Balada închisorii din Reading

by Oscar Wilde, Liana Alexandru (Translator)

Ediție bilingvă

Traducere, note și cuvânt înainte de Liana Alexandru

„Balada închisorii din Reading, ultima scriere a lui Oscar Wilde, poate fi citită ca o pledoarie pentru înțelegerea complexității naturii noastre, ca o formă de iubire și de libertate.

Azi, când poveștile lui pentru copii sunt traduse în toată lumea și sunt considerate încântătoare, când piesele de teatru sunt un reper al dramaturgiei clasice universale, când Portretul lui Dorian Gray împreună cu paradoxurile filozofice continuă să fascineze deopotrivă publicul larg și profesioniștii artelor, scăpăm din vedere că toate au fost crea­țiile unui om a cărui arhitectură interioară s-a configurat dintr-o imensă suferință.

Balada închisorii din Reading este forma cea mai înălțătoare pe care o putea lua drama ce i-a pecetluit lui Oscar Wilde această suferință: condamnarea la doi ani de închisoare pentru vinovăția de a fi fost el însuși.“ —LIANA ALEXANDRU

Genres: Poetry, Classics, Fiction, 19th Century, Literature, Ireland, Irish Literature

98 pages, Paperback

First published February 13, 1898

About the author

Oscar Fingal O'Fflahertie Wills Wilde was an Irish poet and playwright. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of the most popular playwrights in London in the early 1890s. He is best remembered for his epigrams and plays, his novel The Picture of Dorian Gray, and his criminal conviction for gross indecency for homosexual acts.
Wilde's parents were Anglo-Irish intellectuals in Dublin. In his youth, Wilde learned to speak fluent French and German. At university, he read Greats; he demonstrated himself to be an exceptional classicist, first at Trinity College Dublin, then at Magdalen College, Oxford. He became associated with the emerging philosophy of aestheticism, led by two of his tutors, Walter Pater and John Ruskin. After university, Wilde moved to London into fashionable cultural and social circles.
Wilde tried his hand at various literary activities: he wrote a play, published a book of poems, lectured in the United States and Canada on "The English Renaissance" in art and interior decoration, and then returned to London where he lectured on his American travels and wrote reviews for various periodicals. Known for his biting wit, flamboyant dress and glittering conversational skill, Wilde became one of the best-known personalities of his day. At the turn of the 1890s, he refined his ideas about the supremacy of art in a series of dialogues and essays, and incorporated themes of decadence, duplicity, and beauty into what would be his only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890). Wilde returned to drama, writing Salome (1891) in French while in Paris, but it was refused a licence for England due to an absolute prohibition on the portrayal of Biblical subjects on the English stage. Undiscouraged, Wilde produced four society comedies in the early 1890s, which made him one of the most successful playwrights of late-Victorian London.
At the height of his fame and success, while An Ideal Husband (1895) and The Importance of Being Earnest (1895) were still being performed in London, Wilde issued a civil writ against John Sholto Douglas, the 9th Marquess of Queensberry for criminal libel. The Marquess was the father of Wilde's lover, Lord Alfred Douglas. The libel hearings unearthed evidence that caused Wilde to drop his charges and led to his own arrest and criminal prosecution for gross indecency with other males. The jury was unable to reach a verdict and so a retrial was ordered. In the second trial Wilde was convicted and sentenced to two years' hard labour, the maximum penalty, and was jailed from 1895 to 1897. During his last year in prison he wrote De Profundis (published posthumously in abridged form in 1905), a long letter that discusses his spiritual journey through his trials and is a dark counterpoint to his earlier philosophy of pleasure. On the day of his release, he caught the overnight steamer to France, never to return to Britain or Ireland. In France and Italy, he wrote his last work, The Ballad of Reading Gaol (1898), a long poem commemorating the harsh rhythms of prison life.

Reviews

[Fergus, Weaver of Autistic Webs · Rating 5 out of 5]

There is such a Nightmarish Depth to Oscar Wilde!

Q: Is being condemned of a once-upon-a-time-felony at the merely SUBJECTIVE imputation of guilt therefore itself a CRIME?

