De Profundis de Oscar Wilde

De Profundis

Oscar Wilde

"…Prison life makes one see people and things as they really are. That is why it turns one to stone. It is the people outside who are deceived by the illusions of a life in constant motion. They revolve with life and contribute to its unreality. We who are immobile both see and know." -Oscar Wilde (1905) While in prison from 1895 to 1897 due to his homosexual affair with Lord Alfred Douglas, the writer Oscar Wilde wrote a 50,000 word letter to Douglas. Wilde never sent it, but his literary executor Robert Ross edited and published it posthumously in 1905, under the title De Profundis, ("Out of the Depths" in Latin-from Psalm 130, part of the Roman Catholic funeral service.) De Profundis, considered one of the greatest love letters ever written, is both bitter and loving. It is a fascinating read for anyone interested in Oscar Wilde and the paradox of love.

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Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde, also known as Oscar Wilde, was an Irish poet and playwright who lived from 16 October 1854 to 30 November 1900. He wrote in a variety of genres throughout the 1880s before becoming one of London's most well-known playwrights in the early 1890s. The Picture of Dorian Gray, his plays and epigrams, as well as the circumstances surrounding his meningitis-related early death at age 46 and criminal conviction for gross indecency for consensual homosexual activities in "one of the earliest celebrity trials," is what people will remember him for most. Anglo-Irish intellectuals in Dublin, Wilde's parents were. French and German were picked up by young Wilde with ease. While in college, Wilde read the Greats and distinguished himself as an outstanding student of classical literature, first at Trinity College Dublin and then at Oxford. He became involved with the aestheticism movement, which was being spearheaded by two of his professors, Walter Pater and John Ruskin. Wilde moved to London after finishing college and became a part of rich social and cultural circles. Queensberry intended to publicly humiliate Wilde by tossing a bouquet of decaying vegetables onto the stage, but Wilde was informed and had Queensberry turned away from the theater.