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Horari: dilluns de 15.30 a 21 Dimarts a divendres de 10 a 21

Dissabtes de 10 a 19

April 2011

ENGLISH READING CLUB

ENJOY READING!

OSCAR WILDE The picture of Dorian Gray

OSCAR WILDE (Dublin, Ireland, 1854-Paris, 1900)

---------------------------------- BIOGRAPHY

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Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was an Irish poet and dramatist, famous for The Importance of Being Earnest and The Picture of Dorian Gray. His father was an esteemed surgeon. His father’s career and Oscar’s scholarships enabled the young man to attain an impressive college education. During his college years, he became part of the “Oxford Movement” (a group that expounded upon the virtues of classical culture and artistry) and a devotee of the school of aestheticism (in other words, he believed in “art for the sake of art”). His greatest successes occurred when he began writing comedies for the stage, but sadly, Wilde’s life did not end in the manner of his “drawing room comedies.” Despite being married to wealthy heiress Constance Lloyd, Oscar Wilde was publicly accused of sodomy by the Marquis of Queensbury for having had an intimate relationship with his son, Lord Alfred Bruce Douglas. His controversial, open lifestyle was the reason for which he was charged and eventually convicted. His stint in prison destroyed him, leaving him a shadow of his former, vibrant self. He lived in a hotel in Paris under the assumed name of Sebastian Melmoth. Most of his friends no longer associated with him. Afflicted with cerebral meningitis, he died three years after his prison term, impoverished. Rumor has it that Wilde’s last words were: “Either that wallpaper goes, or I do.”

-----------The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891)

The Picture of Dorian Gray is Oscar Wilde's only known

novel. The work first appeared in Lippincott's Monthly

Magazine in 1890, and it was revised and published as a novel

the following year. The work was considered scandalous and

immoral when it first appeared, but it was really a way for

Wilde to write about his philosophy of art.

The novel has become a classic commentary on narcissism,

decadence, and the wages of sin — told in a thoroughly

enjoyable novel full of suspense and surprise.

-----------------------------SELECTED WORKS

• Poems (1881)

• The Happy Prince and Other Stories (1888, fairy stories)

• Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories (1891, stories)

• House of Pomegranates (1891, fairy stories)

• Intentions (1891, essays and dialogues on aesthetics)

• The Picture of Dorian Gray (first published in Lipincott's July 1890, in book form in 1891; novel)

• The Soul of Man under Socialism (1891, political essay)

• Lady Windermere's Fan (1892, play)

• A Woman of No Importance (1893, play)

• An Ideal Husband (performed 1895, published 1898; play)

• The Importance of Being Earnest (performed 1895, published 1898; play)

• De Profundis (written 1897, published variously 1905, 1908, 1949, 1962; epistle)

• The Ballad of Reading Gaol (1898, poem)