Scarica Oscar Wilde: A Life of Art and Scandal e più Guide, Progetti e Ricerche in PDF di Inglese solo su Docsity! Oscar Wilde was born in Dublin, Ireland, on October 16th 1854. He was educated first at Portora Royal School, and then at Trinity College, Dublin, where he remained from 1871 to 1874. In 1874 he entered Magdalen College in Oxford and here he was par�culary impressed by John Ruskin and Walter Pater, who influenced both his life and works very deeply. When he graduated and le� Oxford in 1878, he was already well know as a poet, since, in the same year, he had won the Newdigate Prize for poetry. Having inherited from his father, he se�led to London. In order to shock the bourgeoisie and draw a�en�on to himself, he began to dress in gorgeous, eccentric way: he and could also occasionally be seen walking up and down Piccadilly with a sunflower in his hands. This exhibi�onism earned him frequent caricatures in the sa�rical magazine "Punch", but also frequent invita�ons from London society. In 1884 he married Constance Lloyd, who bore him two children. In spite of the violent reac�on aroused by his novel "The picture of Dorian Gray", 1891, his literary pres�ge increased thanks to the successof his so-called "society plays", which, from 1892 to 1895, brought him wealt and fame. In March 1895, at the peak of his career, he sued the Marquis of Queensberry, who had accused him of a homosexual rela�onship with his son, Lord Alfred Douglas. Unfortunately the accusa�on was proven and Wilde was arrested, tried and sentenced to two years' hard labour for "gross indecency". Pubblic opinion turnend against him, his plays and books were withdrawn and he became the target of fierce ostracism. His wife divorced him and gained the custody of their children, who changed their name. While in prison, first at Wandswoth and finally at Reading Gaol, he suffered every sort of humilia�on. When finally released, he was a broken man; he adopted the name of Melmoth. He spent some �me in Naples and Switzerland, wri�ng against the brutality of prison life. Then he se�led in Paris where, forgo�en by almost everyone, he died on November 30th, 1900,from an a�ack of meningi�s, a�er conver�ng to Roman Catholicism just before his death. It is worth adding that,although confirming Wilde's "deserved" sentence for homosexuality, Britain decided to remember him by a memorial in Poets' Corner, Westminster Abbey, on February 14th,1995,exactly a hundred years a�er the first London staging of his best-known play, The Importance of Being Earnest. According to Oscar Wilde's philosophy of art, the only purpose of art, if any, is to offer beauty. And beauty, or rather the study of beau�ful things such as jewels, perfumers,etc. become for Dorian a form of escape not only from the ugliness of the world but above all from his own conscience. His own perpetual beauty and youth, on the other hand ,have so far allowed him a life of unrestained hedonism whi�n a supericial Victorian society where appearance is everything and where beauty is generally assumed to means also goodness. Nw, the duplicity of his outer beauty and his inner true self, so well symbolized by the two mirrors, the real one which reflects his handsomeness and the mysterious one, the pain�ng, which reflects his soul, is becoming unbearable. Loathing his own beauty, cause of so many crimes, Dorian sha�ers the first mirror. As for the second, he s�ll hopes that his good ac�on may have changed it for the be�er. But he soon realizes that vanity, and not conformity to moral principles, has mo�vated his ac�on and that the pain�ng, now even more hideous than before, predicts damna�on: there will be no salva�on for him. Parallel to Dorian's, the portrait also lives a life of its own. It is not merely a sta�c pain�ng: it is something alive capable even of dripping blood. Dorian cannot stand the sight of it and yet he is mysteriously dran to it like a moth of flame. It his alter-ego, the dark side of his own personality. Whenever he looks at it, its increasing ugliness, like a metaphorical conscience, shows the terrible consequences of old age and sin, consequences that he has so far avoied throught a devilish pact. Disgusted with what it stands for and thinking that the knife that "had killed the painter" could well "kill the painter's works", Dorian, actually killing himself, stabs the portrait which, the very moment it is slashed, returns to its original beauty, as a proof that the work of art isimmortal.
