Short biography: Oscar Wilde is a man of paradox. Oscar Wilde short biography The image of the writer in popular art

The ideas of decadence and its moods were also expressed in his life - in her style and appearance. This is one of the most paradoxical minds in human history. All his life he opposed the whole official world, opposed public opinion and gave him a slap in the face. Everything trivial irritated him, everything ugly repulsed him. From a young age, Oscar saw the only refuge from vulgarity, boredom and monotony in Art (he wrote this word with capital letter). Art never seemed to him a means of struggle, but it seemed "the true abode of Beauty, where there is always a lot of joy and a little oblivion, where at least for a brief moment you can forget all the strife and horrors of the world."

Oscar Wilde was born on October 16, 1854 in the capital of Ireland - Dublin, the city that gave the world a whole constellation of outstanding writers (among them - J. Swift, R. B. Sheridan, O. Goldsmith, J. B. Shaw, J. Joyce, W B. Yeats, B. Stoker). Some Russian-language sources (for example, K. Chukovsky in his article "Oscar Wilde") claim that Oscar was born in 1856. This is false and has long been refuted. This was due to the fact that Wilde, who was in love with youth, often reduced himself to two years in conversations (and in his marriage certificate, for example, he directly indicated exactly 1856 as the date of his birth). A letter from his mother dated November 22, 1854 is known, in which she says this:

... at this very moment I am rocking the cradle in which my second son lies - a baby who turned one month old on the 16th and who is already so big, glorious and healthy, as if he were three months old. We'll call him Oscar Fingal Wilde. Isn't there something majestic, vague and Ossian in this? (translated by L. Motylev)

Wilde's father was one of the most eminent doctors not only in Ireland, but in the whole of Great Britain - ophthalmologist and otolaryngologist Sir William Robert Wilde. A man of exceptional erudition, William Wilde also studied archeology and Irish folklore. Oscar's mother - Lady Jane Francesca Wilde (née Algie) - famous Irish society lady, a very extravagant woman who adored theatrical effects, a poetess who wrote incendiary poems under the pseudonym Speranza (Italian Speranza - hope) and convinced that she was born for greatness. From his father, Oscar inherited a rare ability to work and curiosity, from his mother - a dreamy and somewhat exalted mind, an interest in the mysterious and fantastic, a tendency to invent and tell extraordinary stories. But not only these qualities he inherited from her. He was no less influenced by the atmosphere of Lady Wilde's literary salon, in which the young years of the future writer passed. Passion for posture, emphasized aristocratism was brought up in him from childhood. Perfectly knowing the ancient languages, she revealed to him the beauty of the "divine Hellenic speech." Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides became his companions from childhood ...

1864-1871 - study at the Royal School of Portora (Enniskillen, near Dublin). He was not a child prodigy, but his most brilliant talent was speed reading. Oscar was very lively and talkative, and even then he was famous for his ability to humorously twist school events. At school, Wilde even received a special prize for his knowledge of the Greek original of the New Testament. After graduating from Portora with a gold medal, Wilde was awarded a Royal School Scholarship to study at Trinity College Dublin (College of the Holy Trinity).

At Trinity College (1871-1874) Wilde studied ancient history and culture, where he again showed his ability in ancient languages ​​with brilliance. Here, for the first time, he listened to a course of lectures on aesthetics, and thanks to close communication with the curator, professor of ancient history J.P. Mahaffy, a refined and highly educated person, he gradually began to acquire extremely important elements their future aesthetic behavior (some contempt for generally accepted morality, dandyism in clothes, sympathy for the Pre-Raphaelites, slight self-irony, Hellenistic addictions).

In 1874, Wilde, having won a scholarship to study at the Oxford Magdalen College in the classical department, entered the intellectual stronghold of England - Oxford. At Oxford, Wilde created himself. He developed a crystalline English accent: "My Irish accent was one of the many things I forgot at Oxford." He also acquired, as he wished, a reputation for effortlessly shining. It was here that his special philosophy of art took shape. His name already then began to be illuminated by various entertaining stories, sometimes caricatured. So, according to one of the stories, in order to teach Wilde a lesson, who was disliked by classmates and whom athletes could not stand, he was dragged up the slope of a high hill and only released at the top. He got to his feet, brushed off the dust, and said, "The view from this hill is truly charming." But this was exactly what the aesthetic Wilde needed, who later admitted: “It is not his deeds that are true in a person’s life, but the legends that surround him. Legends should never be destroyed. Through them we can vaguely see the true face of a person.

At Oxford, Wilde listened to the incomparable and fiery lectures of the art theorist John Ruskin and the latter's student, Walter Pater. Both rulers of thoughts praised beauty, but Ruskin saw it only in synthesis with goodness, while Peiter allowed some admixture of evil in beauty. Under the spell of Ruskin, Wilde was throughout the period at Oxford. Later he would write to him in a letter: “There is something of a prophet, of a priest, of a poet in you; besides, the gods endowed you with such eloquence as they did not endow anyone else, and your words, filled with fiery passion and wonderful music, made the deaf among us hear and the blind see the light.

While still studying at Oxford, Wilde visited Italy and Greece and was captivated by these countries, their cultural heritage and beauty. These travels have the most spiritual influence on him. At Oxford, he also receives the prestigious Newdigate Prize for Ravenna, an 18th-century cash prize approved by Sir Roger Newdigate for students at Oxford University who win the annual competition of poems that do not allow dramatic form and are limited to no more than 300 lines ( John Ruskin also received this award at one time).

Upon graduation (1878), Oscar Wilde moved to London. In the center of the capital, he settled in a rented apartment, and Lady Jane Francesca Wilde, already better known by that time as Speranza, settled in the neighborhood. Thanks to his talent, wit and ability to attract attention, Wilde quickly joined the social life London. Wilde began to “treat” salon visitors: “Come be sure, this Irish wit will be here today.” He makes the "most necessary" revolution for English society - a revolution in fashion. From now on, he appeared in society in personally invented mind-blowing outfits. Today it was short culottes and silk stockings, tomorrow - a vest embroidered with flowers, the day after tomorrow - lemon gloves combined with a lush lace frill. An indispensable accessory was a carnation in a buttonhole, painted in green color. There was no clownery in this: Wilde's impeccable taste allowed him to combine the incongruous. A carnation and a sunflower, along with a lily, were considered the most perfect flowers among the Pre-Raphaelites.

His first poetry collection "Poems" (Poems; 1881) is written in the spirit of the Pre-Raphaelite Brothers, and was published shortly before Wilde went to lecture in the USA. His early poems are marked by the influence of impressionism, they express direct single impressions, they are incredibly picturesque. At the very beginning of 1882, Wilde got off the ship in the port of New York, where he threw to the reporters who flew into him in Wilde's way: "Gentlemen, the ocean disappointed me, it is not at all as majestic as I thought." Passing through customs procedures, when asked if he had anything to declare, he, according to one version, replied: "I have nothing to declare, except for my genius."

From now on, the entire press follows the actions of the English esthete in America. His first lecture, which was called "Renaissance English art”, he concluded with the words: “We all waste our days in search of the meaning of life. Know that this meaning is in Art. And the audience applauded enthusiastically. At his lecture in Boston, a group of local dandies (60 students from Harvard University) in short breeches with open calves and tuxedos with sunflowers in their hands appeared in the hall just before Wilde left - quite in Wilde's way. Their purpose was to discourage the lecturer. Entering the stage, Wilde unpretentiously began a lecture and, as if casually looking around at the fantastic figures, exclaimed with a smile: “For the first time I ask the Almighty to save me from followers!” One young man wrote to his mother at this time, under the impression of Wilde's visit to the college where he studied: “He has excellent diction, and his ability to explain his thoughts is worthy of the highest praise. The phrases that he utters are harmonious and now and then flash with gems of beauty. ... His conversation is very pleasant - easy, beautiful, entertaining. It becomes clear that Wilde conquered all people with his charm and charm. In Chicago, when asked how he liked San Francisco, he replied: "It's Italy, but without its art." The whole American tour was a model of courage and grace, as well as inappropriateness and self-promotion. Wilde jokingly boasted to his old acquaintance: “I have already civilized America - only heaven remains!”

After spending a year in America, Wilde returned to London in excellent spirits. And immediately went to Paris. There he meets the brightest silhouettes of world literature (Paul Verlaine, Emile Zola, Victor Hugo, Stéphane Mallarmé, Anatole France, etc.) and wins their sympathy without much difficulty. Returns to his homeland. Meets Constance Lloyd, falls in love. At 29, he becomes a family man. They have two sons (Cyril and Vivian), for whom Wilde composes fairy tales. A little later, he wrote them down on paper and published 2 collections of fairy tales - (The Happy Prince and Other Stories; 1888) and "Pomegranate House" (The House of Pomegranates; 1891).

Everyone in London knew Wilde. He was the most desired guest in any salon. But at the same time, a flurry of criticism falls upon him, which he easily - quite in a Wilde way - discards from himself. They draw cartoons on him and wait for a reaction. And Wilde is immersed in creativity. At that time, he earned a living by journalism (for example, he worked in the magazine " Women's World"). Wilde's journalism was praised by Bernard Shaw.

In 1887 he published stories "The Canterville Ghost", "Lord Arthur Savile's Crime", "Sphinx without a riddle", "Millionaire Sitter", "Portrait of Mr. W. H." who made up the first collection of his stories. However, Wilde did not like to write down everything that came to his mind, many of the stories with which he charmed his listeners remained unwritten.

In 1890, the only novel published that finally brings Wilde a stunning success is "The Picture of Dorian Grey" (The Picture of Dorian Gray). It was published in Lippincotts Mansley Magazine. But "all-righteous" bourgeois criticism accused his novel of immorality. In response to 216 (!) printed responses to The Picture of Dorian Gray, Wilde wrote more than 10 open letters to the editors of British newspapers and magazines, explaining that art does not depend on morality. Moreover, he wrote, those who did not notice the morality in the novel are complete hypocrites, since the only morality is that it is impossible to kill one's conscience with impunity. In 1891, the novel with significant additions was published as a separate book, and Wilde supplemented his masterpiece with a special preface, which from now on becomes a manifesto for aestheticism - the direction and the religion that Wilde created.

1891-1895 - Wilde's years of dizzying glory. In 1891, a collection of theoretical articles was published "Designs" (Intensions), where Wilde expounds to readers his creed - his aesthetic doctrine. The pathos of the book is in the glorification of Art - the greatest shrine, the supreme deity, whose fanatical priest was Wilde. In the same 1891 he wrote a treatise "The soul of man under socialism" (The Soul of Man under Socialism), which rejects marriage, the family, and private property. Wilde states that "man is made for a better purpose than digging in the mud." He dreams of the time when “there will be no more people living in stinking dens, dressed in stinking rags… When hundreds of thousands of unemployed, brought to the most outrageous poverty, will not trample the streets… when every member of society will be a participant in the general contentment and well-being "...

