Oscar fever!

No, I don't mean the movie awards. I know it's coming up to awards season, and all the girls in Tinseltown are planning the botox injections in the soles of their feet so they can wear the Manolos all night....

But my fever is more to do with an Irishman who, if he were alive today, would be over 150 years old (I like the older man!!). I am talking, of course, about Oscar Wilde, one of my favourite writers and definitely one of my favourite people in the world. He was an extremely erudite and witty person, a brilliant writer and raconteur, full of mischief but also very sensitive. He lived his own life, and was true to himself and his opinions despite the bigotry surrounding him. I would love to have met him and spent an evening chatting in the pub over a few pints! No doubt he would have drunk absynthe and smoked endless cigarettes! His wit was (and still is) world famous, and it would have been a privilege to experience it close up.

This year it is my plan to learn much more about him and to read more of his work. This week I have been learning his epic poem "The Ballad of Reading Gaol". I have 16 verses memorised so far and have only 93 more to go!!

The poem was written after his release from Reading prison in May 1897, and it was published under the pseudonym "C.3.3." which signified Building C, Floor 3, Cell 3.... which was his "home" at Reading during the serving of his sentence of two years hard labour for the crime of being a homosexual.

The main theme of the poem is the execution of a fellow prisoner who had been convicted of murdering his wife. This triggered Oscar to describe the nature of people in general, and that we are all capable of hurting those we love; that what we need is forgiveness.

Here is a little snippet from the part I have learned so far:

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!

Some kill their love when they are young
And some when they are old
Some strangle with the hands of Lust
Some with the hands of Gold
The kindest use a knife, because
The dead so soon grow cold.

Some love too little, some too long
Some sell, and others buy
Some do the deed with many tears
And some without a sigh
For each man kills the thing he loves
Yet each man does not die.


I will write more about Oscar as I progress in my research about him. Hope you enjoyed this little foray into his mind.