Life and Hardships of Oscar Wilde

My absolute favorite author is Oscar Wilde. I've read many poems, plays, and books of his. He has such a great writing style, and his works always speak so much. They have drama, mystery, life lessons and are so engaging. I wanted to list my top two favorite pieces by Oscar Wilde and talk about him and the troubles he faced in his adult life.

He has born Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde on October 16th, 1854, in Dublin, Ireland, to parents William Wilde and Jane Francesca Elgee. He excelled in school and attended Oxford, where he began creative writing. In 1878 he wrote the famed poem, a personal favorite, Ravenna. Altogether, he wrote 1 novel, 4 articles, 1 story, 4 collections, 4 poems, and 10 plays, each as impressive as the rest.

The Portrait of Dorian Gray; is one of his famous books and for a good reason. The book has a lesson in it about vanity, and beauty is more than skin deep. The book is one for all times because the lesson is always valuable. Dorian is an incredibly handsome young man who is told of his impending aging as he is getting his portrait painted, which causes him to make the fated wish of forever youth. Dorian's beauty is only skin, and his portrait begins to display his ugliness and aging, and he lives in youth and beauty for his life. The picture becomes so ugly he hides it in his attic, eventually so disgusted with himself that he stabs the portrait but kills himself. Oscar Wilde is fantastic about bringing his characters off the page and into real life. My favorite character, by far in this book, is Lord Henry Wotton. Lord Henry has a hell of a personality and makes e laugh throughout the entire book.

Ravenna, I'm sure you are looking at my name right now. Ravena is meant to be close to this famous poem by Oscar Wilde. I choose it because it's my favorite poem by him. Starting, you get this lovely feeling of beauty and hope and excitement to reach this amazing place, and then sorrow hits. He's so well at making you feel what he writes. It's almost as if you are riding to this city and feeling sorrow at its emptiness, to a brutal battle. He brings alive the struggles and losses, honors and glories. The poem brings waves of sadness and awe. By the end of the poem, you have lived the memories of the city's glories and are saddened by its emptiness and death.

Oscar Wilde suffered in his life as an adult. He was gay, and then being gay wasn't accepted. he was married to a woman and fathered two sons, but frequented male brothels. His homosexuality sent him to prison for sodomy. He served 2 years and then lived in exile for 3 years until his death at 45 from meningitis. His last words have been reported as "I am dying beyond my means. I can't even afford death. this wallpaper and I are fighting a duel to the death. Either it goes, or I do".

Oscar Wilde was a literary genius that didn't get his due. If he had lived in a time where books were loved and being gay was accepted, I wonder how different his life would have been. I often get sad thinking about how unexcepted homosexuality was and how much it negatively affected his and other lives. In the 120 years since his death, we have certainly come along way, and now his works are getting the appreciation they deserve without his sexuality being taboo or wrong.

"we are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars" - Oscar Wilde