his own arrest for indecency with men. The charge against Wilde was proved, and he was put into hard labor for two years (1895-1897).
In the last year in his prison, Wilde wrote De Profundis. It is a long letter that discusses his spiritual journey. To his early philosophy, he formed a dark counterpart to his early philosophy. After release, he went to France. In 1898, he wrote his last work, The Ballad of Reading Gaol.
A Short Biography of Oscar Wilde
Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde was born on 16th October 1854. Wilde’s father, William Wilde, was an admired doctor and was awarded for his work for Irish Censuses as a medical advisor. Later Wilde founded his own hospital, St. Mark’s Ophthalmic Hospital, to treat the poor people of the city. The mother of Oscar Wilde, Jane Francesca Elgee, was a poet. She was also closely associated with the 1848’s Young Irelanders Rebellion. The linguist skills of Wilde’s mother had greatly influenced his writing.
Wilde attended Portora Royal School at Enniskillen. There, he started taking a deep interest in Roman and Greek studies. He graduated in 1871 and was awarded the scholarship to attend Trinity College in Dublin. In 1872, he was placed first in the classics examination at school and received the Foundation Scholarship from schools.
He graduated from Trinity College in 1874 and received the Berkeley Gold Medal for the best student in Greek. He then attended Magdalen College in Oxford. He graduated from college in 1878.
After graduation, Oscar Wilde shifted to London to live with his friend Frank Mile. Frank Miles was a famous portraitist in London. Wilde, in London, continued writing poetry. In 1881, he published his first collection Poems. Though the collection did not receive much admiration, it established Wilde to be the next up-coming writer. In 1882, Wilde traveled to New York on the board for an American lecture tour. In the period of one month, he delivered an astonishing 140 lectures.
He also met some leading American literary figures and scholars, including Walt Whitman, Oliver Wendell Holmes, and Henry Longfellow.
When his tour ended, he started another lecture circuit of Ireland and England, which lasted till the mid of 1884. Through his early poetry and lectures, Wilde made a reputation as the foremost advocate of the aesthetic movement. He supported the theory of art and literature that is concerned with the search for beauty for the sake of beauty rather than to endorse any social and political stance.
Wilde married Constance Lloyd on 29th March 1884. Constance Lloyd was a wealthy Englishwoman. In 1885, their first son was born named Cyril, where the second son Vyvyan was born the following year. In 1885, Wilde was appointed as an editor in the popular magazine Lady’s World. During his tenure at the magazine, Oscar Wilde invigorated that magazine and extended its coverage not to not only to deal with what women of his time wear but also what they feel. He tried to make it a platform to express the opinion of women on different subject art, literature, and modern life.
Wilde’s seven-years of creativity began in 1888. During that time, Wilde wrote the majority of his most famous literary works. In 1888, Wilde published The Happy Prince and Other Tales, seven years after the publication of Poems. The collection The Happy Prince and Other Tale contains the stories of children. He published an essay collection in 1891 titled as Intentions. In this collection, Oscar Wilde argues about the principles of aestheticism. In the same year, he also published his only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray.
Indeed, in today’s time, the novel is regarded as one of the greatest works of classics. However, at the time of its publication, the apparent lack of morality in the novel made the critics outrageous.
In 1892, Wilde published his first play Lady Windermere’s Fan. The play received critical acclaim and widespread popularity. Encouraged by the success of his first play, Oscar Wilde adopted playwriting as his main literary form. Over the course of a few years, Oscar Wilde published his great plays that were highly satirical, witty, and contained comedies of manner and dark and serious undertones. The most notable plays he wrote during this time were An Ideal Husband, A Woman of No Importance, and The Importance of Being Earnest.
At the time when his literary career was at its peak, Oscar Wilde charged the lover of his father Marquess of Queensberry for criminal defamation. Quesenberry was upset with his daughter’s affair with Oscar Wilde, and sent him a letter titled “Oscar Wilde: Posing Somdomite.” Somdomitte is a misspelling of the sodomite. The defamation trial made Oscar Wilde drop his charges against Marquess and caused his own arrest for indecency with men. The charge against Wilde was proved, and he was put into hard labor for two years (1895-1897).
In 1897, Wilde was released from prison. Emotionally exhausted and physically depleted, he went to France and never returned to England and Ireland. In France, he lived in the apartments of friends and in cheap hotels. He also reunited with his wife for a short time. During these years, Wilde did not write much. The only notable work he wrote was “The Ballad of Reading Gaol.” It was published in 1898 and dealt with Wilde’s experiences in prison.
Oscar Wilde died on 30th November 1900 due to meningitis at the age of 46. Oscar Wilde stayed committed to his aesthetic principles. He expounded these principles through his literary works and lectures.