A: “Elementary, my dear Watson (mumbles in Watson’s ear)...”

- “Dash it all, Holmes! I take your assessment quite deucedly to heart! Forsooth, you would cut us ALL to the very quick... have you no COUTH?!”

(See O.W.’s attached reiteration of his - Oscar Wilde’s - guilt in his grand finale. Better yet, read the whole brief work in the public domain, everywhere left on the planet where Good Books are still Free.)

Well then. OK. Enough half-hearted attempts at humour... for this ballad is ANYTHING BUT DROLL.

No wonder - Wilde was serving the Prison sentence that would KILL him. His Crime?

LOVE.

Wilde says we always kill the one we LOVE. Any liaison is as hellish as it is heavenly. Due to a variety of reasons.

Let’s put it THIS way: IS Wilde right here? Do we REALLY kill the one we love, and if so... HOW?

Well, if we have a dearth of love in our life we're probably faking that life.

Let’s say we’re watching TV, late at night, when the others in your life are safely tucked in. Just reruns. Dumb, stupid reruns, which we’ve maybe seen a zillion times. But you’ve GOT to get your mind off your looney-tunes job!

Then your sleepy daughter appears, distraught. “Daddy, I had an ac-... er, ac-ci-dent!”

You hardly bat an eye. “Later, honey. Just go back to sleep. OK? You’ll probably feel better in the morning...”

“But, Daddy...”

Too late, kid. Now you’re chuckling over Hawkeye and Radar’s dumb antics.

You hardly bat an eye when she disappears upstairs.

Before you call it a night, you FINALLY go to tuck her in.

Her bed’s rumpled and empty. And it’s SOAKED. She’s curled up in a corner, shivering and shaking.

You let her down badly.

And you KILLED a part of her fragile soul tonight.
***

And now for my main point. Something that's not so obvious:

Wilde's famous law can KILL US ALL.

I'll start with myself. I was known, at home, at school and at work in previous years, as a guy who accepted discipline. For me then, no one got outta line without paying for it. A cradle Christian.

But I cracked under extreme duress when I was 20.

I became contrarious, and acted right outta line. Subconconsciously, I blamed myself, and woulda accepted the doctors' stern discipline, but then I changed.

I blamed the doctors for it. I said to myself, THEY had ulterior motives.

For I HID the truth from myself. That reversal by manufacturing a scapegoat in them may have been in the superficial interests of self-preservation, but it only prolonged my pain for 60 years.

I had shifted the blame to others - but its intense guilt killed the one I loved - Myself. And guess what?

It was that way for Wilde too.

You see, by hiding the fact of his loathing of an obsolete Law from the ones he loved, he was killing those ones he loved!

For then, his subsequent sulking sentence to Reading Gaol -

Blighted his own forever happily-ever-after charm for himself -

And for the more privileged denizens of the Gilded Age, from that time on.

[Lisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Favourite poetry has a tendency to make sudden appearances in my head when I least expect it.

I don't know how many times I have read the Ballad of Reading Gaol, but it is often enough for me to feel shame I don't know it by heart yet. I annoyingly often quote the catch line "yet each man kills the things he loves", and it strikes me as true both in the deeper sense of family dysfunction and in the more shallow waters of breaking your favourite coffee mug by accident. It strikes me as wise in the absurd way life plays a crooked game of cards with us. We may be guilty of one thing, and punished for another...

Today I found myself comparing Wilde with Orwell, in a rather heated discussion with students who are reading 1984 as a class novel. I seemed to have completely forgotten the love story between Winston and Julia, and the way it was impossible not to kill each other in the process of getting entangled in the political dystopia of thoughtcrime and doublethink. And I heard myself tell the complicated story of Wilde and his miscalculations and his failure to silence a bully by shooting back at him. I found myself telling my students the story of fake news and real truth and broken spirits that was the result of Wilde's duel with Bosie's father, and I thought of modern politics and our current mess. There is no longer any validity to the question "right or wrong". The only question left to answer seems to be who is wrong in which way, and for what reason.