Separately, there is a one-act drama written in French at that time on a biblical story - "Salome" (Salome; 1891). According to Wilde, it was specially written for Sarah Bernhardt, "that serpent of the ancient Nile". However, in London it was banned from staging by censorship: in the UK it was forbidden theatrical performances to biblical stories. The play was first staged in Paris in 1896. Salome is based on the episode of the death of the biblical prophet John the Baptist (in the play he appears under the name Jokanaan), which is reflected in the New Testament (Matt 14:1-12, etc.), however the version proposed in the play by Wilde is by no means canonical.

In 1892, the first comedy of the “brilliant Oscar” was written and staged - "Lady Windermere's Fan" (Lady Windermere's Fan), the success of which made Wilde the most popular man in London. Wilde's next aesthetic act associated with the premiere of the comedy is known. Upon entering the stage at the end of the performance, Oscar dragged on a cigarette, after which he began: “Ladies and gentlemen! It's probably not very polite of me to smoke in front of you, but... it's just as impolite to bother me when I'm smoking." In 1893, his next comedy comes out - "Woman, no noteworthy» (The Woman of No Importance), in which the name itself is built on a paradox - before that, Oscar Wilde felt this reception as a native.

1895 becomes a shock in creative terms. Wilde wrote and staged two brilliant plays - "Ideal husband" (An Ideal Husband) and "The importance of Being Earnest" (The Importance of Being Earnest). In comedies, Wilde's art as a witty interlocutor was manifested in all its splendor: his dialogues are magnificent. Newspapers called him "the best of modern playwrights", noting the mind, originality, perfection of style. The sharpness of thoughts, the refinement of paradoxes are so admirable that the reader is drugged by them throughout the entire duration of the play. He knows how to subordinate everything to the game, often the game of the mind captivates Wilde so much that it becomes an end in itself, then the impression of significance and brightness is created truly from scratch. And each of them has its own Oscar Wilde, throwing portions of brilliant paradoxes.

Back in 1891, Wilde met Alfred Douglas, who was 17 years younger than Wilde. Oscar, in love with everything beautiful, fell in love with him, and therefore he stopped seeing his wife and children often. But spoiled Alfred (Bosi, as he was playfully called) had little idea who Wilde was. Their relationship was bound by money and the whims of Douglas, which Wilde dutifully complied with. Wilde kept Douglas in the full sense of the word. Oscar allowed himself to be robbed, separated from his family, deprived of the opportunity to create. Their relationship, of course, could not see London. Douglas, on the other hand, had a terrible relationship with his father, the Marquis of Queensberry, an extremely eccentric and narrow-minded, uncouth boor who had lost the favor of society for him. Father and son constantly quarreled, wrote insulting letters to each other. Queensberry firmly believed that Wilde had a significant influence on Alfred, and began to crave the destruction of the reputation of a London dandy and man of letters, in order to restore his long-shaken reputation. Back in 1885, an amendment was adopted to British criminal law prohibiting "indecent relations between adult men", even if by mutual agreement. Queensberry took advantage of this and sued Wilde, gathering witnesses who were ready to convict the writer of having affairs with boys. Friends urgently advised Wilde to leave the country, because in this case, it was clear that he was already doomed. But Wilde decides to stand to the end. There were no empty seats in the courtroom, people flocked to listen to the trial of a talented aesthete. Wilde carried himself heroically, defending the purity of his relationship with Douglas and denying its sexual nature. With his answers to some questions, he caused outbursts of laughter from the public, but he himself began to understand that after a short triumph, he might fall too low.

For example, the accuser asked Wilde the question: “Could not the artist’s affection and love for Dorian Gray lead an ordinary person to think that the artist is attracted to him by a certain kind?” And Wilde replied: "The thoughts of ordinary people are unknown to me." “Has it ever happened that you yourself madly admired a young man?” continued the accuser. Wilde replied: “Crazy - never. I prefer love - it's a higher feeling." Or, for example, trying to prove allusions to "unnatural" sin in his works, the accuser read out a passage from one of Wilde's stories and asked: "I suppose you also wrote this?" Wilde deliberately waited for deathly silence and in the quietest voice answered: “No, no, Mr. Carson. These lines belong to Shakespeare. Carson blushed. He extracted another piece of poetry from his papers. "Is that probably Shakespeare too, Mr. Wilde?" “There is little left of him in your reading, Mr. Carson,” said Oscar. The audience laughed, and the judge threatened that he would order the hall to be cleared.

At one of the court hearings, Wilde delivered a speech that delighted the audience listening to the trial. When the accuser asked for an explanation of what the phrase "love that hides its name" expressed by Alfred Douglas in his sonnet would mean, Wilde said the following with fiery force:

“Love that hides its name” is in our century the same majestic affection of an older man for a younger one, which Jonathan felt for David, which Plato laid down as the basis of his philosophy, which we find in the sonnets of Michelangelo and Shakespeare. It is still the same deep spiritual passion, distinguished by purity and perfection. Great works like the sonnets of Shakespeare and Michelangelo, as well as my two letters that were read to you, were dictated and filled with it. In our century, this love is misunderstood, so misunderstood that it is now indeed compelled to hide its name. It was she, this love, that brought me to where I am now. She is bright, she is beautiful, with her nobility she surpasses all other forms of human affection. There is nothing unnatural in it. She is intellectual, and time after time she flashes between the older and younger men, of whom the older has a developed mind, and the younger is overwhelmed with joy, anticipation and magic of the life ahead. It should be so, but the world does not understand it. The world mocks this attachment and sometimes puts a person in the pillory for it. ( per. L. Motylyova)

However, in 1895, on charges of sodomy, Wilde was sentenced to two years in prison and community service.

Prison completely broke him. Most of his former friends turned their backs on him. But the few who remained literally helped him stay alive. Alfred Douglas, whom he loved so passionately and to whom he wrote sultry Love letters while still at large, he never came to him and never wrote to him. In prison, Wilde learns that his mother, whom he loved more than anything in the world, has died, his wife has emigrated and changed her surname, as well as the surname of her sons (from now on they were not Wildes, but Hollands). In prison, Wilde writes a bitter confession in the form of a letter to Douglas, which he calls "Epistola: In Carcere et Vinculis" (Latin: "Message: in prison and chains"), and later his closest friend Robert Ross renamed it to "De Profundis"(lat. “From the depths”; this is how Psalm 129 begins in the Synodal translation of the Bible). In it we see a completely different charming Wilde of Dorian times. In it, he is a man tormented by pain, blaming himself for everything and realizing that "the worst thing is not that life breaks the heart ... but that it turns the heart to stone" For the first time, the confession "De Profundis" (1897) was published posthumously in 1905. This confession is a bitter report to myself and an understanding that, probably, creative inspiration will now forever remain within the prison walls: “I want to reach the state when I can say in complete simplicity and without any affectation that there were two great turning points in my life: when my father sent me to Oxford, and when society imprisoned me."

Relying on financial support from close friends, Mr. Wilde, released in May, moved to France and changed his name to Sebastian Melmoth. The surname Melmoth was borrowed from the gothic novel of the famous English writer XVIII in. Charles Maturin, Wilde's great-uncle, "Melmoth the Wanderer". In France, Wilde wrote the famous poem "The Ballad of Reading Gaol" (The Ballad of Reading Gaol; 1898), signed by him with the pseudonym C.3.3. - that was Oscar's prison number. And this was the highest and last poetic rise of Wilde.

Oscar Wilde died in exile in France on November 30, 1900 from acute meningitis, caused by an ear infection. Shortly before his death, he said this about himself: “I will not survive 19th century. The English will not tolerate my continued presence." He was buried in Paris at the Bagno cemetery. About 10 years later, he was reburied in the Père Lachaise cemetery, and a winged sphinx made of stone by Jacob Epstein was installed on the grave.

In June 1923, at a session of automatic writing in the presence of colleagues, the mathematician Soule received a long and beautiful otherworldly message from Wilde. He asked me to convey that he did not die, but lives and will live in the hearts of those who are able to feel "the beauty of forms and sounds poured in nature."

At the end of 2007 the British newspaper The Telegraph recognized Oscar Wilde as the most witty man in Britain. He bypassed Shakespeare himself and W. Churchill.

The article partially uses materials from the Internet, R. Ellman's book "Oscar Wilde: A Biography" and a textbook on the history of foreign literature at the turn of the 19th-20th centuries. ed. N. Elizarova (without separate references to these sources)

Origins of Wilde's aesthetic theory

Of considerable importance was also played by the second iconic figure in English art history - the ruler of thoughts Walter Pater (Payter), whose views seemed to him especially close. Pater rejected the ethical basis of aesthetics, unlike Ruskin. Wilde resolutely sided with him: “We, representatives of the young school, have departed from the teachings of Ruskin ... because morality always lies at the basis of his aesthetic judgments ... In our eyes, the laws of Art do not coincide with the laws of morality.”

Thus, the origins of the special aesthetic theory of Oscar Wilde are in the work of the Pre-Raphaelites and in the judgments of the largest thinkers of England in the middle of the 19th century - John Ruskin and Walter Pater (Pater).

Creation

The period of mature and intense literary creativity of Wilde covers -. During these years, appeared: a collection of stories "The Crime of Lord Arthur Savile" (Lord Savile's crime, 1887), two volumes of fairy tales "The Happy Prince" and Other Tales "(The Happy prince and Other Tales, 1888) and" Pomegranate House "(A House of Pomegranates, ), a series of dialogues and articles outlining aesthetic views Wilde - "The Decay of the Art of Lying" (The Decay of Lying, 1889), "The Critic as an Artist" (The Critic as Artist,), etc. In 1890, Wilde's most famous work was published - the novel The Picture of Dorian Gray"( The Picture of Dorian Gray).

Since 1892, a cycle of Wilde's high-society comedies began to appear, written in the spirit of the dramaturgy of Ogier, Dumas son, Sardou, - Lady Windermere's Fan (Lady Windermere's Fan,), A Woman of No Importance (A woman of no importance,), “An ideal husband” (An ideal husband,), “The importance of being earnest” (The importance of being earnest,). These comedies, devoid of action and characterization of characters, but full of witty salon chatter, spectacular aphorisms, paradoxes, were a great success on stage. Newspapers called him "the best of modern playwrights", noting the mind, originality, perfection of style. The sharpness of thoughts, the refinement of paradoxes are so admirable that the reader is drugged by them throughout the play. And each of them has its own Oscar Wilde, throwing portions of brilliant paradoxes. In 1893, Wilde wrote in French the drama Salome (Salomé), which, however, was banned for staging in England for a long time.

In prison, he wrote his confession in the form of a letter to Lord Douglas "De profundis" (, publ.; full uncorrupted text first pub. in). And at the end of 1897, already in France, his last work was the Ballade of Reading Gaol, which he signed "C.3.3." (this was his prison number in Reading).

Wilde's main image is the dandy weaver, an apologist for immoral selfishness and idleness. He struggles with the traditional "slave morality" that constrains him in terms of crushed Nietzscheanism. The ultimate goal of Wilde's individualism is the fullness of the manifestation of the personality, seen where the personality violates established norms. Wilde's "higher natures" are endowed with subtle perversity. The magnificent apotheosis of a self-affirming personality, destroying all obstacles in the way of his criminal passion, is "Salome". Accordingly, the culminating point of Wilde's aestheticism is the "aesthetics of evil." However, militant aesthetic immoralism is for Wilde only a starting point; the development of an idea always leads in Wilde's works to the restoration of the rights of ethics.

