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emma_in_dream) wrote2010-08-17 11:09 am
emma_in_dream) wrote2010-08-17 11:09 am
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#2 Oscar Wilde, *De Profundis, The Ballad of Reading Goal, and Other Writings*
This work is a collection of Wilde’s work - three critical essays on art, *The Ballad of Reading Goal* (1898), and his cri de coeur *De Profundis* (1897).
Wilde is a consumate wordsmith and each of these works is, of course, beautifully crafted. However, they don’t fit together well.
*The Decay of Lying* (1889), *The Critic as Artist* (1890) and *The Soul of Man under Socialism* (1891) represent Wilde’s polished thoughts on art. What I found most interesting was his overview of contemporary, late 19th-century writers. Some I knew - Robert Louis Stevenson, Henry James. Others I have heard of - Mrs Oliphant. Some have sunk to obscurity - who has read William Black or Marion Crawford? The tone of these works is cool, disengaged, full of epigrammatic wit.
This tone does not fit well with the other major work in this collection. *De Profundis* was written to Lord Alfred Douglas while Wilde was imprisoned. It is actually difficult to read as it is so open, so anguished. It is essentially 70 pages of Wilde saying, ‘You ruined my life, I hate you, I love you.’
Plenty of people write this kind of letter. Very few write it from prison, having been bankrupted by their lover, having lost access to their children, cut off from all good society, and in words so seering. Very few people then have an edited version of the letter printed, have their lover disavow them publicly,* and have the Ur-text of the letter preserved by the British Museum on the condition that its incendiary contents not be fully published for fifty years.
*De Profundis* is a really gruelling read and one to be read in an entirely different way to the other essays in this collection.
* Douglas, the lousy worm, spent the rest of his life distancing himself from the scandal and even wrote a review of the edited version in which he pretended he had no idea that he was the original recipient of the letter.
Wilde is a consumate wordsmith and each of these works is, of course, beautifully crafted. However, they don’t fit together well.
*The Decay of Lying* (1889), *The Critic as Artist* (1890) and *The Soul of Man under Socialism* (1891) represent Wilde’s polished thoughts on art. What I found most interesting was his overview of contemporary, late 19th-century writers. Some I knew - Robert Louis Stevenson, Henry James. Others I have heard of - Mrs Oliphant. Some have sunk to obscurity - who has read William Black or Marion Crawford? The tone of these works is cool, disengaged, full of epigrammatic wit.
This tone does not fit well with the other major work in this collection. *De Profundis* was written to Lord Alfred Douglas while Wilde was imprisoned. It is actually difficult to read as it is so open, so anguished. It is essentially 70 pages of Wilde saying, ‘You ruined my life, I hate you, I love you.’
Plenty of people write this kind of letter. Very few write it from prison, having been bankrupted by their lover, having lost access to their children, cut off from all good society, and in words so seering. Very few people then have an edited version of the letter printed, have their lover disavow them publicly,* and have the Ur-text of the letter preserved by the British Museum on the condition that its incendiary contents not be fully published for fifty years.
*De Profundis* is a really gruelling read and one to be read in an entirely different way to the other essays in this collection.
* Douglas, the lousy worm, spent the rest of his life distancing himself from the scandal and even wrote a review of the edited version in which he pretended he had no idea that he was the original recipient of the letter.