Oscar Wilde Research Paper

Oscar Fingall O’Flahertie Wills Wilde was born to Sir William Wilde and Jane Francisca Elgee Wilde on October 16th, 1854 in Dublin, Ireland. His father was an esteemed surgeon and his mother was a writer of popular poetry. Wilde learned at Trinity College in Dublin for three years, attracting the attention of many with his works of literature. He later went to Magdalen College, Oxford, where he attracted colleagues to form a cult. The cult glorified youth and contradicted the beliefs of the Victorian era, which is evident in his work, The Picture of Dorian Gray. Taking after his mother, he was also rewarded for his poem, “Ravenna”, while studying at Magdalen (Encyclopedia of World Biography 1). After schooling in Oxford, he published Poems in 1881. He then began lecturing in the United States, and in England the following year. He married Constance Lloyd in 1884, with whom he had two sons, Cyril and Vyvyan. Though he had a loving wife and children, Oscar engaged in homosexuality around 1886. His male lover was by the name of Lord Alfred Douglas. He broke the Victorian moral code as “impulse for his writing" (Encyclopedia of World Biography 1). He purposefully challenged Victorian society by creating scandal. He found inspiration for his works in going against the social

His first true success as a writer, however, was The Happy Prince and Other Tales in 1888. As Wilde worked with fervent passion, he produced works such as Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime and The Picture of Dorian Gray, both of which translate his understanding and accepting of the criminal mentality. From 1892 to 1895, he became active in dramas, writing what he called “trivial comedies for serious people” (Encyclopedia of World Biography 1). Wilde wrote with intensity until l895, when he took his lover’s father to court, where he was countercharged for gross indecency with men. Oscar Wilde was sentenced to two years in