Oscar Wilde was certainly wrong in trying to fend off Queensberry by suing him for libel, but it is understandable why he did so, and his time in prison for homosexuality is no less brutal for being caused by his miscalculation. He killed the lifestyle he loved by trying to protect it from attacks.

The absolutist stupidity always wins over the complicated life story, and he should have known that: IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH.

"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,
nbsp; Yet each man does not die."

[İntellecta · Rating 4 out of 5]

“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

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.”

Page: 9

[Piyangie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a beautiful and moving poem by Oscar Wild. Based on personal observation and experience of his time in Reading jail, Wild wrote this sad and haunting poem while living in exile. I have not read any poems by Wild, so this is my first experience. I have known him as an excellent playwright and recently discovered him as a great essayist. Now I'm discovering a great poet in him too.

This poem is mainly based on an execution that took place while he was in the prison. Making it the center of theme, Wild goes on to expose the dire conditions of prison life, the despair of its inmates, the degradation, and the shame that he personally felt at being imprisoned. The sincere and passionate expression with which he says it all is heartbreaking. I read the whole poem with blurry eyes and a quivering voice (I do recite them when I read poems).

This work showed me an entirely different literary side of Oscar Wild. I have for the most part associated him with wit, sarcasm, and his thoughtful and philosophical insights. But what I saw in this work is the raw display of emotion and absolute sincerity. His personal experience has poured so much feeling into this poem and it is no exaggeration when I say it is one of the most emotional poems that I have read.

Ballad of Reading Gaol was his last work and there was no more writing before his death. Being impoverished, degraded, and utterly shamed, he produced no more after this poem stating that "something killed in me". It is regrettable, for Wild is one of the best literary products of the 19th century. And it is very sad to think that a brilliant mind and a wonderfully gifted artist had to come to such a pathetic end.

[leynes · Rating 5 out of 5]

"The Ballad of Reading Gaol" is a poem by Oscar Wilde, written in exile, after his release from Reading Gaol on 19 May 1897. Wilde had been incarcerated in Reading after being convicted for gross indecency with other men in 1895 and sentenced to two years' hard labour in prison.

In Reading gaol by Reading town
There is a pit of shame,
And in it lies a wretched man
Eaten by teeth of flame,
In a burning winding-sheet he lies,
And his grave has got no name.

About five months after Wilde arrived at Reading Gaol, Charles Thomas Wooldridge, a trooper in the Royal Horse Guards, was brought to Reading to await his trial for murdering his common-law wife (and promptly presenting himself and confessing to a policeman) on 29 March 1896; on 17 June, Wooldridge was sentenced to death and returned to Reading for his execution, which took place on Tuesday, 7 July 1896—the first hanging at Reading in 18 years. The poem is dedicated to him as C. T. W..

Wilde wrote the poem in mid-1897 while staying with Robert Ross in Berneval-le-Grand. The poem narrates the execution of Wooldridge; it moves from an objective story-telling to symbolic identification with the prisoners as a whole. No attempt is made to assess the justice of the laws which convicted them, but rather the poem highlights the brutalisation of the punishment that all convicts share. Wilde clearly positions himself as being pro-reform, some may even claim pro-abolition.

The finished poem was published by Leonard Smithers on 13 February 1898 under the name "C.3.3.", which stood for cell block C, landing 3, cell 3. The first edition, of 800 copies, sold out within a week, and Smithers announced that a second edition would be ready within another week; that was printed on 24 February, in 1,000 copies, which also sold well, as did further reprints. "The Ballad of Reading Gaol" is the work that sold best during Wilde's lifetime, so much so that it brought him a small income for the rest of his life.

A quote from the poem now serves as an epitaph on Wilde's tomb in Père Lachaise cemetery:

And alien tears will fill for him
Pity's long broken urn,
For his mourners will be outcast men,
And outcasts always mourn.

