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Wilde Oscar
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Аннотация
I usually avoid reading writers biographies or letters to their loved ones, especially those published posthumously. I am sure some people dream of the time when their lives are open to scrutiny by legions of readers, when their private confessions are published in neat volumes, and their witty letters to friends have little footnotes explaining the inside-jokes to the uninitiated. But the thought makes me cringe, and in the spirit of the old saying do onto others, I have never before ventured into someones exposed private life. <p> Last summer though, I came across this letter by accident and found myself unable to stop reading it until I was done. The glimpse into someones vulnerable privacy was intoxicating. Having read (and loved) The Importance of Being Earnest, The Ideal Husband, and other light pieces, or even The Portrait of Dorian Gray–a more somber but still very controlled story, I was shocked by this letter–tortured by emotion and so uneven–by the same author. <p> The letter is somewhat contrived. But the insincerity makes it all the more fascinating ! Not even the insincerity in itself, but the bits where the true emotion bursts through. I could imagine so vividly the great author, the person of wit and fashion, stripped of the glamor, in jail, trying to clear up his name in the public letter to his lover. He starts out with calm and controlled prose, trying to put his Christian-repentance-and-forgiveness scheme on paper… And, I am sure, he believes the things he plans to write. However, as he gets deeper into the narrative, as his pen takes a hold of him, he starts writing what he did not mean–the truth, full of bile and unrequited passion. In a while he notices it and collects himself, and the prose becomes controlled and witty and intellectual. But he is in jail, the time for writing is precious and does not permit the luxury of extensive editing. It lets soul nudity that would normally be edited out remain to seduce shamless readers like me. <p> It is not only the breakaway emotion that I found so compelling in the letter. It is also the very alternating nature of the narrative–from the polished and righteous to the true and base, and back. Is it not how our mind always works: how it thinks what we wish it to think and then breaks away to find something deeper in us, until we catch it and put it back to its proper controlled place… <p> There is a long and intricate novel hidden in this letter. It is a story of the rise and fall of a great man, of the universally human desire and its treacherous waters, of stoicism and weakness, of the fine society and jailed outcasts, and we see it through the eyes of the main hero who actually lived. It is presented fully here in this book. <p> Wilde was a genius indeed.
Аннотация
Oscar Wilde gives us here one of his best plays. He explores the political world in London and how a young ambitious but poor man can commit a crime, which is a mistake, to start his good fortune. But he builds his political career on ethical principles. Sooner or later someone will come into the picture to blackmail him into supporting an unacceptable scheme, by producing a document that could ruin his career if revealed. <p> His past mistake may come back heavily onto him. But he resists and sticks to his moral reputation. He prefers doing what is right to yielding to some menace. He may lose though his political ambition and career and his wifes love. But love is saved by forgiveness and the mans career is also saved by the work of a real friend who recaptures the dubious document and destroys it. In other words love and an ethical career are saved by the burrying of the old mistake into oblivion. In other words love and friendship are stronger than the scheming action of a blackmailer. <p> This is a terrible criticism of victorian society which is based more on appearances than principles and yet able to destroy a mans absolutely ethical present life with a mistake from his youth, throwing the baby along with the water of the bath. It is also a criticism of the victorian political world where you cannot have a career if you are not rich, money appearing as the only way to succeed, at least to succeed fast. But it is a hopeful play because love and friendship are beyond such considerations and only consider the best interest of men and women, in the long run and in the name of absolute purity. Better be a sinner and be forgiven when you have reformed than see a reformed sinner destroyed by the lack of forgiveness. <p> Oscar Wilde advocates here a vision of humanity that necessitates forgiveness as the essential fuel of any rational approach. Real morality is not the everlasting guilt of a sinner without any possible reform. Real morality is the recognition that forgiveness is necessary when reform has taken place. Otherwise society would be unlivable and based on hypocrisy and the death or rejection of the best people in the name of (reformed) mistakes. One must not be that sectarian, because man can learn from his mistakes and improve along the road : one can learn how to avoid mistakes and repair those oen has committed. If condemnation is absolute, no progress is possible. <p> A very fascinating play, a very modern play. And yet when can one be considered as reformed, when can we consider one has really corrected ones mistakes and improved ? And who can deem such elements ? The very core of political and ethical rectitude is concerned here and Oscar Wilde embraces a generous approach.
