`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 SERIES: For over 100
years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range
of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume
reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most
accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including
expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to
clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and
much more.
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