Admiring Salome, Lord Henry, Dorian, Wilde is still forced to condemn them. Nietzsche's ideals are already shattered in The Duchess of Padua. In Wilde's comedies, immoralism is "removed" on a comical plane, and his immoral paradoxicalists turn out in practice to be guardians of the code of bourgeois morality. Almost all comedies are built on the expiation of a once committed anti-moral act. Following the path of "evil aesthetics", Dorian Gray comes to the ugly and base. The failure of an aesthetic attitude to life without ethical support is the theme of the fairy tales The Star Child and The Fisherman and his soul. The stories "The Canterville Ghost", "The Model Millionaire" and all Wilde's tales end with the apotheosis of love, self-sacrifice, compassion for the disadvantaged, helping the poor. The sermon of the beauty of suffering, Christianity (taken in the ethical-aesthetic aspect), which Wilde came to in prison (De profundis), was prepared in his previous work. Wilde was no stranger to flirting with socialism ["The soul of man under socialism" (The soul of man under socialism)], which, in Wilde's view, leads to an idle, aesthetic life, to the triumph of individualism.

In poems, fairy tales, Wilde's novel, a colorful description of the material world pushes aside the narrative (in prose), the lyrical expression of emotions (in poetry), giving, as it were, patterns from things, an ornamental still life. The main object of the description is not nature and man, but the interior, still life: furniture, precious stones, fabrics, etc. The desire for picturesque multicolor determines Wilde's attraction to oriental exoticism, as well as fabulousness. Wilde's style is characterized by an abundance of picturesque, sometimes multi-tiered comparisons, often detailed, extremely detailed. Wilde's sensationalism, unlike the impressionistic one, does not lead to the decomposition of objectivity in the stream of sensations; for all the brilliance of Wilde's style, it is characterized by clarity, isolation, faceted form, the certainty of an object that is not blurry, but retains the clarity of contours. Simplicity, logical accuracy and clarity of linguistic expression made Wilde's tales textbooks.

Wilde, with his pursuit of refined sensations, with his gourmet physiology, is alien to metaphysical aspirations. Wilde's fantasy, devoid of mystical coloring, is either a naked conditional assumption, or a fairy-tale game of fiction. A well-known distrust of the cognitive possibilities of the mind, skepticism, follows from Wilde's sensationalism. At the end of his life, leaning towards Christianity, Wilde took it only in the ethical and aesthetic, and not in the strictly religious sense. Wilde's thinking takes on the character of an aesthetic game, pouring out in the form of refined aphorisms, striking paradoxes, oxymorons. The main value is not the truth of thought, but the sharpness of its expression, the play on words, the excess of imagery, side meanings, which is characteristic of his aphorisms. If in other cases Wilde's paradoxes are intended to show the contradiction between the external and internal sides of the hypocritical high society environment depicted by him, then often their purpose is to show the antinomy of our reason, the conventionality and relativity of our concepts, the unreliability of our knowledge. Wilde had a great influence on the decadent literature of all countries, in particular on the Russian decadents of the 1890s.

Bibliography

Plays

• Faith, or the Nihilists (1880)
• Duchess of Padua (1883)
• Salome(1891, performed for the first time in 1896 in Paris)
• Lady Windermere's fan (1892)
• Woman not worthy of attention (1893)
• Ideal husband (1895)
• The importance of Being Earnest(c. 1895)
• The Holy Harlot, or the Jeweled Woman(fragments, published in 1908)
• Florentine tragedy(fragments, published in 1908)

Novels

• The Picture of Dorian Grey (1891)

Novels and stories

• The Canterville Ghost
• Lord Arthur Savile's Crime
• Portrait of Mr. W. H.
• Millionaire Sitter
• Sphinx without a riddle

Fairy tales

From the collection "The Happy Prince and Other Tales":

• Happy Prince
• nightingale and rose
• Selfish Giant
• Devoted Friend
• Wonderful rocket

From the collection "Pomegranate House", intended, according to Wilde, "neither for the British child, nor for the British public":

• young king
• Infanta's birthday
• The fisherman and his soul
• star boy

Poetry

• Poems(1881; collection of poems)

poems :

• Ravenna (1878)
• Garden of Eros(publ. 1881)
• Itis motif(publ. 1881)
• Charmides(publ. 1881)
• panthea(publ. 1881)
• humanitad(publ. 1881; lat. lit. "in humanity")
• Sphinx (1894)
• Ballad of Reading Gaol (1898)

Poems in prose (translated by F. Sologub)

• Fan(The Disciple)
• doing good(The Doer of Good)
• Teacher(The Master)
• wisdom teacher(The Teacher of Wisdom)
• Painter(The Artist)
• Hall of Judgment(The House of Judgment)

Essay

• The human soul under socialism(1891; first published in the Fortnightly Review)

Collection " Ideas » (1891):

• Decline of the art of lying(1889; first published in Knights Century)
• Brush, pen and poison(1889; first published in the Fortnightly Review)
• Critic as artist(1890; first published in Knights Century)
• The truth of the masks(1885; first published in Nintins Century under the title "Shakespeare and Stage Costume")

Letters

• De Profundis(lat. "From the depths", or "Prison Confession"; 1897) - a letter of confession addressed to his beloved friend Alfred Douglas, on which Wilde worked in recent months his time in Reading Gaol. In 1905, Oscar's friend and admirer Robert Ross published an abridged version of his confession in the Berlin magazine Die Neue Rundschau. According to Ross's will, its full text was published only in 1962.
• Oscar Wilde. Letters»- letters from different years, combined into one book, which contains 214 Wilde's letters (Translated from English by V. Voronin, L. Motylev, Yu. Rozantovskaya. - St. Petersburg: Azbuka-Klassika Publishing House, 2007. - 416 p. ).

Lectures and aesthetic miniatures

• Renaissance English art
• Testament to the younger generation
• Aesthetic manifesto
• Women's dress
• More on the radical ideas of costume reform
• At Mr. Whistler's lecture at ten o'clock
• The relation of costume to painting. Black and white study of Mr. Whistler's lecture
• Shakespeare on Stage Design
• American invasion
• New Dickens book
• American
• Dostoevsky's "Humiliated and Insulted"
• "Imaginary Portraits" by Mr. Pater
• Proximity of arts and crafts
• English poets
• London sitters
• Gospel of Walt Whitman
• Mr. Swinburne's last volume of poetry
• Chinese sage

Oscar Wilde (18541900) English playwright, poet, prose writer, essayist, critic. A flamboyant celebrity of the late Victorian period, a London dandy later convicted of "obscene" behavior. This is one of the most paradoxical minds in human history. He opposed the official world, slapped public opinion. Everything trivial irritated him, everything ugly repulsed him. "Apostle of Aestheticism" was his official title in English society; so called his newspapers and humorous leaflets. “Aesthete” was, as it were, his rank, his rank, his career, profession, his social position,” K. Chukovsky wrote about him.

His full name Oscar Fingal OFlaherty Wills Wilde. By origin Irish. Born October 16, 1854 in Dublin, in a very famous family. Father, Sir William Wilde, was a world-famous ophthalmologist, the author of many scientific papers; mother a secular lady who wrote poetry, who considered her receptions a literary salon.

In 1874, Wilde, having won a scholarship to study at the Oxford Magdalen College in the classical department, entered the intellectual stronghold of England Oxford. At Oxford, Wilde created himself. He acquired, as he wanted, the reputation of a man who shines without much effort. It was here that his special philosophy of art took shape.

After graduation, Oscar Wilde moved to London. Thanks to his talent, wit and ability to attract attention, Wilde quickly joined the high life. He made the "most necessary" revolution for English society - a revolution in fashion. From now on, he appeared in society in mind-blowing outfits of his own design: short culottes and silk stockings, lemon gloves combined with a lush lace jabot, and an indispensable accessory - a carnation in a buttonhole, painted green. The carnation and sunflower, along with the lily, were considered the most perfect flowers by the Pre-Raphaelites (from the Latin prefix prae to, before and the name of the Italian artist Raphael) a society in England in the middle of the 19th century, which preached a return to the primitive forms of the early Italian painting to Raphael.

Already Wilde's first poetry collection Poems (1881) demonstrated his commitment to the aesthetic direction of decadence, with its characteristic cult of individualism, pretentiousness, mysticism, pessimistic moods of loneliness and despair. By the same time, his first experience in dramaturgy "Faith, or the Nihilists" belongs. However, for the next ten years he did not engage in dramaturgy, turning to other genres - essays, fairy tales, literary and artistic manifestos.

During 1882 he lectured on literature in the United States and Canada. In the announcement of his speeches there was such a phrase: "I have nothing to present to you, except for my genius."

After America, Wilde visited Paris, where he met and without much difficulty won the sympathy the brightest representatives world literature Paul Verlaine, Emile Zola, Victor Hugo, Stéphane Mallarmé, Anatole France. At 29, he met Constance Lloyd, fell in love, became a family man. They had two sons (Cyril and Vivian), for whom Wilde composed fairy tales, later written down on paper The Happy Prince and Other Tales (1888) and The Pomegranate House (1891). The magical, truly bewitching world of these very beautiful and sad stories It is not really addressed to children, but to adult readers. From the point of view of theatrical art, Wilde's fairy tales crystallized the aesthetic style of a refined paradox, which distinguishes Wilde's few dramaturgy, and turns his plays into a unique phenomenon, which has almost no analogues in world literature.

In 1887 he published the stories The Canterville Ghost, The Crime of Lord Arthur Savile, The Sphinx Without a Riddle, The Millionaire Model, The Portrait of Mr. W. H., which made up the first collection of his stories. However, Wilde did not like to write down everything that came to his mind. Many of the stories with which he charmed his listeners remained unwritten.

In 1890, the only novel that finally brought Wilde a stunning success, The Picture of Dorian Gray, was published. Critics accused his novel of immorality. And in 1891, the novel was published with significant additions and a special preface, which became a manifesto for aestheticism, the direction and religion that Wilde created. The novel still attracts attention today, it was filmed in different countries about fifteen (!) times.

18911895 Wilde's dizzying glory years. All Wilde's plays, filled with paradoxes, aphorisms and phrases that have become winged, were written in the early 1890s: Lady Windermere's Fan (1892), The Woman of No Attention (1893), The Holy Harlot, or the Jeweled Woman "(1893), "An Ideal Husband" (1895), "The Importance of Being Earnest" (1895). They were immediately staged on the London stage and enjoyed great success; critics have written that Wilde brought a revival to English theatrical life. After the premiere of Lady Windermere's Fan, the author addressed the audience with the words: “I congratulate you on the great success of the play; this has convinced me that you have almost as high an opinion of my play as I do myself.”

The success of Wilde's work was accompanied by loud scandals. The first of these arose with the appearance of The Picture of Dorian Gray, when a broad discussion of the novel was reduced to accusing the author of immorality. Further, in 1893, English censorship banned the production of the drama Salome, written in French for Sarah Bernhardt. Here, the accusations of immorality were much more serious, since the biblical story was translated into a decadent style. Salome acquired a stage history only at the beginning of the 20th century, with the flourishing of symbolism: in 1905, Richard Strauss wrote an opera based on the play; and in Russia the performance thundered in 1917 directed by Alexander Tairov with A. Koonen in leading role.

