Wilde, Oscar

Cultural  

1. An Irish-born author of the late nineteenth century, who spent most of his career in England. Wilde was famous for his flamboyant wit and style of dress. His best-known works include the novel The Picture of Dorian Gray and the play The Importance of Being Earnest. He urged art for art's sake.

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Wilde was convicted of homosexual activity and spent about two years in prison. The poem “The Ballad of Reading Gaol” (jail) is based on his experiences there.

Example Sentences

Olivia Wilde, Oscar Isaac, Antonio Banderas, Mandy Patinkin and Annette Bening are all featured here, acting out the stories of a multigenerational and international group whose lives are connected through a single event.

From New York Times • Dec. 21, 2018

In Cambridge, Mass., she was awarded the Harvard Lampoon's "Wilde Oscar" for risking "worldly damnation in the pursuit of artistic fulfillment."

From Time Magazine Archive

Wilde, Oscar, 187, 230, 231, 388, 389, 402, 403, 404, 410.

From Dramatic Technique by Baker, George Pierce

Wilde, Oscar, on the photographs of relations, 115.

From How to be Happy Though Married Being a Handbook to Marriage by Hardy, Edward John