Oscar Wilde Quick Facts

Oscar Wilde was an illustrious 19th-century Irish playwright, poet, and novelist.

Profile

• Birth Name: Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde
• AKA: Oscar Wilde
• Date of Birth: October 16, 1854
• Place of Birth: Dublin, Ireland
• Zodiac Sign: Libra
• Date of Death: November 30, 1900
• Died at Age: 46 Years
• Place of Death: Paris, France
• Place of Burial: Père Lachaise Cemetery, Paris
• Epitaph:

“And alien tears will fill for him
Pity's long-broken urn,
For his mourners will be outcast men,
And outcasts always mourn.”

• Cause of Death: Meningitis
• Last Words: ‘My wallpaper and I are fighting a duel to the death. One or the other of us has to go’
• Ethnicity: White
• Nationality: Irish
• Father: Sir William Robert Wills Wilde (1815–1876)
• Mother: Jane Francesca Agnes, Lady Wilde (née Elgee) (1821–1896)
• Siblings:

1. Older Brother: Willie Wilde (1852–1899)

• Younger Sister: Isola Wilde (b. 1856)
• Spouse: Constance Mary Wilde (née Lloyd) (b. 1859 –d. 1898; m. 1884 to until her death)

• Children:

1. Son: Cyril Holland (born Cyril Wilde) (1885–1915)
2. Son: Vyvyan Holland (born Vyvyan Oscar Beresford Wilde) (1886–1967)

• Alma Mater: Portora Royal School (1864-1971); Trinity College, Dublin (1871-1974); Magdalen College, Oxford (1874-1978)
• Occupation: Playwright, novelist, poet, editor, and critic
• Oscar Wilde is known for: his clever and hilarious social commentary
• Oscar Wilde is criticized for: homosexuality
• Oscar Wilde was influenced by: John Keats (1795-1821), Théophile Gautier (1811-1872), John Ruskin (1819-1900), Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867),  Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882), William Morris (1834 -1896), James McNeill Whistler (1834-1903), Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837-1909), Walter Pater (1839-1894), John Pentland Mahaffy (1839-1919), John Addington Symonds (1849-1893), and Robert Baldwin "Robbie" Ross (1869-1918)
• Oscar Wilde’s works inspired: Max Beerbohm (1872-1956)
• Literary movement: Aesthetic movement, Decadent movement

Quotes

“The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame.”
– Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray (1842)

“It is perfectly monstrous,' he said, at last, 'the way people go about nowadays saying things against one behind one's back that are absolutely and entirely true.”
– Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray (1842)

“In this world there are only two tragedies. One is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it.”
– Oscar Wilde,  Lady Windermere's Fan (1892)

Major Works

Essays

• "The Decay of Lying" (1989/ 1990)
• "Pen, Pencil and Poison" (1989/ 1990)
• "The Soul of Man under Socialism" (1991/1995)
• Intentions (1891)
• "Phrases and Philosophies for the Use of the Young" (1894)
• "A Few Maxims For The Instruction Of The Over-Educated" (1894)

Novel

• The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890/1891)

Stories

• "The Portrait of Mr. W. H." (1889)
• The Happy Prince and Other Tales (1888)
• A House of Pomegranates (1891)
• Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories (1891)

Poems

• Ravenna (1878)
• Poems (1881)
• The Sphinx (1894)
• Poems in Prose (1894)
• The Ballad of Reading Gaol (1898)

Plays

• Vera; or, The Nihilists (1880)
• The Duchess of Padua (1883)
• Lady Windermere's Fan (1892)
• A Woman of No Importance (1893)
• An Ideal Husband (1895) (text)

• The Importance of Being Earnest (1895) (text)

Did You Know?