But the main scandal that destroyed not only his dramatic career, but his whole life, broke out in 1895, shortly after the premiere of the playwright's last comedy. Wilde, defending himself against the public accusation of homosexuality, sued the Marquess of Queensberry, the father of his closest friend Alfred Douglas. Wilde was convicted of immorality and sentenced to prison. The titles of Wilde's plays immediately disappeared from theater posters, his name was no longer mentioned. The only colleague of Wilde who petitioned for his pardon to no avail was B. Shaw.

The writer's two years in prison turned into his last two literary works full of great artistic power. These are the prose confession "De Profundis" ("From the Abyss"), written during his imprisonment and published posthumously, and the poem "The Ballad of Reading Gaol", written shortly after his release in 1897. It was published under the pseudonym that became Wilde's prison number C .3.3.

He wrote no more. Relying on the financial support of close friends, Wilde, released in May 1897, moved to France and changed his name to Sebastian Melmoth, the hero of the Gothic novel Melmoth the Wanderer by Charles Maturin, Wilde's great-uncle.

One of the most brilliant and sophisticated aesthetes of England in the 19th century. spent last years his life in poverty, obscurity and loneliness. He died quite unexpectedly on November 30, 1900 from meningitis, obtained through an ear infection.

A plaque on Wilde's house in London reports:

"I lived here

Oscar Wilde

wit and playwright.

eng. Sir Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde

English philosopher, esthete, writer, poet of Irish origin; one of the most famous playwrights of the late Victorian period

Oscar Wilde

short biography

Oscar Fingal O'Flaherty Wills Wilde- English writer of Irish origin, critic, philosopher, esthete; in the late Victorian period was one of the most famous playwrights. Born in the family of a doctor on October 16, 1854 in Dublin, Ireland. During 1864-1871. studied near hometown, in Enniskillenne, at the Royal School of Portora, where he showed a brilliant sense of humor, proved to be a very talkative person with a lively mind.

Upon graduation, Wilde won a gold medal and a scholarship that allowed him to continue his studies at Trinity College in Dublin. Studying here from 1871 to 1874, Wilde, as well as at school, demonstrated an aptitude for ancient languages. Within the walls of this educational institution, for the first time, he listened to lectures on aesthetics, which, together with the influence exerted on the future writer by a refined, highly cultured professor-curator, largely shaped his future "branded" aesthetic behavior.

In 1874, Oscar Wilde managed to get a scholarship to study at Magdalen College, Oxford (classical department). Here he has developed a reputation as a man who, without making any special efforts, knows how to shine in society. In the same years, his special attitude to art was formed. At the same time, all kinds of curious cases and stories began to be associated with his name, he often found himself in the center of attention.

During his studies at Oxford, Wilde traveled to Greece and Italy, and the beauty and culture of these countries made a strong impression on him. As a student, he becomes the owner of the Newdigate Prize for the poem "Ravenna". After leaving the university in 1878, Wilde settled in London, where he became an active participant in social life, quickly gaining attention with his wit, non-trivial demeanor and talents. He becomes a revolutionary in the field of fashion, he is willingly invited to various salons, and visitors come to look at the "Irish wit".

In 1881, his collection "Poems" was published, immediately noticed by the public. J. Ruskin's lectures turned Wilde into a fan of the aesthetic movement, who believes that everyday life needs a revival of beauty. With lectures on aesthetics in 1882, he undertook a tour of American cities and was at that time the object of close attention from journalists. Wilde stayed in the USA for a year, after which, returning home for a short time, he left for Paris, where he met V. Hugo, A. France, P. Verlaine, Emile Zola and other major representatives of French literature.

Upon returning to England, 29-year-old Oscar Wilde marries Constance Lloyd, who becomes the mother of their two sons. The birth of children inspired the writer to compose fairy tales. In addition, he wrote for magazines and newspapers. In 1887, his stories "The Sphinx Without a Riddle", "The Crime of Lord Arthur Savile", "The Canterville Ghost" and others were published, which were included in the debut collection of stories.

In 1890, a novel is published that is gaining incredible popularity - The Picture of Dorian Gray. Critics called it immoral, but the author is already accustomed to criticism. In 1890, the essentially supplemented novel was published again, already in the form of a separate book (before that it had been published by a magazine) and was supplied with a preface, which became a kind of manifesto of aestheticism. The aesthetic doctrine of Oscar Wilde was also expounded in the collection of articles "Designs", published in 1891.

From this year until 1895, Wilde experienced the peak of fame, which was simply dizzying. In 1891, an event occurred that affected the entire further biography popular writer. Fate brought him together with Alfred Douglas, who was younger than him by more than a decade and a half, and love for this man destroyed Wilde's whole life. Their relationship could not remain a secret for metropolitan society. Douglas' father, the Marquess of Queensberry, filed a lawsuit accusing Wilde of the criminal offense of sodomy. Despite the advice of friends to go abroad, Wilde remains and defends his position, attracting the closest attention of the public to the court hearings.

The spirit of the writer, who received two years of hard labor in 1895, did not stand the test. Former friends and the majority of his admirers preferred to break off relations with him, his beloved Alfred Douglas never wrote him a line, let alone visited him. During Wilde's stay in prison, his closest person, his mother, died; wife, changing her surname and children, left the country. Wilde himself, who was released in May 1897, also left: the few friends who remained devoted to him helped him do this. There he lived under the name of Sebastian Melmoth. In 1898 he wrote an autobiographical poem, which became the last poetic achievement - "The Ballad of Reading Prison". Meningitis claimed the life of the poet on November 30, 1900. He was buried in the Paris cemetery of Bagno, but ten years later the remains were reburied in the Pere Lachaise cemetery. A stone sphinx was erected on the grave of an outstanding writer who died in a foreign land in poverty and obscurity.

Biography from Wikipedia

Oscar Fingal O'Flaherty Wills Wilde (Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde; October 16, 1854, Dublin - November 30, 1900, Paris) - Irish writer and poet. One of the most famous playwrights of the late Victorian period, one of the key figures of aestheticism and European modernism.

Oscar Wilde was born on 16 October 1854 at 21 Westland Row, Dublin, the second child of Sir William Wilde (1815-1876) and Jane Francesca Wilde (1821-1896). His brother William, "Willie", was two years older. Wilde's father was Ireland's leading oto-ophthalmologist (ear and eye surgeon) and was knighted in 1864 for his service as Consultant Physician and Assistant Commissioner for the Irish Census. In addition to his professional activities, William Wilde wrote books on Irish archeology and folklore, was a philanthropist and established a free medical center that served the city's poor. Jane Wilde, under the pseudonym "Speranza" (Italian - "hope") wrote poetry for the revolutionary movement "Young Irish" in 1848 and remained an Irish nationalist all her life. She read the poems of the participants in this movement to Oscar and Willie, instilling in them a love for these poets. Lady Wilde's interest in the neoclassical revival was evident from the abundance of ancient Greek and Roman paintings and busts in the house.

In 1855, the family moved to No. 1 Merrion Square, where a year later they were replenished with the birth of their daughter. New house was more spacious, and thanks to the connections and success of the parents, a “unique medical and cultural environment” reigned here. Their salon guests included Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, Charles Lever, George Petrie, Isaac Butt, William Rowan Hamilton and Samuel Ferguson.

His sister Isola died at the age of ten from meningitis. Wilde's poem "Requiescat" (from Latin - "May he rest in peace", 1881) was written in memory of her.

Until the age of nine, Oscar Wilde was educated at home, he learned French from a French governess, and German from German. After that, he studied at the Royal School of Portora, in the city of Enniskillen, County Fermanagh. Until the age of twenty, Wilde spent his summers at his father's country villa in Moitura, County Mayo. There, young Wilde and his brother Willie often played with the future writer George Moore.

From 1864 to 1871, Oscar Wilde studied at the Royal School of Portora (Enniskillen, near Dublin). He was not a child prodigy, but his most brilliant talent was speed reading. Oscar was very lively and talkative, and even then he was famous for his ability to humorously twist school events. At school, Wilde even received a special prize for his knowledge of the Greek text of the New Testament. After graduating from the Portor School with a gold medal, Wilde was awarded a Royal School Scholarship to study at Trinity College Dublin (College of the Holy Trinity).

At Trinity College (1871-1874) Wilde studied ancient history and culture, where he again showed his ability in ancient languages ​​with brilliance. Here, for the first time, he attended a course of lectures on aesthetics, and thanks to close communication with the curator - professor of ancient history J.P. Mahaffy, a refined and highly educated person - he gradually began to acquire extremely important elements of his future aesthetic behavior (some contempt for generally accepted morality, dandyism in clothes, sympathy for the Pre-Raphaelites, slight self-irony, Hellenistic predilections).

In 1874, Wilde, having received a scholarship to study at Oxford's Magdalen College in the classical department, enters there. At Oxford, Wilde developed a crystal English pronunciation: "My Irish accent was one of the many things I forgot at Oxford." He also acquired, as he wished, a reputation for effortlessly shining. It was here that his special philosophy of art took shape. His name already then began to be illuminated by various entertaining stories, sometimes caricatured. So, according to one of the stories, in order to teach Wilde a lesson, who was disliked by classmates and whom athletes could not stand, he was dragged up the slope of a high hill and only released at the top. He got to his feet, brushed off the dust, and said, "The view from this hill is truly charming." But this was exactly what the aesthetic Wilde needed, who later admitted: “It is not his deeds that are true in a person’s life, but the legends that surround him. Legends should never be destroyed. Through them we can vaguely see the true face of a person.

At Oxford, Wilde listened to lectures by the art theorist John Ruskin and the latter's student, Walter Pater. They both praised beauty, but Ruskin saw it only in synthesis with goodness, while Peiter admitted some admixture of evil in beauty. Under the spell of Ruskin, Wilde was throughout the period at Oxford. Later he would write to him in a letter: “There is something of a prophet, of a priest, of a poet in you; besides, the gods endowed you with such eloquence as they did not endow anyone else, and your words, filled with fiery passion and wonderful music, made the deaf among us hear and the blind see the light.

While still studying at Oxford, Wilde visited Italy and Greece and was captivated by these countries, their cultural heritage and beauty. These journeys have the most inspiring influence on him. At Oxford, he also receives the prestigious Newdigate Prize for Ravenna, an 18th-century cash prize approved by Sir Roger Newdigate for students at Oxford University who won the annual competition of poems that do not allow dramatic form and are limited to no more than 300 lines (this John Ruskin also received the award at one time).

After graduating from university in 1878, Oscar Wilde moved to London. Thanks to his talent, wit and ability to attract attention, Wilde quickly joined the social life of London. Wilde began to “treat” salon visitors: “Come be sure, this Irish wit will be here today.” He makes the "most necessary" revolution for English society - a revolution in fashion. From now on, he appeared in society in personally invented mind-blowing outfits. Today it was short culottes and silk stockings, tomorrow - a vest embroidered with flowers, the day after tomorrow - lemon gloves combined with a lush lace frill. An indispensable accessory was a carnation in a buttonhole, painted green. There was no clownery in this: Wilde's impeccable taste allowed him to combine the incongruous. And the carnation and the sunflower, along with the lily, were considered the most perfect flowers by the Pre-Raphaelite artists.

