-
Seasonal Offer:
This title is part of our Seasonal Offers promotion.
| ||||||||||||
 Trade In this Item for up to £0.25
Trade in Complete Poetry (Oxford World's Classics) for an Amazon.co.uk gift card of up to £0.25, which you can then spend on millions of items across the site. Plus, get an extra £5 when you trade in books worth £10 or more until June 30, 2012. Trade-in values may vary (terms apply). Find more products eligible for trade-in.
|
Special Offers and Product Promotions
Frequently Bought Together
Product details
|
More About the Authors
Discover books, learn about writers, and more.
Product Description
Product Description
`Yet each man kills the thing he loves, By each let this be heard, Some do it with a bitter look, Some with a flattering word, The coward does it with a kiss, The brave man with a sword!' A powerful poem of universal guilt and a protest against capital punishment, The Ballad of Reading Gaol is Wilde's best-known poem, yet it is quite unlike the rest of his poetry. At Oxford Wilde discarded the passion and politics of his mother's Irish nationalistic anti-famine poetry and opted to follow an English Romantic tradition, paying tribute to Keats, Swinburne, and the Pre-Raphaelites. Admiration of French masters gradually led to his writing Impressionist, even decadent poems and his collection Poems (1881) brought accusations of obscenity and plagiarism as well as scathing reviews. Unabashed, Wilde revised and reprinted his final `Author's Edition' in 1892, by which time he was the successful author of fiction, criticism, and Lady Windermere's Fan. This volume follows as closely as possible the chronological order of composition, highlighting autobiographical elements including the young Wilde's conflicting attitudes to Greece and Rome, pagan and Christian, and his fluctuating attraction to Roman Catholicism. The Appendix shows Wilde's original ordering, constructed with great care around a `musical' arrangement of themes. The poems reveal unexpected aspects of a literary chameleon usually identified with sparkling wit and social comedy.
About the Author
Isobel Murray is Senior Lecturer in English at the University of Aberdeen. She has edited four previous editions of Wilde's work for OUP, including Oxford Authors, Oscar Wilde, and published mant articles on his work.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
Suggested Tags from Similar Products(What's this?)Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product)
|
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
There are no customer reviews yet on Amazon.co.uk.
5 star
4 star
3 star
2 star
1 star
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
1 review
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
A Slim Evocation to the Muse of Poesy
9 Jan 2010
Format:Paperback
Oscar Wilde's first book was a collection of his poetry, and perhaps it was as a poet that Wilde thought of himself at the end of life. His last published work during his life time was "The Ballad of Reading Gaol," and in DE PROFUNDIS -- the letter he wrote in prison -- he seems to identify himself more with poets than martyrs (despite his statement that "...the secret of life is suffering..."). His early poetry was condemned as the work of a plagiarist, and yet it contains much beauty -- but (strangely?) little if any of his famous wit. He wrote several sonnets, including the following, one of my favourites:
"Helas!"
To drift with every passion till my soul
Is a stringed lute on which all winds can play,
Is it for this that I have given away
Mine ancient wisdom, and austere control?
Methinks my life is a twice-written scroll
Scrawled over on some boyish holiday
With idle songs for pipe and virelay,
Which do but mar the secret of the whole.
Surely there was a time I might have trod
The sunlit heights, and from life's dissonance
Struck one clear chord to reach the ears of God:
Is that time dead? lo! with a little rod
I did but touch the honey of romance --
And must I lose a soul's inheritance?
Micheal MacLiammoir recited this in his one-man show concerning Wilde's Life and Work, THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING OSCAR, and he recited it as smooth poetic prose, and as such it sounded like natural language, despite its strict poetic form.
Perhaps my favourite poem of all time is "The Harlot's House," a work that is strange and evocative. There are many audio/visual renditions of the poem on YouTube, some of which are quite wonderful. I am less impressed with "The Ballad of Reading Gaol," which seems to me too long; yet one cannot doubt the sincerity of its source and message. This is a great wee book. Editor Isobel Murray has included a fascinating introduction and copious notes.
"Helas!"
To drift with every passion till my soul
Is a stringed lute on which all winds can play,
Is it for this that I have given away
Mine ancient wisdom, and austere control?
Methinks my life is a twice-written scroll
Scrawled over on some boyish holiday
With idle songs for pipe and virelay,
Which do but mar the secret of the whole.
Surely there was a time I might have trod
The sunlit heights, and from life's dissonance
Struck one clear chord to reach the ears of God:
Is that time dead? lo! with a little rod
I did but touch the honey of romance --
And must I lose a soul's inheritance?
Micheal MacLiammoir recited this in his one-man show concerning Wilde's Life and Work, THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING OSCAR, and he recited it as smooth poetic prose, and as such it sounded like natural language, despite its strict poetic form.
Perhaps my favourite poem of all time is "The Harlot's House," a work that is strange and evocative. There are many audio/visual renditions of the poem on YouTube, some of which are quite wonderful. I am less impressed with "The Ballad of Reading Gaol," which seems to me too long; yet one cannot doubt the sincerity of its source and message. This is a great wee book. Editor Isobel Murray has included a fascinating introduction and copious notes.
Was this review helpful?
Let us know
Listmania!
|
|
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
