Portal:Oscar Wilde
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Culture · Geography · Health · History · Mathematics · Natural sciences · Philosophy · Religion · Society · Technology  Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde (October 16, 1854 – November 30, 1900) was an Irish playwright, novelist, poet, and author of short stories. Known for his barbed wit, he was one of the most successful playwrights of late Victorian London, and one of the greatest celebrities of his day. As the result of a famous trial, he suffered a dramatic downfall and was imprisoned for two years of hard labour after being convicted of the offence of "gross indecency." Oscar Wilde was the second son born into an Anglo-Irish family, at 21 Westland Row, Dublin, to Sir William Wilde and his wife Jane Francesca Elgee (her pseudonym being Speranza). Jane was a successful writer, being a poet for the revolutionary Young Irelanders in 1848 and a life-long Irish nationalist. Sir William was Ireland's leading Oto-Ophthalmologic (ear and eye) surgeon and was knighted in 1864 for his services to medicine. William also wrote books on archaeology and folklore. He was a renowned philanthropist, and his dispensary for the care of the city's poor, in Lincoln Place at the rear of Trinity College, Dublin, was the forerunner of the Dublin Eye and Ear Hospital, now located at Adelaide Road.
A Woman of No Importance is a play by Irish playwright Oscar Wilde. The play, published in 1893, and premièred on 9 April 1893 at London's Haymarket Theatre, is a testimony of Wilde's wit and his brand of dark comedy. It looks in particular at English upper class society and has been reproduced on stages in Europe and North America since his death in 1900. A film based on this play is in production and is due to be released in 2008. The scene is set in an English country house - Hunstanton (Lady Hunstanton's property). The curtains open to the terrace where we are introduced to Lady Caroline who is engaging in conversation with Lady Huntstanton's American Puritan guest Hester Worsley. Other characters are introduced, including the flirtatious Mrs Allonby, the meek Lady Stutfield and Lady Caroline's submissive husband Sir John. (more...) _in_New_York,_1882._Picture_by_Napoleon_Sarony_(1821-1896)_8a.jpg) |
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