The heyday of creativity and the peak of fame

In 1881 he published his first collection of poetry. "Poems" (Poems), written in the spirit of the Pre-Raphaelite brothers. It went through five reprints of 250 copies during the year. All publishing costs were covered by Wilde himself. His early poems are marked by the influence of impressionism, they express direct individual impressions, they are incredibly picturesque.

The collection opens with a poem in italics Helas!, which expresses the author's creed. The first section is called Eleutheria which means "freedom" in Greek. This section includes sonnets and other poems on political topics - "Sonnet to Freedom", "Milton", Theoretikos and others. The section Rosa Mystica ("The Mystical Rose") consists mainly of poems inspired by trips to Italy and often associated with catholic church, with a visit to the Vatican (for example, "Easter", where pomposity solemn ceremony with the participation of the Pope is opposed to the Gospel allusion). The “Flowers in the Wind” section, in which poems are mainly dedicated to England, is contrasted with the “Golden Flowers” ​​section, which includes poems relating mainly to art topics (“Keats' Grave”, “Shelley's Grave”, etc.). Attached to this section Impressions de Theater- poems about the theater ("Phaedra", dedicated to Sarah Bernhardt, a cycle of two poems "Written at the Lyceum Theater", dedicated to Ellen Terry). The collection ends with the section “The Fourth Variation”, which includes the sonnet Tædium Vitæ, which caused a scandal in the Oxford Debating Society.

At the very beginning of 1882, Wilde got off the ship in the port of New York, where he told reporters who had flown on him in Wilde's way: "Gentlemen, the ocean disappointed me, it is not at all as majestic as I thought." Going through customs procedures, when asked if he had anything to declare, he, according to one version, replied: “I have nothing to declare, except for my genius.”

From now on, the entire press follows the actions of the British esthete in America. His first lecture, which was called " “ (The English Renaissance of Art), he concluded by saying: “We all waste our days in search of the meaning of life. Know that this meaning is in Art.” And the audience applauded enthusiastically. At his lecture in Boston, just before Wilde left, a group of local dandies (60 students from Harvard University) appeared in the hall in short breeches with open calves and tuxedos, with sunflowers in their hands - quite in Wilde's way. Their purpose was to discourage the lecturer. Entering the stage, Wilde unpretentiously began a lecture and, as if casually looking at the fantastic figures, exclaimed with a smile: “For the first time I ask the Almighty to save me from followers!” One young man wrote to his mother at that time, under the impression of Wilde’s visit to the college where he studied: “He has excellent diction, and his ability to explain his thoughts is worthy of the highest praise. The phrases that he utters are harmonious and now and then flash with gems of beauty. … His speech is very pleasant - easy, beautiful, entertaining“. In Chicago, Wilde, when asked how he liked San Francisco, replied: "It's Italy, but without its art." His entire American tour was a model of boldness and grace, as well as inappropriateness and self-promotion. In a letter from Ottawa, Wilde jokingly boasted to his longtime acquaintance James McNeil Whistler: “I have already civilized America - only heaven remains!”

After spending a year in America, Wilde returned to London in excellent spirits. And immediately went to Paris. There he meets the brightest figures of world literature (Paul Verlaine, Emile Zola, Victor Hugo, Stéphane Mallarmé, Anatole France, etc.) and wins their sympathy without much difficulty. Returns to his homeland. Meets Constance Lloyd, falls in love. At 29, he becomes a family man. They have two sons (Cyril and Vivian), for whom Wilde composes fairy tales. A little later, he wrote them down on paper and published 2 collections of fairy tales - "The Happy Prince" and Other Tales" (The Happy Prince and Other Stories; 1888) and "Pomegranate House" (The House of Pomegranates; 1891).

Everyone in London knew Wilde. He was the most desired guest in any salon. But at the same time, a flurry of criticism falls upon him, which he easily - quite in a Wilde way - discards from himself. They draw cartoons on him and wait for a reaction. And Wilde is immersed in creativity. At that time, he earned a living by journalism. From 1887 to 1889 he worked as the editor of the Women's World magazine. Wilde's journalism was praised by Bernard Shaw.

In 1887 he published stories "The Canterville Ghost", "Lord Arthur Savile's Crime", "Sphinx without a riddle", "Millionaire Sitter", "Portrait of Mr. W. H." who compiled a collection of his stories. However, Wilde did not like to write down everything that came to his mind, many of the stories with which he charmed his listeners remained unwritten.

In 1890, the only novel that brought Wilde a stunning success was published - The Picture of Dorian Gray. It was published in Lippincotts Mansley Magazine. But critics accused the novel of immorality. In response to 216 print responses to The Picture of Dorian Gray, Wilde wrote more than 10 open letters to British newspapers and magazines, explaining that art is independent of morality. Moreover, he wrote, those who did not notice the morality in the novel are complete hypocrites, since the only morality is that it is impossible to kill one's conscience with impunity. In 1891, the novel, with significant additions, was published as a separate book, and Wilde accompanies his masterpiece with a special preface, which from now on becomes a manifesto for aestheticism - the direction and the religion that he created.

1891-1895 - Wilde's years of dizzying glory. In 1891, a collection of theoretical articles was published "Designs" (Intensions), where Wilde expounds to readers his creed - his aesthetic doctrine. The pathos of the book is in the glorification of Art - the greatest shrine, the supreme deity, whose fanatical priest was Wilde. In the same year, 1891, he wrote a treatise "The soul of man under socialism" (The Soul of Man under Socialism), which rejects marriage, the family, and private property. Wilde states that "man is made for a better purpose than digging in the mud." He dreams of the time when “there will be no more people living in stinking dens, dressed in stinking rags… When hundreds of thousands of unemployed, brought to the most outrageous poverty, will not trample the streets… when every member of society will be a participant in the general contentment and well-being"...

Separately, there is a one-act drama written in French at that time on a biblical story - “ Salome» ( Salome; 1891). According to Wilde, it was specially written for Sarah Bernhardt, "that snake of the ancient Nile." However, in London, censorship prevented her production: in the UK, theatrical performances on biblical stories were prohibited. The play was printed in 1893, and in 1894 its translation into English was published with illustrations by Aubrey Beardsley. The play was first staged in Paris in 1896. Salome is based on the episode of the death of the biblical prophet John the Baptist (in the play he appears under the name Jokanaan), which is reflected in the New Testament (Matt 14:1-12, etc.), but the version proposed in the play by Wilde is by no means canonical.

In 1892, the first comedy of the "brilliant Oscar" - "Lady Windermere's Fan" (eng. Lady Windermere's Fan) was written and staged, the success of which made Wilde the most popular person in London. Wilde's next aesthetic act associated with the premiere of the comedy is known. Upon entering the stage at the end of the performance, Oscar dragged on a cigarette, after which he began: “Ladies and gentlemen! It's probably not very polite of me to smoke in front of you, but... it's just as impolite to bother me when I'm smoking." In 1893, his next comedy comes out - "Woman of no interest" (The Woman of No Importance), in which the name itself is built on a paradox - before that, the “Apostle of Beauty” felt this technique as a native.

1895 becomes a shock in creative terms. Wilde wrote and staged two plays - "Ideal husband" (An Ideal Husband) and "The importance of Being Earnest" (The Importance of Being Earnest). In comedies, Wilde's art as a witty interlocutor was manifested in all its splendor: his dialogues are magnificent. Newspapers called him "the best of modern playwrights", noting the mind, originality, perfection of style. The sharpness of thoughts, the refinement of paradoxes are so admirable that the reader is drugged by them throughout the entire duration of the play. He knows how to subordinate everything to the game, often the game of the mind captivates Wilde so much that it becomes an end in itself, then the impression of significance and brightness is created truly from scratch. And each of them has its own Oscar Wilde, throwing portions of brilliant paradoxes.

Relationship with Alfred Douglas and lawsuit

In 1891 Wilde met Lord Alfred Douglas, son of the 9th Marquess of Queensberry. Douglas (his family and friends called him Bosie) was 16 years younger, he was looking for this acquaintance and knew how to win over. Soon Wilde, always living beyond his means, could not refuse anything to Douglas, who constantly needed money for his whims. With the advent of this “golden-haired boy,” as he was called at Oxford University, Wilde switches from female prostitution to male prostitutes. In 1892, Bosie, not for the first time drawn into blackmail (his frank letter to another lover was stolen), turns to Wilde, and he gives money to extortionists. Periodic disappearances and exorbitant expenses worried Wilde's wife, Constance, but she did not question her husband's explanation that he needed all this in order to write. Douglas was not going to hide his connection with the "brilliant Oscar" and from time to time demanded not only secret meetings, but also in full view. Wilde, like Douglas, becomes a constant target for London blackmailers.

In 1893, Bosie dropped out of Oxford and was again blackmailed to publicize his homosexuality. His father, the Marquess of Queensberry, also known for his habit of spending a lot on his own pleasure, gives money to blackmailers through a lawyer to hush up the scandal. After that, Douglas' father and mother decide to stop their son's obscene relationship not only with Wilde, but also with other men: the mother asks Wilde to influence Bosie, and the father first leaves his son without annual maintenance, and then threatens to shoot Wilde. On June 30, 1894, Queensberry, defending the honor of the family, comes to Wilde's house on Tite Street and demands that he stop meeting with his son - in fact, the lord offers a deal: on the one hand, there is evidence against Wilde and he is suffering from blackmail, on the other - Queensberry, through explaining why he calls Wilde "making himself a sodomite", made it clear that he does not seek to make him accused in a public trial (how Wilde entertains is a private matter for Wilde). But Wilde and Douglas arrange joint trips abroad. In his letters to his father, who, according to contemporaries, was similar in character and behavior, Douglas threatens that if he does not stop "telling him how to behave", then he will either shoot him in the necessary defense, or Wilde will send him to prison. for slander.

On February 18, 1895, Queensberry wrote a note to Wilde, a member of the club, at the Albemarle Club, with the appeal: m domita "- the marquis, on purpose or not, but wrote an insult with a mistake. In addition, by using the word "pose", Lord Queensberry was formally on the safe side by not directly accusing. On February 28, Wilde receives this note, friends point out to him a trick, advise him to ignore the insult and leave the country again for a while. But Alfred Douglas, who hates his father and was looking for a reason to limit his use of the family's money, insists that Wilde sue Queensberry for libel. The next day, March 1, Wilde accuses the Marquis of slander and he is arrested. In response, Queensberry, through lawyers, presents witnesses of Wilde's obscene relations and a selection of quotations from the plaintiff's works and correspondence. To this, Wilde, confident in the power of his eloquence, decides to defend his art himself and speak in court. On April 3, the hearing began. There were no empty seats in the courtroom, but due to the immorality of the evidence being examined, only men were present. Wilde vehemently denied the sexual nature of his relationship with Douglas and, in his testimony, consistently distinguished between life and literature.

