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2. Oscar Wilde
 Life
Oscar Wilde was born into a wealthy family of a famous
surgeon in Dublin in 1856. During his study at Oxford, Wilde was strongly
impressed and influenced by Ruskin and Pater, whose masterpiece, “Studies in
the History of the Renaissance” (1873) he regarded as “golden book” and gave
him an introduction to Aestheticism.
In 1881, Wilde published his fist Aesthetic work, “Poems”, which followed
the tradition of Rossetti. The success of this collection soon established
him as a famous spokesman for Aestheticism.
At the end of the same year, Wilde was invited to a
lecture tour to America, which lasted for one year. In his lectures, Wilde
demonstrated his principles in artistic creation that the function of art is
to attract, to please and to provide enjoyment, that it is not art that
reflects nature but it is nature that is the reflection of art. Furthermore,
he maintains, “Art should not begin with the study of life but with what is
untrue and does not exist.”(The Decay of Lying, 1989)
From the late eighties to the early nineties, Wilde
published a series of great works, including fairy stories, The Happy
Prince and Other Tales (1888), A House of Pomegranates (1891), a
collection of short stories, Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime and Other Stories
(1891), his only but notorious novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray
(1891), plays, Lady Windermere’s Fan (1893), A Woman of No
Importance (1894), An Ideal Husband (1895), The Importance of
Being Earnest (1895) and Salome (1894).
But when Wilde was at the summit of his career, a trial
of immorality put him into prison in April 1895. He wrote a prose in the
prison, De Profundis (published in 1905). After his release two years
later, he went to France and finished the long poem, The Ballad of
Reading Gael (1898). Never recovering from the miserable experiences in
prison, he died from poverty and sickness in Jan.30th, 1900, at the age of
44.
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