Selected Poems of Oscar Wilde

Home Contact Us Help Free delivery worldwide. Collected Poems of Oscar Wilde. The poetry of his formative years includes the haunting elegy to his young sister and the grieving lyric at the death of his father. The religious drama of his romance with Rome is captured here, as well as its resolution in his renewed love of ancient Greece.

He explores forbidden sexual desires, pays homage to the great theatre stars and poets of his day, observes cityscapes with impressionist intensity. His final masterpiece, The Ballad of Reading Gaol, tells the painful story of his own prison experience and calls for universal compassion. This edition of Wilde's verse presents the full range of his achievement as a poet.

The Best Books of Check out the top books of the year on our page Best Books of Looking for beautiful books? Visit our Beautiful Books page and find lovely books for kids, photography lovers and more. It is beautifully read by Sean Barrett. Stick it in your ears; it only lasts an hour, but what an hour View all 30 comments. Jul 14, leynes rated it liked it. So that's a wrap on Oscar's poetry.

I can't believe that I read every single verse that my trash child ever decided to publish like whuuat? Unsurprisingly, I adored some of his poems, and loathed others. Poetry is always hit or miss for me.

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But the life of man is sorrow And death is a relief from pain, For love only lasts till tomorrow And life without love is vain. Oscar's poetry is very different from what I expected. Before going into this I didn't consider that the Poems were one of the Woo hoo! Before going into this I didn't consider that the Poems were one of the first works that Oscar published, he wrote Vera before that but that was it. So his poetry is a great look at as I like to call him fetus! Oscar — a great look at the man before he discovered his snark and cynicism.

So why didn't Oscar blossom into one of the age's foremost poets? The answer is simple: Besides the fact that at his time poetry no longer enjoyed the prestige which it had had in the days of Wordsworth and Keats.

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His poetry is definitely inferior to his plays and prose. In the latter you will find much more 'truth', meaning that there Oscar emptied all of his personal feelings and concealed his autobiography — and thus the plays in themselves hold a great deal more poetry than his acutal poems with the exception of The Ballad of Reading Goal of course! Many of his early lyrics chronicle his conflicting responses to his experience of Rome as a young man. Being at once repelled and fascinated by Popish opulence, again and again Oscar's breath is taken away by the baroque magnificence of Rome, against which he usually sets the more chastely proportioned symmetries of ancient Greece.

I was really surprised to find that so many of his poems dealt with ancient myths and heroes, and that he used a very classical style and structure. It was fascinating to read. If you're interested in a taste I would recommend starting with the ballad Charmides or Ravenna , his ode to the Italian city of the same name.

Oscar has the reputation of being an art-for-art's-sake bohemian, but if you actually look into his poetry you will see that the dandy was at heart a moralist who wished to preach his parables to people in some acceptably sugared form. This form of traditionalism is also something that can be found in his short story collections The House of Pomegranates and The Happy Prince and Other Stories.

So I think that Oscar is often misrepresentated in the media who seems to overlook his more serious and conventional side. My favorite poem of his — and also my favorite piece of literary history — is his final and most memorable contribution to English poetry: In it he processes the horrible years that he had to spent in jail.

In case you didn't know Oscar was sentenced to two years of hard labour, because he defended his homosexual relationships at court. So the ballad is his treatise on the injust law system in England and a look at the horrific conditions under which the prisoners have to toil. It is a truly gut-wrenching piece, and never fails to make me cry.

In Reading goal by Reading town There is a pit of shame, And in it lies a wreched man Eaten by teeth of flame, In a burning winding-sheet he lies, And his grave has got no name. Another poem that stood out to me is Requiescat. It was written in memory of his younger sister who died at the age of nine, and the following verses just get me every time: Tread lightly, she is near Under the snow Speak gently, she can hear The daisies grow. The image of young Oscar standing beside the grave of his sister picturing her beneath the earth evokes so many emotions in me, as the kids would say: And thou whose wounds are never healed, Whose weary race is never won, O Cromwell's England!

Must thou yield For every inch of ground a son? His words sound like a very melodious symphony and you never want it to end. I personally believe that Wilde is one of the best story-tellers out there, especially, and I cannot emphasize this enough!!! For me there is absolutely no question; he is The Genius of characterization. Capital l Okay, so He masters the skill of luring you into the fictional world. There is an unnatural, all-consuming force that makes you utterly absorbed by the characters of his imagination.