"The Ballad of Reading Gaol" is one of my favorite poems of all time – sharing the #1 spot with Poe's impeccable "The Raven". It is also one of my favorite works of Oscar's – sharing its place at the top with The Picture of Dorian Gray and An Ideal Husband. It's a poem that means so much to me. Not just because it's such a heartfelt and passionate cry for humanity and compassion, but also because it shows Wilde's own journey: from celebrated artist to outcast and ex-convict. Gone are the days of witty aphorisms, here emerges a more somber and serious Wilde. And I love him for it.

The poem always, always makes me cry. It made me cry when I first read it 6 years ago, and it made me cry now. It's interesting to see it through a lens of advocating for prison abolition (something I've become more passionate about in recent years); so much of what Wilde says in the poem is echoed by activists today: "And never a human voice comes near / To speak a gentle word: / And the eye that watches through the door / Is pitiless and hard: / And by all forgot, we rot and rot, / With soul and body marred."

I learned the first 10 stanzas by heart the first time I read the poem, and they are still ingrained in my brain. I'm sure I'll never forget them. I quote them to myself sometimes. It's a melancholy feeling. Oscar was able to evoke so much in these few rhymes. It's the purest, most fullest form of poetry. It is beauty and message, it is not art for art's sake, here, Oscar has a moral, he is political. And it's good and important that he is.

I'm currently reading Oscar Wilde: The Unrepentant Years, a superbly researched analysis of Wilde's last five years (his two years of imprisonment and three years of exile), and Nicholas Frankel does an amazing job at contextualising how "The Ballad of Reading Gaol" came about, and how its positive reception in Victorian England actually helped the cause for prison reform at the end of the 1890s along. Oscar's time in prison itself was used by activists at the time to shed light on the horrible condition in British prisons, and his own activism after his release (his two letters to the Daily Chronicle on the horrendous condition prisoners have to toil and live under and this poem) contributed to the cause of prison reform.

This is an Oscar that the world rarely acknowledges. He's largely remembered for his wit and snark. But the man Oscar became in prison, the values and morals that he upheld in the last years of his life, are what I personally remember him most for. I am beyond proud of you, son. <3

[K.D. Absolutely · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is my 4th time to read Oscar Wilde and the more I read his works, the more he becomes one of my favorite writers.

Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) was a married man and he had two children. Yet, he had homosexual affairs. His sexual preference, considered lewd and taboo during the Victorian era, led him to his incarceration in a town prison or gaol in Reading, England. That explains the title. In the prison, he witnessed the execution of a man who killed his wife while drunk. A year later, when he was out of his cell, he wrote this sad and haunting poem, The Ballad of Reading Gaol and it was so famous, his friends put some passages from it on his epitaph (tombstone).

The effect of this poem to me was that for almost a week, I stopped reading. I could not stop the scenes in the poem that kept playing in my head: a dead wife whose throat is slit by a knife. The drunk husband standing in the corner of the room shocked amidst the eerie silence regretting what he did. The same man being led to his execution while Wilde looking at murderer's "bitter" eyes. That adjective in quotation comes from the famous passage from the poem:

"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!

We all do this right? Not killing our love ones with a sword of course but hurting the people we love. Sometimes we want to test how they would react because we know they will not stop loving us. Sometimes, it is our sheer foolishness. Or maybe, just like the man who actually killed his wife, he was just drunk.

Prior to joining Goodreads in 2009, I did not know anything about Oscar Wilde but when I read his heartbreaking memoir De Profundis (4 stars), I immediately read The Happy Prince and Other Tales (3 stars) followed right away by his most famous work, The Picture of Dorian Gray (3 stars). I liked them all but I am always curious about the "dark" side (not that homosexuality is dark but it is normally not put in the open so there goes my interest) of an author's mind. So with the previous knowledge of Oscar Wilde's life story (his downfall because of his incarceration) I read this poem slowly and so those scenes got imprinted in my mind and stayed there for almost a week that I could not understand what was going on while trying to read the other books in my currently-reading shelf.

That's how powerful this poem is. It is haunting. The vivid description of the gaol. The cries of a man thrown into the jail waiting for his death. The pleas of Wilde and his surrender to God. Wilde used to be flamboyant, happy, famous and rich suffering from hunger and spite of the town's people. The brilliant author not being allowed even a pen and paper to write his thoughts. Only because he committed homosexual affairs.