For example, the lawyer for the Marquis of Queensberry, Edward Carson, and in fact the accuser, asked Wilde the question: “Couldn’t the artist’s affection and love for Dorian Gray lead an ordinary person to the idea that the artist is attracted to him by a certain kind?” And Wilde replied: "The thoughts of ordinary people are unknown to me." “Has it ever happened that you yourself madly admired a young man?” Carson continued. Wilde replied: “Crazy - never. I prefer love - it's a higher feeling." Or, for example, trying to identify hints of "unnatural" relationships in his works, Carson read out a passage from one of Wilde's stories and asked: "Is this, I believe, also written by you?". Wilde deliberately waited for deathly silence and in the quietest voice answered: “No, no, Mr. Carson. These lines belong to Shakespeare. Carson blushed. He extracted another piece of poetry from his papers. "Is that probably Shakespeare too, Mr. Wilde?" “There is little left of him in your reading, Mr. Carson,” said Oscar. The audience laughed, and the judge threatened that he would order the hall to be cleared.

These and other witty responses were, however, counterproductive in a legal sense. After the court included in the case part of the evidence against Wilde, he withdrew his claim, and on April 5 the libel case was dismissed. This circumstance gave grounds for accusing Wilde of restoring the reputation of the marquis. Queensberry writes a note to Wilde advising him to flee England. On April 6, a warrant was issued for Wilde's arrest and he was placed in jail. On April 7, the court charges Wilde with sodomy as a violation of public morality. On April 26-29, the first trial in the Wilde case took place, which again began with Wilde's explanations on the next selection of quotations from his and Douglas's works. Thus, the accuser asked for clarification of the meaning of the phrase "love that hides its name", expressed by Douglas in his sonnet, to which Wilde said the following:

“Love that hides its name” is in our century the same majestic affection of an older man for a younger one, which Jonathan felt for David, which Plato laid down as the basis of his philosophy, which we find in the sonnets of Michelangelo and Shakespeare. It is still the same deep spiritual passion, distinguished by purity and perfection. Great works like the sonnets of Shakespeare and Michelangelo, as well as my two letters that were read to you, were dictated and filled with it. In our century, this love is misunderstood, so misunderstood that it is now indeed compelled to hide its name. It was she, this love, that brought me to where I am now. She is bright, she is beautiful, with her nobility she surpasses all other forms of human affection. There is nothing unnatural in it. She is intellectual, and time after time she flashes between the older and younger men, of whom the older has a developed mind, and the younger is overwhelmed with joy, anticipation and magic of the life ahead. It should be so, but the world does not understand it. The world mocks this attachment and sometimes puts a person in the pillory for it. ( per. L. Motylyova)

The prosecutor, with undisguised pleasure, thanked Wilde for such an answer. But on May 1, the jury disagrees about Wilde's guilt (10 for guilt, and two against), and a second hearing is scheduled in the new composition of the court. Wilde's lawyer, Sir Edward Clarke, is seeking permission from the judge for Wilde to be released pending a new trial on bail. The priest Stuart Headlam, not familiar with Wilde, but dissatisfied with the trial and persecution of Wilde in the newspapers, made most out of an allotted unprecedented sum of £5,000. Wilde is offered to flee England, as his friends have already done, but he refuses.

The final trial was conducted May 21-25, presided over by Judge Alfred Wheels. The judge ruled that all eight counts against Wilde were either unproven or insufficiently proven, "pointing out to the jury the unreliability of the material collected in the form of testimony." The jury was guided in their decision by the confessions of the "brilliant Oscar" given to them during the hearing, which served as the basis for the opinion that Wilde "sued" himself. On May 25, 1895, Wilde was found guilty of "gross indecency" with males under the Labouchere Amendment and sentenced to two years' hard labor. The judge, in his closing remarks, noted that there was no doubt that "Wilde was the center of the corruption of young people", and concluded the meeting with the words: "This is the worst thing in which I have participated." Wilde's response "And me?" drowned in cries of "Shame!" in the courtroom.

The resonant case turned out not only because Wilde transferred his passion from privacy into the public, aestheticizing obscene relationships in poetry, stories, plays, novels and statements in court. The key moment was that Wilde went to court with an unfounded accusation of libel. As a result, Wilde was convicted, and Douglas was not brought to trial.

Imprisonment, move to France and death

Ballad of Reading Gaol.
Rice. M. Durnova (1904)

Wilde served his term first in Pentonville and Wandsworth, prisons intended for especially serious crimes and repeat offenders, and then, on November 20, 1895, he was transferred to a prison in Reading, where he spent a year and a half. Prison completely broke him. Most of his friends turned their backs on him. Alfred Douglas, to whom Wilde was so strongly attached, never came to him (lived abroad, pawning things donated by Wilde), and in one of his letters there were these words: “When you are not on a pedestal, no one is interested in you ... ". Wilde's wife, Konstanz, despite the demands of her relatives, refuses a divorce and visits her husband twice in prison: the first time to report the death of his beloved mother, and the second to sign papers that he entrusts her with the care of children. Then Konstanz changes the surname for himself and their sons Cyril and Vivian to Holland (this is the surname of Konstanz's brother - Otto). In prison, Wilde writes a confession in the form of a letter to Douglas, which he calls "Epistola: In Carcere et Vinculis"(lat. "Message: in prison and chains"), and later his closest friend Robert Ross renamed it to "De Profundis"(lat. “From the depths”; this is how Psalm 129 begins).

After his release, which took place on May 19, 1897, Wilde moved to France, where he regularly receives letters and money from his wife, but Konstanz refuses to meet with him. But Douglas is looking for a meeting and achieves his goal, which Wilde will later say with regret: “He imagined that I was able to raise money for both of us. I did get 120 pounds. Bozi lived on them, not knowing worries. But when I demanded his share from him, he immediately became terrible, angry, base and stingy in everything that did not concern his own pleasures, and when my money ran out, he left. Their breakup was also facilitated by the fact that, on the one hand, Constance threatened that if he did not part with Douglas, she would deprive her husband of his maintenance, and on the other hand, the Marquis of Queensberry promised that in the event of termination of relations with Wilde, he would pay all his son's considerable debts.

In France, Wilde changed his name to Sebastian Melmoth. The surname Melmoth was borrowed from the famous gothic novel English writer 18th century Charles Maturin, Wilde's great-uncle, author of Melmoth the Wanderer. Wilde avoided meeting those who might recognize him, but unfortunately for him, this happened, and he moved from place to place, as if justifying his new name. In France, Wilde wrote the famous poem "The Ballad of Reading Gaol" (The Ballad of Reading Gaol; 1898), signed by him with the pseudonym C.3.3. - this was Oskar's prison number (cell number 3, 3rd floor, block C). The hero of the ballad, who has perceived himself as special all his life, suddenly realizes that he is one of the many sinners, nothing more. His vice, interpreted by him as chosenness, is not unique, since there are many sins. But repentance and compassion - this is what unites everyone. All people are united by a common sense of guilt towards their neighbor - for not being able to protect, not being able to help, using their own kind for lust or for profit. The unity of the human race is achieved through a common feeling, and not through unique passions - this is an important thought of the esthete Wilde, who devoted all his early work to unique skill see differently than a neighbor. The Ballad was published in an edition of eight hundred copies printed on Japanese vellum paper. In addition, Wilde published several articles with suggestions for improving the living conditions of prisoners. In 1898, the House of Commons passed the Jails Act, which reflected many of Wilde's proposals.

Shortly before his death, he said about himself this way: “I will not survive the 19th century. The English will not tolerate my continued presence." Oscar Wilde died in exile in France on November 30, 1900 from acute meningitis caused by an ear infection. Wilde's death was painful. A few days before her arrival, he was speechless and could only communicate with gestures. The agony began on November 30 at 5:30 am and did not stop until the moment of his death at 13:50.

He was buried in Paris at the Bagno cemetery, from where later, 10 years later, his grave was transferred to the Pere Lachaise cemetery (Paris). On the grave there is a winged sphinx made of stone by Jacob Epstein (in honor of the work "Sphinx"). Over time, the writer's grave became covered with lipstick marks from kisses, as an urban legend appeared - the one who kissed the Sphinx will find love and never lose it. Later, fears began to be expressed that lipstick could destroy the monument. November 30, 2011 - the 111th anniversary of the death of Oscar Wilde - it was decided to surround the Sphinx with a protective glass fence. Thus, the authors of the project from the Irish cultural center expect to protect him from the harmful effects of lipstick.

A family

On May 29, 1884, Oscar Wilde married Constance Mary Lloyd (January 2, 1859 - April 7, 1898). They had two sons: Cyril (06/05/1885 - 05/09/1915) and Vivian (11/3/1886 - 10/10/1967).

After Oscar Wilde was convicted, Constance decided to take the children away from the UK, sending her sons with a governess to Paris. She herself remained in the country. But after the house of the Wilds on Tite Street was visited by bailiffs and the sale of property began, she was forced to leave the UK. Constance died on April 7, 1898 in Genoa, 5 days after an unsuccessful surgical operation. She was buried in the Staglieno cemetery in Genoa.

Merlin Holland (b. 1945, London), Oscar Wilde's grandson and heir to all his works, believes that his family suffered from homophobia.

Origins of Wilde's aesthetic theory

While studying at Oxford University, Wilde was imbued with the ideas of the iconic figure for the art history and culture of England in the 19th century - John Ruskin. He listened to his lectures on aesthetics with particular attention. “Ruskin introduced us at Oxford, thanks to the charm of his personality and the music of his words, with that intoxication with beauty that is the secret of the Hellenic spirit, and with that desire for creative power that is the secret of life,” he later recalled.

An important role was played by the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, which arose in 1848, united around the bright artist and poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti. The Pre-Raphaelites preached sincerity in art, demanding closeness to nature, immediacy in expressing feelings. In poetry, they considered the English romantic poet with tragic fate- John Keats. They fully accepted Keats' aesthetic formula that beauty is the only truth. They set themselves the goal of raising the level of English aesthetic culture, their work was characterized by refined aristocracy, retrospection and contemplation. John Ruskin himself spoke in defense of the Brotherhood.

Of considerable importance was the second iconic figure in English art history - the ruler of thoughts Walter Pater (Peter), whose views seemed especially close to him. Pater rejected the ethical basis of aesthetics, unlike Ruskin. Wilde resolutely sided with him: “We, representatives of the young school, have departed from the teachings of Ruskin ... because morality always lies at the basis of his aesthetic judgments ... In our eyes, the laws of Art do not coincide with the laws of morality.”

Thus, the origins of Oscar Wilde's special aesthetic theory are in the work of the Pre-Raphaelites and in the judgments of the greatest thinkers of England in the middle of the 19th century - John Ruskin and Walter Pater (Peter).

Creation

The period of mature and intense literary creativity of Wilde covers 1887-1895. During these years, appeared: a collection of stories "The Crime of Lord Arthur Savile" (Lord Savile's crime, 1887), two volumes of fairy tales "The Happy Prince" and Other Tales "(The Happy prince and Other Tales, 1888) and" Pomegranate House "(A House of Pomegranates, 1892), a series of dialogues and articles outlining Wilde's aesthetic views - The Decay of Lying (1889), The Critic as Artist (1890), etc. In 1890 Wilde's most celebrated work, The Picture of Dorian Gray, was published.