1. Oscar Wilde was second of the three children born to Sir William Wilde and to Jane Wilde.
2. William Wilde was an author and well-known ear and eye surgeon. He was knighted for his contribution as an assistant commissioner to the censuses of Ireland.
3. Jane Wilde was a renowned poet and Irish nationalist.
4. William Wilde had three offspring from his previous marriage; however, he kept them somewhere else with necessary support but never endorsed them as members of his family.
5. Wild’s youngest sister, Isola died of meningitis at the age of ten. Wilde paid homage to her untimely demise through the poem Requiescat.
6. Wilde attended the Portora Royal School at Enniskillen with his older brother Willie.
7. In 1871, Wilde was awarded the Royal School Scholarship to attend Trinity College.
8. After securing the highest honours at Trinity College, he also achieved another scholarship to study at Magdalen College in Oxford.
9. At Magdalen College, he received the Newdigate Prize for his long poem Ravenna (1878).
10. After graduating from Magdalen College, Wilde returned to Dublin for his childhood beloved Florence Balcombe, however, he went back to England when he found that she was engaged to marry fellow writer Bram Stoker.
11. He published his first play, Vera, or The Nihilists in 1980 privately. It was a melodrama about the Russian revolutionaries.
12. In 1881, at the age of 27, Wilde published his first collection of poetry, Poems at his own expense.
13. On May 29, 1884, Oscar married Constance Lloyd who was a talented writer of Children's stories.
14. To support his family Wilde occasionally lectured, wrote book reviews for newspapers and magazines, including the Pall Mall Gazette and the Dramatic Review.
15. In 1888, he published his first work of prose, The Happy Prince, and Other Tales.
16. In 1890, Wilde published the commercially successful The Picture of Dorian Gray, the only novel he ever wrote. Although this novel is widely read today, it received fierce criticism after publication.
17. During his most productive period, Wilde began to mix with the literary circles that were often homosexual. He allegedly had his first homosexual affair with Robert Ross, the Canadian journalist, art critic, and art dealer.
18. In 1891, Wilde met the poet Lord Alfred Douglas and involved in an intense love relationship. Their intimacy reached to a certain point that subsequently Wilde was convicted for homosexuality and sentenced for two years with hard labour.
19. In 1897 he was released from prison and moved to France and stayed there until his death.
20. Upon his release, he penned The Ballad of Reading Gaol, which reveals his concerns for inhumane prison conditions.
21. The later period of his life was largely unproductive since he was unable to produce any notable works; he drank heavily and mostly spent his time visiting friends for monetary aid and living in cheap hotels.
22. Even after the scandalous trial and imprisonment, Wilde and his wife never divorced. However, Constance changed her sons’ surname to “Holland” to keep them aloof from social humiliation.
23. Wilde’s eldest son Cyril, who became a Captain in the Royal Field Artillery, went to fight in World War I and died.
24. His youngest son, Vyvyan also went to World War I. Afterwards he worked as a translator for the BBC. In 1954, he authored an autobiography entitled Son of Oscar Wilde, wherein he mentioned that his father was a loving parent and he and his brother had a happy childhood.
25. In 2008, Vyvyan's son, and Oscar Wilde’s only grandchild, Christopher Merlin Vyvyan Holland published A Portrait of Oscar Wilde.
26. On November 30, 1900, just before his death, Wilde converted to Roman Catholicism.
27. In 1909, his remains were disinterred from Cimetière de Bagneux and transferred to Père Lachaise Cemetery.
28. Wilde’s tomb sculpture was crafted by Jacob Epstein upon commissioned by Robert Ross. Ross requested to keep a small chamber in the tomb for his own ashes. Ross's ashes were transferred into Wilde's tomb in 1950, on the 50th death anniversary Oscar Wilde.

  Media Gallery

 

References

Beckson, Karl. “Oscar Wilde”. Encyclopædia Britannica. 2020.

Encyclopædia Britannica, inc.11 April 2020

<https://www.britannica.com/biography/Oscar-Wilde>.

“Oscar Wilde.” Wikipedia. 2020. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.

11 April 2020< https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oscar_Wilde>.

“Oscar Wilde Biography”. The Biography.com website. 2020.

A&E Television Networks.11 April 2020

< https://www.biography.com/writer/oscar-wilde>.

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Katherine Mansfield Quick Facts

Katherine Mansfield

Katherine Mansfield, a New Zealand short story writer, who is regarded as a key figure in British modernism for developing modern short story.

