Oscar Wilde was imprisoned in Reading Gaol (pronounced “jail”) in 1895 after losing a criminal suit resulting from accusations against him by the Marquess of Queensberry (of boxing rules fame). The Marquess publically denounced Wilde for alleged moral offenses against the Marquess’s son, Alfred, then age 25. (The son, in fact, is said by some to have been instigator of his friendship with Wilde.) The two-year imprisonment left the incredibly gifted and witty Wilde a broken man, bankrupt and ill.
In Ballad, we read the insights of a man who was once the toast of England and America for his writing and barbed and clever witticisms, and who, thereafter, was brought through a crucible of humiliation and degradation.
The poem, written by Wilde as "a memorial to C.T.W.," is about an inmate who was sentenced to hang for the killing of his wife, and how the knowledge of that affected the other prisoners. Royal Horse Guards Trooper Charles Thomas Wooldridge was a fellow convict whom Wilde had observed a number of times during the poet's own incarceration. In Wilde’s mind the crime and its consequences became a symbol of the complexities in every human: no one human being is without some flaw; we are all malefactors to some degree, all in need of compassion, of forgiveness, of expiation.
This is a dramatic change from Wilde’s earlier sardonic, cynical attitude of life. In the Ballad, he displays a sense of acceptance and faith, acknowledgement of transgressions, and a conviction that there must be atonement.
The Ballad of Reading Gaol has brought to our language the words: “For each man kills the thing he loves...” Wilde respects his readers enough to write without lecturing; to know that they will perceive his message: that anything precious to us is, by definition, a need for that loved thing. This in turn generates a trust in it. Wilde presents the concept that there comes, because of this trust, a soul-searing time where there is danger of destroying what we love, because our very need (implying dependence, i.e., loss of control of our destiny) is too much for many of us flawed humans to bear.
It is a beautiful poem; its cadences and imagery mesmerizing, its story a tragedy of the human condition, but also an affirmation of the truths we must live by if we are to make peace with ourselves and with our God. Its theme, ultimately, is one of hope and reconciliation.
The ballad is composed in six Cantos. I offer a slightly shorter version, but this one keeps Cantos V and VI intact, and if you skip any of this work, please, at least read these last two, the final Cantos. K.I.S.
Wilde, after being graduated from Trinity College, Dublin, with honors, went on to Magdalene College, Oxford. Returning home, he met and courted Florence Balcombe, who rejected him to wed Bram Stoker (author of Dracula). Wilde is said to have been upset by the young woman's denial of his own suit.
In London, Oscar Wilde met and married Constance Lloyd, daughter of a prominent Queen's Counsel. They had two sons. For many years, Oscar Wilde became famous in the western world for his speaking tours to America and Europe, where his barbed wit and sardonic comments were quoted and requoted until they remain memorable even today.
Author of several plays which were popular for humorous subtle word-play, Wilde also wrote The Picture of Dorian Gray, a remarkable account of a man who sold his soul for everlasting youth through a long life.
Oscar Wilde was born in Dublin, Ireland, in 1854 and raised there with an older brother, Willie, by esteemed parents: his mother, a writer, was a woman who was a precursor of feminism; his father was a foremost eye and ear medical specialist in Ireland.
by
Oscar Wilde
This page was last updated: April 22, 2008
Site created July, 2007
Words can be a sword for good.. or what you will.... What do you think of Oscar Wilde? His words...? his redemption? Please share your thoughts here? -------->
Reading Gaol, c 1890
"The man in red who reads the Law
Gave him three weeks of life..."
This is a slightly condensed version, designed for easier reading; all language, however, is Wilde's own,
The Marquess of Queensberry's accusations resulted in a trial which convicted Wilde. The conviction destroyed Wilde's reputation in society, caused repudiation by his wife, and lead to his bankruptcy, destitution, and a devastating failure of his health. Within three years he was dead, having been ostracized, and banished to Paris where he died virtually alone, yet having completed the greatest work, many feel, of his entire life.
Upon discharge from prison in 1897, Wilde left England for France where he remained, impoverished, until his death from what is thought to have been cerebral meningitis in 1900 at the age of 46. The allegation of its being a result of syphilis has been largely disproven. Instead, modern diagnosticians note that a prior mastoidectomy may have infected the meninges.
It was there, in self-exile, that he wrote what is, perhaps, his most famous and enduring work, The Ballad of Reading Gaol. Its verisimilitude of 19th century prison abuses allows today’s reader a thoughtful comparison to modern penitentiaries and certainly spurred prison reform at the time. But more, the ballad is an account of human redemption.