Аннотация
Nine lovely, tragic tales, the nine magically airy yarns in this collection are definitely enchanting stories. <p> The Happy Prince and The Selfish Giant are perhaps the most famous of the nine. In the first story, the golden statue of a prince weeps for all the suffering people he sees and begs a swallow to strip him of his riches and distribute them to the masses. In the second tale, a giant builds a wall around his beautiful garden to keep out the noisy children, only to find out that he has also locked out the Spring. <p> The Young King is a variation on the theme of A Happy Prince. When a young monarch learns of the suffering and misery caused by his requirement for a robe, a crown, and a sceptre, he refuses to handle any of these riches and is given a more fitting raiment by a Divine Power. Keeping with the royal theme is The Star-Child, about a beautiful but horrible young boy whose physical appearance grows to match his ugly spirit. Another little bird appears in The Nightingale and the Rose, to help a young man win the heart of the woman he loves. <p> The stories themes include beauty, tragedy, agony, compassion, innocence, and (Platonic) love. Some characters give their lives, or sell their souls, in the name of love. There are also the same archetypes that appear in dreams: the Divine Child, the Trickster, the Wise Old Man or Woman, the Number 3, and more. Add all this to Wildes delicate writing and gilded imagination, and you get some of the most original tales ever written. <p> Though most of these stories end happily, all end tragically. That is to say, even when the endings are happy, someone always dies. Each story manages to associate everything thrilling and exquisite about beauty with the starkness of death. Accordingly, not all of these tales are suitable for children. For example, one scene in The Fisherman and His Soul features witches dancing before the devil and the princess in The Birthday of the Infanta is a heartless child whose mockery leads to the death of a little dwarf. <p> The keening, poignant loveliness shines through, making you want to read each story again and again and again.
Аннотация
Witty and buoyant comedy of manners is brilliantly plotted from its effervescent first act to its hilarious denouement, and filled with some of literatures most famous epigrams. Widely considered Wildes most perfect work, the play is reprinted here from an authoritative early British edition. <p> This is a high quality book of the original classic edition. <p> This is a freshly published edition of this culturally important work, which is now, at last, again available to you. <p> Enjoy this classic work. These few paragraphs distill the contents and give you a quick look inside: <p>
And as a high moral tone can hardly be said to conduce very much to either one?s health or one?s happiness, in order to get up to town I have always pretended to have a younger brother of the name of Ernest, who lives in the Albany, and gets into the most dreadful scrapes.
<p>…If it wasn?t for Bunbury?s extraordinary bad health, for instance, I wouldn?t be able to dine with you at Willis?s to-night, for I have been really engaged to Aunt Augusta for more than a week.
<p>…Well, I know, of course, how important it is not to keep a business engagement, if one wants to retain any sense of the beauty of life, but still I think you had better wait till Uncle Jack arrives.
<p>…Considering that we have been engaged since February the 14th, and that I only met you to-day for the first time, I think it is rather hard that you should leave me for so long a period as half an hour.
<p>…And what makes his conduct all the more heartless is, that he was perfectly well aware from the first that I have no brother, that I never had a brother, and that I don?t intend to have a brother, not even of any kind.
And as a high moral tone can hardly be said to conduce very much to either one?s health or one?s happiness, in order to get up to town I have always pretended to have a younger brother of the name of Ernest, who lives in the Albany, and gets into the most dreadful scrapes.
<p>…If it wasn?t for Bunbury?s extraordinary bad health, for instance, I wouldn?t be able to dine with you at Willis?s to-night, for I have been really engaged to Aunt Augusta for more than a week.
<p>…Well, I know, of course, how important it is not to keep a business engagement, if one wants to retain any sense of the beauty of life, but still I think you had better wait till Uncle Jack arrives.
<p>…Considering that we have been engaged since February the 14th, and that I only met you to-day for the first time, I think it is rather hard that you should leave me for so long a period as half an hour.
<p>…And what makes his conduct all the more heartless is, that he was perfectly well aware from the first that I have no brother, that I never had a brother, and that I don?t intend to have a brother, not even of any kind.
Аннотация
A lush, cautionary tale of a life of vileness and deception or a loving portrait of the aesthetic impulse run rampant? Why not both? After Basil Hallward paints a beautiful, young mans portrait, his subjects frivolous wish that the picture change and he remain the same comes true. Dorian Grays picture grows aged and corrupt while he continues to appear fresh and innocent. After he kills a young woman, as surely as if I had cut her little throat with a knife, Dorian Gray is surprised to find no difference in his vision or surroundings. The roses are not less lovely for all that. The birds sing just as happily in my garden. <p> As Hallward tries to make sense of his creation, his epigram-happy friend Lord Henry Wotton encourages Dorian in his sensual quest with any number of Wildean paradoxes, including the delightful When we are happy we are always good, but when we are good we are not always happy. But despite its many languorous pleasures, The Picture of Dorian Gray is an imperfect work. Compared to the two (voyeuristic) older men, Dorian is a bore, and his search for ever new sensations far less fun than the novels drawing-room discussions. Even more oddly, the moral message of the novel contradicts many of Wildes supposed aims, not least no artist has ethical sympathies. An ethical sympathy in an artist is an unpardonable mannerism of style. Nonetheless, the glamour boy gets his just deserts. And Wilde, defending Dorian Gray, had it both ways: All excess, as well as all renunciation, brings its own punishment.
