Oscar Wilde
In this celebrated work, his only novel, Wilde forged a devastating portrait of the effects of evil and debauchery on a young aesthete in late-19th-century England. Combining elements of the Gothic horror novel and decadent French fiction, the book centers on a striking premise: As Dorian Gray sinks into a life of crime and gross sensuality, his body retains perfect youth and vigor while his recently painted portrait grows day by day into a hideous
...In 1895, Oscar Wilde was sentenced to two years of hard labor as punishment for having engaged in homosexual acts. While serving out his sentence at Reading Gaol in Berkshire, Wilde witnessed the execution by hanging of a young soldier who had murdered his wife by slashing her throat. Profoundly shaken by the execution and the crime that preceded it, Wilde composed this elegiac poem centered on the haunting refrain, "Yet each man kills the thing
...This final play from the pen of Oscar Wilde is a stylish send-up of Victorian courtship and manners, complete with assumed names, mistaken lovers, and a lost handbag. Jack and Algernon are best friends, both wooing ladies who think their names are Ernest, "that name which inspires absolute confidence." Wilde's effervescent wit, scathing social satire, and high farce make this one of the most cherished plays in the English language. Includes an
...La novela relata la historia de Dorian Gray, mezclando realidad y fantasía. Un joven atractivo y exitoso desarrolla la obsesión por mantenerse siempre joven, después de que el pintor Basil Hallward, su amigo, lo relata soberbiamente en un lienzo. Todas las huellas de sus depravados actos y los estragos del paso de tiempo se traspasan a la pintura, permaneciendo él inmutable, lanzándose así en una espiral de odio y vicio.
Oscar Wilde supo
...A perennial classic that is sure to inspire a new generation of parents and children.
After seven years, the Giant has nothing left to say to his friend the Cornish ogre, and so he returns home to his castle—only to find that in his absence, the children have been playing in his beautiful garden. At once the selfish Giant builds a high wall to keep the children out of the garden. Winter turns into spring all over the country—but
...Oscar Wilde's The Happy Prince and Other Tales is a collection of stories for children each of which is so poignant and exquisite that they are as treasured by adults as they are by children. The stories included in this collection are The Happy Prince, The Nightingale and the Rose, The Selfish Giant, The Devoted Friend and The Remarkable Rocket.
Lady Windermere's Fan: A Play About a Good Woman is a play by Oscar Wilde, who uses his sharp wit to satirize Victorian ideals about marriage. Lady Windemere suspects her husband of infidelity and retaliates by taking a lover. Her husband's suspected lover follows her, begging her to return to Lord Windemere. The lover sacrifices her own reputation for that of Lady Windemere, in order to save that lady's marriage.
Though he is now best remembered for his fiction, famed wit and bon vivant Oscar Wilde also dabbled in drama over the course of his long and varied literary career. A Woman of No Importance is a darkly comedic play about a group of aristocrats whose prim adherence to decorum hides a bevy of scandalous secrets.
The Soul of Man under Socialism is an 1891 essay by Oscar Wilde. Wilde puts forth the argument that within a capitalist system "the majority of people spoil their lives by an unhealthy and exaggerated altruism - are forced, indeed, so to spoil them" - that the necessity of solving the problems that capitalism creates draws away the talent that could otherwise be used to fulfill one's potential. In taking the the cause of this away, "Socialism
...Oscar Wilde (1854 - 1900) is remembered best for his sharp wit, his comedic plays and for his contribution to aestheticism and decadence. In this collection of essays, however, Wilde writes predominantly on socialism, anarchy and libertarianism. He believed in these passionately and was influenced among others by William Morris and John Ruskin.
12) Intentions
Oscar Wilde was one of the most successful playwrights of the Victorian era. He was also a notorious supporter of the decadence and aesthetic movements, eventually jailed for having a young male lover. His name remains a by-word for social commentary by sharp wit. Intentions is a collection of critical essays by Wilde including The Critic as artist, The Decay of Lying, Pen, Pencil and Poison and The Truth of Masks.
A terrifying ghost is haunting the ancient mansion of Canterville Chase, complete with creaking floorboards, clanking chains and gruesome disguises – but the new occupants seem strangely undisturbed by his presence. Deftly contrasting the conventional gothic ghost story with the pragmatism of the modern world, Wilde creates a gently comic fable of the conflict between old and new. Rupert Degas's hilarious reading brings the absurdity and theatricality
...The Importance of Being Earnest is the last play Oscar Wilde ever wrote, and remains his most enduringly popular. It makes fun of social graces in the late Victorian era. Two seemingly unrelated parties are thrown into ridiculous entanglement when their fake identities, maintained in order to escape social responsibilities, grow ever more complicated to uphold.
While Oscar Wilde is now strongly associated with the tone of whimsy that imbues his breezy, effortlessly witty epigrams and essays, the Irish writer and playwright was also a serious thinker who, having been sentenced to two years of hard labor as a punishment for his homosexuality, was deeply engaged with the social issues of his day. This essay, penned as a letter to a newspaper soon after Wilde's release from prison, takes up the moral issue
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