Wilde came from a background of writing. His mother was a prolific poet who published nationalist poems in Irish newspapers and his father, a physician, wrote many successful medical books. Born on October 16th, 1854 in Dublin, Ireland, Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde would go on to win the Royal School scholarship to Trinity College in Dublin. His educational excellence continued and At Trinity he showed an aptitude for classics, and was awarded the Berkeley Gold Medal for Greek near the end of his study in 1874. Confident of his strength in the subject, Wilde took an examination on June 23rd of the same year which gained him a scholarship in classics at Magdalen College, Oxford. (adapted from britiwiki)
He wrote his first play, Vera; or, The Nihilists(1880). His first full-length book of poetry was Poems (Roberts Brothers), in 1881. In 1888 he published his first work of prose, The Happy Prince, and Other Tales (D. Nutt, 1888).
Wilde is perhaps best known for his plays, including An Ideal Husband (L. Smithers, 1899) and The Importance of Being Earnest (E. Matthews and John Lane, 1899), both first performed in 1895. He is also the author of several fairy tales, critical essays, and other works of prose, as well as the iconic novel The Picture of Dorian Gray (Ward, Lock and Co., 1891).
A House of Pomegranates is a collection of fairy tales, written by Oscar Wilde and was published in 1891 as a second collection for The Happy Prince and Other Tales (1888).
A House of Pomegranates is ‘a symbolic expression of Wilde’s sexual ambivalence,’ indicating that Wilde had found a certain acceptance of his homosexuality, though the narratives clearly indicate that he was still aware of the dangers it posed. Scholars have also pointed out that the dual symbolism of the pomegranate, ‘which antiquity saw as the fruit of Hades and dark captivity, but which Christian iconography previsioned as the fruit of resurrection and rebirth.’
A House of Pomegranates is a collection of fairy tales, written by Oscar Wilde and was published in 1891 as a second collection for The Happy Prince and Other Tales (1888).
A House of Pomegranates is ‘a symbolic expression of Wilde’s sexual ambivalence,’ indicating that Wilde had found a certain acceptance of his homosexuality, though the narratives clearly indicate that he was still aware of the dangers it posed. Scholars have also pointed out that the dual symbolism of the pomegranate, ‘which antiquity saw as the fruit of Hades and dark captivity, but which Christian iconography previsioned as the fruit of resurrection and rebirth.’
Whether Wilde himself was aware of these contradictory interpretations is unclear, although judging from his excellent knowledge of both Classical literature and theology, it is certainly possible. Thus the volume represents the duality of Wilde’s own persona: he is at once the decadent lover of other men, and the Anglican socialist who longs for redemption. Wilde’s strange fairy tales are narratives of the beauty and pain of homosexual desire. They portray the agonizing conflicts between the desire for a forbidden love and the desire for a family, between the love of beauty and the guilt inspired by the suffering of others, and indicate that the fairy tale has moved beyond simple wish-fulfilment and suppression, and has come to consciously include all the agonies and forbidden desires of illicit sexuality.
Source - Decadenthandbook
Source - Decadenthandbook
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