Showing results for "The Ballad of Reading Gaol", by author "Oscar Wilde" in All Categories

A stunning new reading of Oscar Wilde's De Profundis (adapted by Frank McGuinness, from the stage production directed by Mark Rosenblatt) and The Ballad of Reading Gaol, performed by one of Britain's greatest actors. One of the most famous and successful writers of his day, Oscar Wilde was celebrated as much for his flamboyant personality and his prodigious wit as for his provocative essays, touching fairy stories and satirical plays.

A man was hanged in Reading Gaol during Wilde's imprisonment there. In "The Ballad", written after his release, he tells of the horror of the event and its effect on himself and his fellow prisoners. First published 1898, under the pseudonym C.3.3 - the number by which Wilde was known in the prison, consisting of the cell block, landing number and cell number of his cell.

"The Ballad of Reading Gaol" was written by Oscar Wilde in France, where he was in exile after his release from Reading Gaol. Wilde had been imprisoned and sentenced to two years hard labor. A hanging took place while Wilde was incarcerated, and the poem is the narrative of the execution.

"The Ballad of Reading Gaol" is a poem by Oscar Wilde, written in exile, either in Berneval or Dieppe, France, after his release from Reading Gaol on or about the 19th of May 1897. During his imprisonment, a hanging took place. This had a profound effect on Wilde, inspiring the famous line "we all are guilty of killing the thing we love."

Wilde’s meditation on capital punishment, the Ballad of Reading Gaol comes after he was convicted and imprisoned under charges of gross indecency. The charges stemmed from his affair with Lord Alfred Douglas, the son of the Marquis of Queensberry. It relates the story of an execution of a man who murdered his wife which Wilde witnessed during his internment. Published in 1898, it was Wilde’s last published poem as he would die in 1900 from cerebral meningitis, caused by syphilis.(Summary by John Gonzalez)

Between 1895 and 1897 Oscar Wilde served a prison sentence for offences "of gross indecency". Most of this time was spent at Reading Gaol, where Wilde encountered another prisoner, Harles Thomas Wooldridge, sentenced to death for the murder of his wife. Wooldrige was hanged at the gaol on 7th July, 1896. Wilde wrote the poem in France in 1897 after his release from prison. The poem is a long reflection on the inequity and ineffectiveness of statutory punishment and the redeeming power of the Christian message of forgiveness.

The poem written by Wilde while in exile about his time in Reading Prison and the hanging of Charles Thomas Wooldridge.

Oscar Wilde was sentenced to two years in prison, part of which he spent in Reading Gaol. About five months after Wilde arrived at Reading Gaol, Charles Thomas Wooldridge, a trooper in the Royal Horse Guards, was brought to Reading to await his trial for murdering his common-law wife (and promptly presenting himself and confessing to a policeman) on 29 March 1896; on 17 June, Wooldridge was sentenced to death and returned to Reading for his execution, which took place on Tuesday, 7 July 1896 - the first hanging at Reading in 18 years. The poem is dedicated to him.

Something was dead in each of us,
And what was dead was Hope. In this moving poetic study of his experiences in the Victorian penal system, Wilde relates the relentlessness and tedium of prison life, and of the haunted thoughts which trouble these "souls in agony" within their "numbered tombs". Oscar Wilde wrote "The Ballad of Reading Gaol" after his two-year imprisonment at the establishment. During his incarceration, a former trooper was convicted of the murder of his wife and hanged at the Gaol. This event is central to the poem's narrative.

This special edition of Oscar Wilde's "The Ballad of Reading Gaol" includes several original features. Three textually different versions of "The Ballad" are presented. One of these is the original shorter version of the poem, originally edited by Wilde's good friend, Robbie Ross, for vocal recitation. Wilde's early poem "Humanitad" is also included as it has striking stylistic parallels with "The Ballad" and reveals the continuity of Wilde's work over the duration of his career.

Поэма, написанная Оскаром Уайльдом после отбывания двухлетнего заключения в каторжной тюрьме в Рединге, Беркшир. Это поистине волнующее произведение, которое не просто проникновенно звучит, а представляет собой пронзительный крик души, который должен донести до каждого слушателя важность эмпатии и сочувствия. Основанная на реальных событиях баллада рассказывает о казни гвардейца-кавалериста Чарльза Томаса Вулриджа, осуждённого за убийство жены на почве ревности.

The twists and turns in a bizarre story of attempted murder, a charming tale of virtue rewarded and the study of a man condemned to die are told by Mr. Wilde with verve and compassion.

Este ese quizas uno de los mas tristes poemas y quizas el mas real de Oscar Wilde. Lo escribio basado en su experiencia en la Carcel de Reading, donde fue recluido por ser homosexual. El poema cuenta la muerte de un hombre condenado por matar a su propia esposa. Una de las obras mas famosas de Oscar Wilde.