Profile

• Birth Name: Kathleen Mansfield Beauchamp
• Married Name: Kathleen Mansfield Murry
• Pseudonym: Katherine Mansfield
• Date of Birth: October 14, 1888
• Place of Birth: Wellington, New Zealand
• Zodiac Sign: Libra
• Death: January 9, 1923
• Place of Death: Fontainebleau, France
• Cause of Death: Tuberculosis
• Ethnicity: White
• Nationality: New Zealand
• Place of Burial: Cimetiere d'Avon, Avon
• Gravestone Inscription:

“KATHERINE MANSFIELD

WIFE OF

JOHN MIDDLETON MURRY

1988-1923

BORN AT WELLINGTON

NEW ZEALAND

DIED AT AVON”

• Father: Harold Beauchamp (1858–1938)
• Mother: Annie Burnell Beauchamp (1863–1818)
• Siblings:

1. Sister: Vera Margaret Bell (c. 1885–1974)
2. Sister: Charlotte Mary Perkins (1887–1966)
3. Sister: Gwedoline Burnell Beauchamp (1890–1891)
4. Sister: Jeanne Worthington Renshaw (1892–1989)
5. Brother: Leslie Heron Beauchamp (1894–1915)

• Sexual Orientation: Bisexual
• Spouse:

1. George Bowden (m. Mar 2, 1909)
2. John Middleton Murry (m. May 3, 1918)

• Partner: Ida Constance Baker (1888–1978)
• Children: 1 stillborn daughter
• Alma Mater: Wellington Girls’ College; Queen's College
• Known for: noted for her short stories with themes relating to women's lives and social hierarchies as well as her sense of wit and characterizations.
• Criticized for: her bohemian lifestyle and libertinism, which entailed affairs with many men and two women.
• Katherine Mansfield was Influenced by: Anton Chekhov (1860–1904), George Gurdjieff (1866–1949), and Beatrice Hastings (1879 –1943)
• Mansfield’s Works Inspired: Christopher Isherwood (1904–1986), and Aldous Huxley (1894–1963)

Quotes

“Everything in life that we really accept undergoes a change. So suffering must become Love. This is the mystery. This is what I must do.”

Katherine Mansfield, The Journal of Katherine Mansfield (1927), Journal entry: 19 December 1920

Major Themes

• The growth and self-consciousness of the female
• The relation between men and women
• Complexity of human emotion
• Children’s innocence
• Repressed sexuality
• Bisexuality
• Disappointment
• Gender roles
• The cruelty of the reality
• Death

Notable Works

• In a German Pension (1911)
• "Prelude" (1918)
• Bliss and Other Stories (1920)
• The Garden Party and Other Stories (1922)
• The Dove's Nest (1923)
• Something Childish (1924)

Did You Know?

• Katherine Mansfield was the third of the five children born to a financier and the chairman of the Bank of New Zealand, Harold Beauchamp.
• She first published her stories in the Wellington Girls’ High School magazine and the High School Reporter.
• Her short story "Prelude” was published by Woolf's Hogarth Press as a book in 1918.
• Only three collections of her stories were published during her lifetime and most of her works remained unpublished till her death.
• Most of Mansfield’s subjects were recollections of her family and her childhood spent in New Zealand.
• Mansfield was an early practitioner of stream of consciousness technique.
• When Mansfield settled in the United Kingdom, she became a friend of modernist writers such as D.H. Lawrence and Virginia Woolf.
• Mansfield is thought to have contracted tuberculosis from D.H. Lawrence.
• Apart from her literary career Mansfield is widely remembered for her promiscuous relationships with both, men and women, which partly led to her downfall.
• At the age of nineteen she fell in love with Garnet Trowell, a young violinist. When the affair collapsed, she rashly married G.C. Bowden, a singing teacher and then abandoned him the day after the wedding to live with Ida Baker. She resumed her relationship with Garnet, became pregnant, and eventually had a stillborn child.
• It is alleged that she had a love affair with a young woman artist, Edith Bendall.
• In 1910 she became seriously ill with the effects of untreated gonorrhoea. An operation left her unable to have children.
• In 1912 Mansfield met John Middleton Murry and began living together that culminated in their marriage in 1918, although she left him twice, in 1911 and 1913.
• Katherine Mansfield died from a haemorrhage on January 9, 1923 at eleven 11 pm soon after the arrival of her husband, John Middleton Murry.
• Mansfield willed her manuscripts, notebooks and letters to Murry, who published many posthumously, and contributed to the growth of her international reputation.
• Ida kept many of Mansfield’s belongings, and all the letters that she and Mansfield had exchanged after 1915.
• After Mansfield’s demise Ida looked after Murry. However, although needing to be looked after, Murry did not want to live with Ida. So the relationship did not work and Ida made a dignified exit.

Media Gallery

 

 

References

" Katherine Mansfield.” Wikipedia. 2017. Wikimedia Foundation Inc. 10 April 2017
< https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katherine_Mansfield>.

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