Since 1892, a cycle of Wilde's high-society comedies began to appear, written in the spirit of the dramaturgy of Ogier, Dumas son, Sardou, - Lady Windermere's Fan (1892), A Woman Of No Importance (1892 ), An Ideal Husband (1895), The Importance Of Being Earnest (1895). These comedies, devoid of action and characterization of characters, but full of witty salon chatter, spectacular aphorisms, paradoxes, were a great success on stage. Newspapers called him "the best of modern playwrights", noting the mind, originality, perfection of style. The sharpness of thoughts, the refinement of paradoxes are so admirable that the reader is drugged by them throughout the play. And each of them has its own Oscar Wilde, throwing portions of brilliant paradoxes. In 1891, Wilde wrote in French the drama "Salome" (Salomé), which, however, was banned for staging in England for a long time.

In prison, he wrote his confession in the form of a letter to Lord Douglas "De profundis" (1897, published 1905; full uncorrupted text first published in 1962). And at the end of 1897, already in France, his last work - "The Ballade of Reading Gaol" (Ballade of Reading Gaol, 1898), which he signed "C.3.3." (this was his prison number in Reading).

Wilde's main image is the dandy weaver, an apologist for immoral selfishness and idleness. He struggles with the traditional “slave morality” that constrains him in terms of crushed Nietzscheanism. The ultimate goal of Wilde's individualism is the fullness of the manifestation of the personality, seen where the personality violates established norms. Wilde's "higher natures" are endowed with subtle perversity. The magnificent apotheosis of a self-affirming personality, destroying all obstacles in the way of his criminal passion, is "Salome". Accordingly, the culminating point of Wilde's aestheticism is the "aesthetics of evil." However, militant aesthetic immoralism is for Wilde only a starting point; the development of the idea always leads in Wilde's works to the restoration of the rights of ethics.

Admiring Salome, Lord Henry, Dorian, Wilde is still forced to condemn them. Nietzsche's ideals are already shattered in The Duchess of Padua. In Wilde's comedies, immoralism is "removed" on a comical plane, and his immoral paradoxicalists turn out in practice to be guardians of the code of bourgeois morality. Almost all comedies are built on the expiation of a once committed anti-moral act. Following the path of "evil aesthetics", Dorian Gray comes to the ugly and base. The failure of an aesthetic attitude to life without ethical support is the theme of the fairy tales The Star Child and The Fisherman and his soul. The stories "The Canterville Ghost", "The Model Millionaire" and all Wilde's tales end in the victory of love, self-sacrifice, compassion for the disadvantaged, helping the poor. The sermon of the beauty of suffering, Christianity (taken in the ethical-aesthetic aspect), which Wilde came to in prison (De profundis), was prepared in his previous work. Wilde was no stranger to flirting with socialism [“The soul of man under socialism” (The soul of man under socialism, 1891)], which, in Wilde’s view, leads to an idle, aesthetic life, to the triumph of individualism.

In poems, fairy tales, Wilde's novel, a colorful description of the material world pushes aside the narrative (in prose), the lyrical expression of emotions (in poetry), giving, as it were, patterns from things, an ornamental still life. The main object of the description is not nature and man, but the interior, still life: furniture, precious stones, fabrics, etc. The desire for picturesque multicolor determines Wilde's attraction to oriental exoticism, as well as fabulousness. Wilde's style is characterized by an abundance of picturesque, sometimes multi-tiered comparisons, often detailed, extremely detailed. Wilde's sensationalism, unlike the impressionistic one, does not lead to the decomposition of objectivity in the stream of sensations; for all the brilliance of Wilde's style, it is characterized by clarity, isolation, faceted form, the certainty of an object that is not blurry, but retains the clarity of contours. Simplicity, logical accuracy and clarity of linguistic expression made Wilde's tales textbooks.

Wilde, with his pursuit of refined sensations, with his gourmet physiology, is alien to metaphysical aspirations. Wilde's fantasy, devoid of mystical coloring, is either a naked conditional assumption, or a fairy-tale game of fiction. From Wilde's sensationalism follows a well-known distrust of the cognitive possibilities of the mind, skepticism. At the end of his life, leaning towards Christianity, Wilde took it only in the ethical and aesthetic, and not in the strictly religious sense. Wilde's thinking takes on the character of an aesthetic game, pouring out in the form of refined aphorisms, striking paradoxes, oxymorons. The main value is not the truth of thought, but the sharpness of its expression, the play on words, the excess of imagery, side meanings, which is characteristic of his aphorisms. If in other cases Wilde's paradoxes are intended to show the contradiction between the external and internal sides of the hypocritical high society environment he depicts, then often their purpose is to show the antinomy of our reason, the conventionality and relativity of our concepts, the unreliability of our knowledge. Wilde had a great influence on the decadent literature of all countries, in particular on the Russian decadents of the 1890s.

Bibliography

Plays

• Faith, or the Nihilists (1880)
• Duchess of Padua (1883)
• Salome(1891, performed for the first time in 1896 in Paris)
• Lady Windermere's fan (1892)
• Woman not worthy of attention (1893)
• Ideal husband (1895)
• The importance of Being Earnest(c. 1895)
• The Holy Harlot, or the Jeweled Woman(fragments, published in 1908)
• Florentine tragedy(fragments, published in 1908)

Novels

• The Picture of Dorian Grey (1890)

Novels and stories

• The Canterville Ghost
• Lord Arthur Savile's Crime
• Portrait of Mr. W. G.
• Millionaire Sitter
• Sphinx without a riddle

Fairy tales

From the collection "The Happy Prince" (1888) and Other Tales":

• Happy Prince
• nightingale and rose
• Selfish Giant
• Devoted Friend
• Wonderful rocket

From the collection "Pomegranate House" (1891):

• young king
• Infanta's birthday
• The fisherman and his soul
• star boy

poems

• Ravenna (1878)
• Garden of Eros(publ. 1881)
• Itis motif(publ. 1881)
• Charmides(publ. 1881)
• panthea(publ. 1881)
• humanitad(publ. 1881; lat. lit. "in humanity")
• Sphinx (1894)
• Ballad of Reading Gaol (1898)

Poems in prose (translated by F. Sologub)

• Fan(The Disciple)
• doing good(The Doer of Good)
• Teacher(The Master)
• wisdom teacher(The Teacher of Wisdom)
• Painter(The Artist)
• Hall of Judgment(The House of Judgment)

Essay

• The human soul under socialism(1891; first published in the Fortnightly Review)

Collection " Ideas » (1891):

• Decline of the art of lying(1889; first published in Knights Century)
• Brush, pen and poison(1889; first published in the Fortnightly Review)
• Critic as artist(1890; first published in Knights Century)
• The truth of the masks(1885; first published in Nintins Century under the title "Shakespeare and Stage Costume")

Letters

• De Profundis(lat. "From the depths", or "Prison Confession"; 1897) is a letter of confession addressed to his beloved friend Alfred Douglas, on which Wilde worked during the last months of his stay in Reading Gaol. In 1905, Oscar's friend and admirer Robert Ross published an abridged version of his confession in the Berlin magazine Die Neue Rundschau. According to Ross's will, its full text was published only in 1962.
• Oscar Wilde. Letters»- letters from different years, combined into one book, which contains 214 Wilde's letters (Translated from English by V. Voronin, L. Motylev, Yu. Rozantovskaya. - St. Petersburg: Azbuka-Klassika Publishing House, 2007. - 416 p. ).

Lectures and aesthetic miniatures

• Renaissance English art
• Testament to the younger generation
• Aesthetic manifesto
• Women's dress
• More on the radical ideas of costume reform
• At Mr. Whistler's lecture at ten o'clock
• The relation of costume to painting. Black and white study of Mr. Whistler's lecture
• Shakespeare on Stage Design
• American invasion
• New Dickens books
• American
• Dostoevsky's "Humiliated and Insulted"
• "Imaginary Portraits" by Mr. Pater
• Proximity of arts and crafts
• English poets
• London sitters
• Gospel of Walt Whitman
• Mr. Swinburne's last volume of poetry
• Chinese sage

Stylized pseudo-works

• Teleni, or the Reverse of the Medal(Teleny, or The Reverse of the Medal)
• Testament of Oscar Wilde(The Last Testament of Oscar Wilde; 1983; written by Peter Ackroyd)

The image of the writer in popular art

• "Oscar Wilde" artistic biography, 1960. In the role of Wilde - British actor Robert Morley.
• Wilde, fictional biography, 1997, dir. Brian Gilbert - in the role of Wilde, a famous British actor, writer and public figure Stephen Fry.
• Trials of Oscar Wilde, directed by Ken Hughes, 1960, is a feature film that focuses on the trial, starring actor Peter Finch as Wilde.
• "Paris, I love you" - the fifteenth episode of this film almanac "Père-Lachaise" is dedicated to Oscar Wilde.
• The Judas Kiss is a play by British writer David Hare about Oscar Wilde's life in exile after imprisonment, starring Liam Neeson and Rupert Everett in turn.

Biographies of the writer were also devoted to: a film by Grigory Ratoff (1960) and a television film by Hansgünther Heim (1972), starring Klaus Maria Brandauer.

• The song "Eskimo" by the Red Hot Chili Peppers from the album Greatest hits contains lines dedicated to Wilde.
• American actress Olivia Wilde took a pseudonym surname in honor of Oscar Wilde.
• The story in the book "Cemetery Stories" by Boris Akunin (Grigory Chkhartishvili).

Works of the writer in art

• opera The Canterville Ghost by Swedish composer Arne Mellnes

Editions of essays

• Collected works, ed. by R. Ross, 14vls, L., 1907-1909; Sobr. op. in 7 vols., ed. Sablina, 1906-07; Sobr. op. in 4 vols., ed. Marx, dep. op. in ed. "Scorpio", "Benefit", etc.
• Wilde, Oscar. Selected works in two volumes. M .: State publishing house of fiction, 1961. - vol. 1 - 400 p.; v.2 - 296 p.
• Wilde, Oscar. Poems. The Picture of Dorian Grey. Prison confession. / As part of the BVL, series two, v.118. M .: Publishing house "Fiction", 1976. - 768 p.
• Wilde, Oscar. Selected works. In 2 volumes / Comp. Fingers N.. M.: Respublika, 1993. vol. 1. - 559 p. ; v.2. - 543 p.
• Wilde, Oscar. Complete collection of poems and poems / Comp. Vitkovsky E.V.. St. Petersburg: Eurasia, 2000. - 384 p.
• Wilde, Oscar. Poetry. Collection / Compiled. K. Atarova. M.: Raduga, 2004. On English language with parallel Russian text. - 384 p.
• Wilde, Oscar.. Aphorisms. M., Eksmo-Press, 2000.
• Wilde, Oscar. Selected prose. Poems (gift edition). M.: Eksmo, Assortment, 2007. - 476 p. - 5-699-19508-4-9
• Wilde, Oscar. Letters / Comp. A. G. Obraztsova, Yu. G. Fridshtein. - 2nd ed. - M.: Azbuka-classika, 2007. - 416 p.

