As his literary career flourished, the risk of a huge scandal grew ever larger. Given the chance to run away and avoid arrest after he lost the trial, he stayed, spoke up and was imprisoned and ruined for the ‘crime’ of being himself –homosexual.
Wilde was an outsider. Being Irish, being homosexual, at that period meant being an outsider, an observer of society – and, of course, he was a parvenu. One of the cruellest things Lord Alfred used to say about him was that he´s always writing about the upper classes, but doesn´t really know what they´re like.
Despite this everything we can´t forget that Wilde´s love to his children and wife was absolute.


His statements

• There is no sin except stupidity.
• Ideals are dangerous things.realities are Berger
• One should always be in love.This is the reason one should never marry.
• We are all in the gutter,but some of us are looping at the stars
• I have nothing to declare but my genius
• One can always be kind to people about whom one cares nothing
• In this world there are onlz two tragedies. One is not getting what one wants, and the othes is getting it.
• I treated art as the supreme reality and life as a mere mode of fiction

HIS WORKS


Plays: The Importance of Being Earnest (1895) – masterpiece
One of tne most popular works. It is a classic comedy of English social manners. It is a light hearted play that is carried along by the brilliance of its wit rather than by an intricate plot. Wilde´s aim in it was “that we should treat all the trivial things of life seriously and all the serious things of life with sincere and studied triviality“ and the other aim – not to consider moral problems or critisize social convention, but rather to create comedy by reversing completely the normal expestations of his audience.

Lady Windermere´s Fan (1892) – masterpiece

Salomé
The British government said it was indecent and would not publish it. The composer Richard Strauss made it into opera.

Poem: The Ballad of Reading Gaol (1898)
Was written when Wilde was in prison, it is protes against the ingumanity of the justice

Prose: The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891) – masterpiece
Critics accused the bollk of immorality. In reply, Wilde said “There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written or badly written.
„Dorian Gray“ was based on Wilde‘s own vanity, and tells the story of a man who loves himself so much that he doesn´t grow old. He is very beatiful young man, who becomes vain, cruel and ever more decacent in the life he leads.