Author+Background

Oscar Wilde was born in Dublin, Ireland on October 16th 1854. He was born into a well to do family, his father was the leading  oto-ophthalmologic surgeon in Ireland, and was knighted in 1864 for his services as medical adviser and assistant commissioner to the censuses of Ireland. Until he was nine, Oscar Wilde was educated at home, where a French bonne and a German governess taught him their languages. He was able to receive proper educationat Trinity College, Dublin and Magdalen College, then Oxford where he settled in London. During his days at Oxford he developed the personality that would for years characterize him as an individual and as a writer. His flamboyant style of dress, his contempt for conventional values, and his belief in aestheticism—a movement that embraced the principle of art for the sake of beauty andbeauty alone, were amongst the many characteristics that made him so unique in the “literary pool” of writers . However before Wilde’s literary career launched off, he spent his years traveling between France, England, and the U.S. giving lectures, and also editing women’s magazines and publishing lyrics and short stories for magazines. In 1884 he married Constance Loyd, his literary career at this time was still a work in progress, but with Constance’s monthly allowance of 250 pounds, he was able to maintain his lavish and flamboyant life style.



In 1891 Wilde’s only novel __The Picture of Dorian Gray__ was published and was received by a large societal outcry deeming the novel as scandalous and immoral. In that same year, Wilde met Lord Alfred Douglas, who withtime became his lover, and he finally hit literary success. Over the span of the next few years he wrote four plays: //Lady Windermere’s Fan//,//A Woman of No Importance//,//An Ideal Husband//, and //The Importance of Being Earnest//. //Lady Windermere’s Fan // and //A Woman of No Importance// enjoyed successful popularity in the West in 1892 and 1893. //An Ideal Husband// opened in January 1895, however it was //The Importance of Being Earnest,// which opened a month later, that is marked by many as Oscar Wilde’s masterpiece. Its first performance at the St. James’s Theater on February 14, 1895 came at the peak of Wilde’s success as a popular dramatist. After this Wilde finally attained the role of the darling in London society, which he had long strived for with his flamboyant ways. His success and fame however were short livedduring 1895, a series of catastrophes resulting from Wilde’s relationship with Lord Alfred, led to personal humiliation and social, professional, and financial ruin.After //The Importance of Being Earnest//’s opening night, Lord Alfred’s father, the Marque’s of Queensberry, publicly accused Wilde of “posing as a sodomite”, an insulting and potentially defamatory term for a homosexual. Against the advice of his friends, Wilde sued for libel and lost. Wilde was arrested as the Criminal Law Amendment Act of 1885 had made homosexual acts punishable by up to two years’ imprisonment. He convicted, and sentenced to prison for two years.

 Wilde served his full sentence under conditions of utmost hardship and cruelty. Following his release from prison, his health and spirit broken, he sought exile in France, where he lived the last two years of his life in poverty and obscurity. He died in Paris in 1900.