Oscar Wilde’s Writing style
In his writings, Oscar Wild had oft time talked about his opinion that in art, substance, and sincerity are overshadowed by style. For example, in his only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, he paid more attention to nuances of words and form than anything else. Along with being the essay on decorative art, the novel was a piece of ornamented art that is composed of the cautiously selected phrases.
Oscar Wilde was so determined in writing a perfect that when someone asked him to write a story of a hundred thousand words – beautiful words, he complained that in the English language, they do not have one hundred thousand beautiful words.
Mixture of Realism and Fantasy
Oscar Wild incorporated the features of both realism and fantasy in his works with phenomenal ability. He merged the two opposing genres through realistic dialect and thoughtful imagery into an interestingly melancholic tale.
Imagery in Wilde’s Works
Wilde also outshined other writers in the use of imagery. He illustrates different situations and people by employing different types of literary devices. His most favorite and frequently employed imagery is the morbid one. On the art of morbidity, he has an astonishing command and mastery. By the use of morbid imagery, he describes unusual images of blood, murder, and corpse that would compete with any other imagery in the modern cinema. For example, in the novel The Picture of Dorian Gray, he gives wonderful morbid imagery as:
“He rushed at him and dug the knife into the great vein that is behind the ear, crushing the man’s head down on the table and stabbing again and again. There was a stifled groan and the horrible sound on some one choking with blood. Three times the outstretched arms shot up convulsively, waving grotesque stiff-fingered hands in the air. He stabbed him twice more, but the man did not move. Something began to trickle on the floor. He waited for a moment, still pressing the head down. He could hear nothing, but the drip, drip on the threadbare carpet.”
The above passage is in a haunting illustration of a horrible murder, and even draws a horrifying picture of the most unimaginative mind.
The views of the reader vary in the atmosphere and style of Oscar Wilde. The early reviewers found the style and atmosphere of Oscar while deeply distasteful. According to Richard Ellman, the favorite poem of Oscar Wilde, “Charmides,” is sexually suggested, and the same thing can also be related to his novel The Picture of Dorian Gray.
Dialogues and Ideas
Another writing style prevalent in Wilde’s works is the prominence of dialogue and ideas than actions. Oscar Wilde draws his plot in a way that his characters are sitting in a room and engage in casual talk about various things. He does not show his characters in action. Moreover, in his plays, there is a clash between ideas than a clash between characters that lead to violent actions. Primarily through language in his writing, Oscar Wilde appears to be motivated to arouse the musical and visual arts.
Paradox
The writing style of Oscar Wilde is characterized by the use of paradox, both dialogic and descriptive. He employed a self-contradictory statement to express the truth. The employing paradox in his works is his favorite stylistic device. For example, in the novel The Picture of Dorian Gray, the characters such as Dorian, Basil, and Lord Henry constantly exchange paradoxes. Even Lord Henry was called “Prince Paradox.”
Similarly, his play The Importance of Being Earnest is also full of puns and paradoxes. In the play, Wilde employed paradoxes to make commentaries on society. For example, at the start of the play Jack, the protagonist of the play, is ready to propose Gwendolen. However, Algernon, the cousin of Gwendolen, has some doubts. Jack introduces him to Gwendolen’s family as being “Ernest,” meaning sincere and honest. The paradox lies in what Jack claims himself to be and what his actions are.
The contemporary critics immediately identified the technique of paradox in his writing and tried to depreciate it. They argued that Wilde’s paradox was based on “the convertibility of terms” with no meaning intended. However, his style was soon admired by lots of critics.
In the Free Review, Ernest Newman appreciated the writing style of Wilde by saying that it is surprising to hear any paradox employed by Wilde independently without context, however, when they are studied it makes us recognize that they are based on reality or truth that is ignored.
Content of Wilde’s Works
The writing style of Oscar Wilde shows his mastery of showing evil and morbidity. Wilde has a remarkable hold on the reality of human nature. He also focuses on the darkness that is present in the soul of every individual. Oscar Wilde, unlike his contemporary writer, was more concerned with the dark sides of things. He acknowledges the human’s lust for immortality. He exemplifies these things in writing. For example, in his novel, the greed of Dorian for everlasting youth eventually causes his soul to deteriorate, which can be seen in his portrait.
Oscar Wilde had also acknowledged the evilness of human nature. Few writers of his time can portray these things in their works. Wilde has mastered his insight into evil and described it in his works with unbelievable ease.
Conclusion
To conclude, in the history of English literature and playwriting, in particular, only a few writers have skills like Oscar Wilde. Though morbidity has been mastered by Stephen King, he fails to get a hold on the rhetoric and eloquence that is a prominent feature of Wilde’s style. Similarly, Charles Dickens has the same eloquent style as that of Oscar Wilde. However, Oscar Wilde outshines him in imagery. The writing style of Oscar Wilde is a complete package, and no writer to date has been able to imitate his unique and slightly disturbing writing.