At least from my experience. Anddddd, although I still really admire them and find them incredible pieces of poetry, and although I know his poems are still greater and much more elegant and graceful and whatnot than anything I could ever write, it is for this reason that, at times, their short length limits them to superficial characterization, the thing I usually love the most about his writing that I can't give them four stars.

Of course, this wouldn't be complete without one of my favorite quotes. This one is from "The Dole of the King's Daughter": There is blood upon her hand Why are the lilies flecked with red? There is blood on the river sand. I've seen him receive some criticism for rhyming almost all of the damn time. Here's what I have to say: I fucking love me some good rhymes. They're beautiful forms of art and skill, when used effectively.

And he knows how to do so. You're still my fav, all is good. Jan 19, Francine Maessen rated it liked it Shelves: Some parts became a bit tiresome after a while. But I am impressed with the perseverance Wilde shows with some of the longer poems. Like, those were really, really long.

I only didn't like Charmides soooo.. Aug 25, the great gretsby rated it really liked it. Jan 15, Tracey rated it really liked it. Due to the nature of this book this review cannot be the whole story but taking separate pieces and and an overview and some of the thoughts and feelings it invoked in me I hope it will give a general impression. I read The picture of dorian Gray earlier this year and loved the 'poetic' way Oscar Wilde wrote so it was only natural I should go for a book of his poetry as my next foray into his work, I wasn't disappointed.

That being said one of his best known works The Ballad of reading gaol which was his last finished, published piece and written whilst in self imposed exile in France and written also after he spent 2 years doing hard labour in said prison was certainly a thought provoking piece.

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The Ballad of Reading gaol is a poem about a condemned prisoner who is set to be hanged and the thoughts and emotions that provokes in the author I love the poem as a whole but taken from it here are a few verses you may be familiar with and that left a lasting and moving impression on me.

I never saw a man who looked with such a wistful eye Upon that little tent of blue which prisoners call the sky.

And at every drifting cloud that went With sails of silver by, This verse shows to me how trapped and closed in the prisoners must have felt to view the vast expanse of sky that we as free people can see, as a small tent above their heads. 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.

This shows to me how fickle and bitter Oscar Wilde found the world.

He went from the darling of literature to penniless ex jail bird. Charmides is another of the longer poems in this volume and it is probably the most notorious. Oscar Wilde claimed it was his most finished and perfect work. This poem is about perverse erotic desire and it has a classical feel to it. Wilde had a lifelong passionate affair with the greek language Ancient Greece and Hellenism. The story goes that a beautiful boy falls in love with the goddess Athena and hides in her temple to make love to her statue.

As punishment the goddess makes sure his is drowned. A wood nymph finds the boys pale body on the sand and falls in love with it. Finally , at last I hear some of you who have managed it thus far I have to mention 'Requiescat' which is latin for 'may she rest' and a poem he wrote for his younger sister who died at the age of 10 Tread lightly she is near under the snow, Speak gently she can hear The daisies grow All her bright golden hair tarnished with rust She that was young and fair Fallen to dust lily-like white as snow she hardly knew she was a woman so sweetly she grew Coffin board heavy stone lie on breast I vex my heart alone she is at rest Peace Peace she cannot hear Lyre or sonnet All my life's burried here Heap earth upon it.

This is a simple poem and amongst some of the first he had published. I think it shows the emotions he felt on the sad loss of a much loved sister and for that alone I haved picked it as one of my favorites. Many of the poems in this book are not even 3 star but some of them and 5 star and more. I hope you get a taste for Wildes poetry from reading this 'review' and it leads you to experiance them for yourselves. Sep 15, Rita rated it it was ok Shelves: E ne conosco anche il motivo: Pochi sono gli stralci di luce, che riporto di seguito.

Jul 31, Caesar Min rated it it was amazing. 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 e "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!

For each man kills the thing he loves, Yet each man does not die. Nov 19, Rao Javed rated it liked it Shelves: More like a combination of Milton and Keats but I wish Wilde was more of himself.

I have not read much of Wilde before. He called himself a pre-Raphaelite, and the poems are obviously influenced by that movement, Dante Gabriel Rossetti and especially Algernon Swinburne. I suppose I liked the poetry for the same reason I like some of Swinburne's poetry -- the pagan spirit of freedom, the allusions to mythology and history, the sensual imagery. My only criticism is that it is a little too flower-y literally. But I enjoyed almost all except for the poems titled "Rosa Mystica", written during his brief interest in Catholicism -- I assumed these were among the earliest in the collection, and a search on the Internet confirmed that they were in fact the first written in the early 70's, although almost all the poems were published at the same time in