• Wilde, Oscar. Paradoxes / Compiled, translated, foreword by T. A. Boborykin - St. Petersburg: Anima, 2011. - In English with a parallel Russian text - 310 p., with illustrations.
• Wilde, Oscar. Salome, intro. article by T. A. Boborykin - St. Petersburg: Anima, 2011. - In English with a parallel Russian text - 311 p., with ill.<
• Wilde, Oscar. Poems // in Sat. Edmund Goss. Oscar Wilde. Alfred Douglas. CITY OF SOUL. Selected Poems. / Per. from English. Alexandra Lukyanova. Moscow: Aquarius, 2016. 224 p.

Biography

Wilde (Wilde)-Oscar (1854 - 1900), English writer. In exquisitely ornamented verses, he is close to the French Symbolists. Lyrical, sublime in style fairy tales. In the philosophical novel "The Picture of Dorian Gray" (1891) debunked the decadent idea of ​​beauty, alien to morality. Socially critical tendencies in the comedies Lady Windermere's Fan (1892), An Ideal Husband (1895), The Importance of Being Earnest (1899). tragedy; articles about literature and art; autobiographical poem "The Ballad of Reading Gaol" (1898). (SES, M, "Soviet Encyclopedia", 1987). Wilde, Oscar (Fingal O "Flahertie Wills), October 16, 1854, Dublin - November 30, 1900, Paris), English poet and playwright. The son of a famous surgeon, studied at Trinity College in Dublin, and then at Oxford, and became famous from his youth wit. A follower of aestheticism, in the early 1880s traveled around America with lectures and established himself in London circles as a wit and wit. His only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, combines elements of bourgeois morality. The gloomy play Salome (1893) was laid to music by R. Strauss. (In addition to the above-mentioned, the successful play "A Woman Not Worthy of Attention" (1893). The comedy "The Importance of Being Earnest" - a satire on the falsity of Victorian society - is considered the greatest achievement of the writer in his homeland. Truly brilliant are his two critical dialogues "The Decline of Lies" and "The Critic as an Artist". Despite the fact that he was in a happy marriage, in 1891 he entered into an intimate relationship with the young Lord Alfred Douglas, son of the Marquess of Queensberry. ed Queensberry in homosexuality, Wilde sued for libel, but lost. He was arrested on charges of homosexuality, and this trial gained international notoriety. A prisoner in Reading Gaol wrote a reply letter to his lover, which was then edited and published as De Profundis (1905). After his release from prison, he moved to Paris. His only work of that time, The Ballad of Reading Prison, was devoted to the inhuman living conditions of the prisoners. He died suddenly from an attack of meningitis. (Britannica, Desktop Encyclopedia, Moscow, AST Astrel, 2006, volume II). Oscar Wilde, a writer of great but in many ways painful talent, opposed realism. He argued that the form in art is more important than the content and works of art do not carry any moral or social ideals. The purpose of art is to give aesthetic pleasure. Fortunately, many of his works refute his views. The truth of life burst into his lovely fantastic tales (the collections The Happy Prince (1888) and The Pomegranate House (1891)). The last included the fairy tale "The Star Boy".

Information

Wilde's full name is Oscar Fingal O "Flaherty Wheels. His father was an outstanding doctor, and for special merits he, a former pharmacist, was granted a title of nobility. His mother was also very talented: she knew many languages, wrote poetry, essays. Both were reputed to be people from strangeness even in his native Ireland, where eccentrics are not uncommon. Oscar Wilde received an excellent education: he graduated from Oxford University in 1879. Upon graduation, Wilde plunged into literary and social life with pleasure. His first collection of poems (1881) was received enthusiastically. But his main advantage was the inimitable ability to conduct a conversation. No one could imitate his talent and wit. Wilde sought not only to shine, but to surprise and even shock society. In America, he lectured on art. And art for him was the whole life he played , as an actor on stage. But not all his life Wilde remained a darling of fate. In 1895, he was sentenced to two years in prison and openly recognized as immorality nny person. His books were burned. Wilde was deprived of paternity, he lost all his fortune, his wife died of grief. Bernard Shaw is the only person in England who tried to mitigate the fate of Wilde. Wilde lived the rest of his life in poverty and illness. He died in Paris, in the quarter of the poor.

Oscar Wilde(full name - Oscar Fingal O "Flahertie Wills Wilde) was born on October 16, 1854 in Dublin, in the Protestant family of the surgeon Sir William Wilde. Oscar's mother is Lady Jane Francesca Wilde, a society lady who also wrote poetry under the pseudonym Speranza - Hope, emphasizing her sympathy for the liberation movement in Ireland.

Wilde studied classical literature at Trinity College, Dublin, after which he received a scholarship to study at Oxford University (Magdalen College). He graduated from Oxford in 1878 with honors, and there he received the prestigious Newdigate Prize for the poetic work "Ravenna" (Ravenna, 1878). In his university years, Wilde was known for his extravagant lifestyle and progressive beliefs, and was a supporter of aestheticism, which earned him a bad reputation.

Upon graduation, thanks to his talent, wit and ability to attract attention, Wilde quickly joined the literary circles. His first collection of poetry, Poems, was written in the spirit of the Pre-Raphaelites, published in 1881, shortly before Wilde went to lecture in North America.

After his marriage to Constance Lloyd in 1884, a number of collections of stories for children, originally written for his sons, saw the light of day.

The period of mature and intense literary creativity of Wilde covers 1887-1895. During these years appeared: a collection of stories "The Crime of Lord Arthur Seville" (Lord Savile's crime, 1887), two volumes of fairy tales "The Happy Prince" (The Happy prince, 1888) and "Pomegranate House" (A House of pomegranates, 1892), a cycle dialogues and articles outlining Wilde's aesthetic views - "The Decay of Lying" (The Decay of Lying, 1889), "The Critic as an Artist" (The Critic as Artist, 1890), etc. In 1891, Wilde's most famous work, the novel " The Picture of Dorian Gray.

Since 1892, Wilde's cycle of high-society comedies began to appear, written in the spirit of the dramaturgy of Ogier, Dumas son, Sardou, - Lady Windermere's Fan (1892), A Woman of No Importance (1893 ), “An ideal husband” (An ideal husband, 1894), “The importance of being earnest” (The importance of being earnest, 1895). These comedies, devoid of action and characterization of characters, but full of witty salon chatter, spectacular aphorisms, paradoxes, were a great success on stage. In 1893, Wilde wrote a drama in verse, Salome, in French, which was even more successful. The play was denied a license in London, but later in 1905 it served as the basis for an opera of the same name by Richard Strauss, and was published in England in a translation by Wilde's close friend Lord Alfred Douglas.

Lord Douglas' father, the Marquess of Queensberry, disapproved of his son's close relationship with a playwright of dubious reputation. After the Marquis publicly insulted Wilde, a violent quarrel broke out that led to Wilde's imprisonment in 1895 for homosexuality (under the then-current law punishing "obscene behavior" or sodomy). He was sentenced to two years in prison and hard labor, after which Wilde went bankrupt and his health seriously deteriorated. In prison, he wrote one of his last works - a confession in the form of a letter to Lord Douglas "De profundis" (1897, publ. 1905; full uncorrupted text first published in 1962). Relying on financial support from close friends, Wilde moved to France in 1897 and changed his name to Sebastian Melmoth. At that time he wrote the famous poem "Ballade of Reading Gaol" (Ballade of Reading Gaol, 1898). Oscar Wilde died in exile in France on November 30, 1900 from acute meningitis caused by an ear infection. He was buried in Paris.

Wilde's main image is the dandy weaver, an apologist for immoral selfishness and idleness. He struggles with the traditional “slave morality” that constrains him in terms of crushed Nietzscheanism. The ultimate goal of Wilde's individualism is the fullness of the manifestation of the personality, seen where the personality violates established norms. Wilde's "higher natures" are endowed with subtle perversity. The magnificent apotheosis of a self-affirming personality, destroying all obstacles in the way of his criminal passion, is "Salome". Accordingly, the culminating point of Wilde's aestheticism is the "aesthetics of evil." However, militant aesthetic immoralism is for Wilde only a starting point; the development of the idea always leads in Wilde's works to the restoration of the rights of ethics.

Admiring Salome, Lord Henry, Dorian, Wilde is still forced to condemn them. Nietzsche's ideals are already shattered in The Duchess of Padua. In Wilde's comedies, immoralism is "removed" on a comical plane, and his immoral paradoxicalists turn out in practice to be guardians of the code of bourgeois morality. Almost all comedies are built on the expiation of a once committed anti-moral act. Following the path of "evil aesthetics", Dorian Gray comes to the ugly and base. The failure of an aesthetic attitude to life without ethical support is the theme of the fairy tales The Star Child and The Fisherman and his soul. The stories "The Canterville Ghost", "The Model Millionaire" and all Wilde's tales end with the apotheosis of love, self-sacrifice, compassion for the disadvantaged, helping the poor. The sermon of the beauty of suffering, Christianity (taken in the ethical-aesthetic aspect), which Wilde came to in prison (De profundis), was prepared in his previous work. Wilde was no stranger to flirting with socialism [“The soul of man under socialism” (The soul of man under socialism, 1891)], which, in Wilde’s view, leads to an idle, aesthetic life, to the triumph of individualism.

In poems, fairy tales, Wilde's novel, a colorful description of the material world pushes aside the narrative (in prose), the lyrical expression of emotions (in poetry), giving, as it were, patterns from things, an ornamental still life. The main object of the description is not nature and man, but the interior, still life: furniture, precious stones, fabrics, etc. The desire for picturesque multicolor determines Wilde's attraction to oriental exoticism, as well as fabulousness. Wilde's style is characterized by an abundance of picturesque, sometimes multi-tiered comparisons, often detailed, extremely detailed. Wilde's sensationalism, unlike the impressionistic one, does not lead to the decomposition of objectivity in the stream of sensations; for all the brilliance of Wilde's style, it is characterized by clarity, isolation, faceted form, the certainty of an object that is not blurry, but retains the clarity of contours. Simplicity, logical accuracy and clarity of linguistic expression made Wilde's tales textbooks.

Wilde, with his pursuit of refined sensations, with his gourmet physiology, is alien to metaphysical aspirations. Wilde's fantasy, devoid of mystical coloring, is either a naked conditional assumption, or a fairy-tale game of fiction. From Wilde's sensationalism follows a well-known distrust of the cognitive possibilities of the mind, skepticism. At the end of his life, leaning towards Christianity, Wilde took it only in the ethical and aesthetic, and not in the strictly religious sense. Wilde's thinking takes on the character of an aesthetic game, pouring out in the form of refined aphorisms, striking paradoxes, oxymorons. The main value is not the truth of thought, but the sharpness of its expression, the play on words, the excess of imagery, side meanings, which is characteristic of his aphorisms. If in other cases Wilde's paradoxes are intended to show the contradiction between the external and internal sides of the hypocritical high society environment depicted by him, then often their purpose is to show the antinomy of our reason, the conventionality and relativity of our concepts, the unreliability of our knowledge. Wilde had a great influence on the decadent literature of all countries, in particular on the Russian decadents of the 1890s.