Oscar Wilde Research Paper

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Oscar Wilde: The Tragic Story Oscar Wilde was a distinguished author and playwright born in 1854. Wilde’s only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, was published in July 1890 in the Lippincott's Magazine and received a tremendous amount of criticism. Wilde’s novel was a reflection of Aesthetics and was sadly also a literary one-hit wonder. Oscar Wilde was a one-hit literary wonder with his book, The Picture of Dorian Gray, because of the fact he only wrote one novel, his homosexuality in the 1800’s, and his imprisonment and social fallout. Oscar Wilde was a man of many things, and was a very big follower of Aesthetics, but Oscar Wilde only wrote one novel, which is The Picture of Dorian Gray. Oscar Wilde was educated in various colleges …show more content…

In Britain, “Homosexuality was a criminal offense and serious societal taboo” (History.com). Due to this, Wilde’s affairs occurred secretly, but Wilde was not very secretive and soon was put to trial for his actions. Lord Alfred Douglas was “femininely beautiful, aristocratic, rich, homosexual, and poetic” (CliffsNotes), and was very involved with Wilde, intimately. Wilde soon began to be “infatuated, obsessed, and besotted” (CliffsNotes) with Douglas, and soon began to travel with Douglas internationally. As time went on, Wilde was not very discreet about his affairs, and the public did not care much about Wilde’s affairs, but Douglas’s father did. The Marquess of Queensbury, Douglas’s father, left a note after one of Wilde’s plays, accusing him of being a sodomite. Douglas, not taking a liking to his father, supported and urged on Wilde to put Queensberry to trial for “criminal libel” (ProQuest), but Wilde himself was soon put on trial for sodomy and had multiple male prostitutes whom he had had affairs with testifying against him. Although Wilde knew of the storm brewing, and was given the chance to flee to France and escape way from the charges, Wilde stayed. Wilde’s trial was very harshly executed and included many people testifying against him, including when “chambermaids testified that they had seen young men in Wilde’s bed and a hotel housekeeper stated that there were fecal stains on his bed sheets” (History.com). Due to many of these testaments, Wilde was imprisoned without bail, for two years. Wilde was found guilty under the “1885 Criminal Law Amendment Act, which prohibited acts of 'gross indecency' between men” (ProQuest). With Wilde in prison, Wilde was found with an inability to be writing much except letters, halting any process of him writing any other novel or literary

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