Oscar Wilde, your fault was this: you were born at the wrong time.

[Maria Espadinha · Rating 4 out of 5]

A Killer named Jealousy


A man who murdered his wife in an act of uncontrollable jealousy was sentenced to death by hanging, and yet ... “all men kill the thing they love”

Is that true?
Do we kill the ones we love?
I don’t see it as a rule, but a possibility:
How manny relationships have been broken by jealousy?
Jealousy pops in, hate comes along and bitterness does the dirty work!...

What once was beautiful is now a wreckage, poisoned to death 💀 by the rage of Jealousy! ☹️

It looks like Jealousy is the real killer, after all!
A killer that will never be hanged!...😜

[Fernando · Rating 4 out of 5]

Oscar Wilde escribió "La Balada de la cárcel de Reading" precisamente cuando todavía estaba en prisión, luego de ser sentenciado a dos años de trabajos forzados por sodomía en 1895 y otros cargos que asumió a partir de hacer pública su condición de homosexual, perdiendo un juicio contra el padre de Alfred "Bosie" Douglas, su propio amante.
Tuvo que sufrir el oprobio, la injusticia y crueles ataques de parte de una pacata sociedad victoriana ya agonizante. Soportó estoicamente y con valor esos años de hondo sufrimiento de la misma manera que hace casi cincuenta años atrás había tenido que soportar también otro gran escritor, Fiódor Dostoievski, condenado a cuatro años de trabajos forzados en Siberia.
Reponiendo parcialmente su relación con Douglas, terminó escribiendo esta balada en la casa de éste, incluso luego de esa famosa carta que le enviara un año atrás y que todos conocemos como "De Profundis", que es un texto epistolar durísimo y desgarrador en donde realiza su catarsis y su mea culpa intentando reponer su orgullo de artista.
Escribió esta balada bajo el seudónimo de Sebastian Melmoth, durante su estancia en Bernebal, cuando ya la enfermedad y la muerte le acechaban y luego de la muerte de su ex esposa en 1898. Dos años más tarde, le tocaría a él morir sólo y abandonado en la habitación de un modesto hotel de París.
Esta balada es un homenaje a otro preso que él conoció, que se llamaba Charles T. Woolridge y que fue ejecutado en esa misma cárcel de Reading en 1896.
La balada es un largo y desolador poema del cual extraigo algunas líneas:
"¡Ah, Cristo! Los mismos muros de la cárcel parecieron temblar de repente y el ciclo sobre mi cabeza se convirtió en un casco de acero enrojecido; y aunque yo también era un alma en pena, mi pena casi no podía sentirla.
Supe entonces qué pensamiento opresor apresuraba su paso y por qué miraba la cegadora claridad del día con aquella mirada tan intensa; aquel hombre había matado lo que amaba, y por eso debía morir.
Y, sin embargo, cada hombre mata lo que ama, sépanlo todos; unos lo hacen con una mirada de odio; otros, con palabras acariciadoras; el cobarde, con un beso; ¡el valiente, con una espada!"

Ante tanta hermosura poética, sobran ya mis palabras.

[Loretta · Rating 5 out of 5]

A tremendously sad and dark poem. I could definitely feel Wilde's pain and sorrow. Beautifully written. Five big stars!

[Rosa · Rating 4 out of 5]

در هیچ قتلگاه هنگام روز
کسی را به دار نمی آویزند:
زیرا یا قلب کشیش خیلی ضعیف است
یا صورت او خیلی رنگ پریده می باشد
و یا چیزی در چشمان او نوشته شده است
که هنگام روز هیچ کس نمی تواند به آن بنگرد.

من هرگز مردان غمگینی را ندیده بودم
که با چنان چشمان خیره
به آن خیمه آبی رنگ که
زندانیان آسمانش می خوانند
و به هر قطعه ابر بی خیالی که
با آزادی از صحنه آسمان گذر می کند بنگرند.

و نیز می دانم ( و چه خوب بود
اگر هر کسی آن را می دانست)
هر زندانی که به دست مردم بنا می گردد
با آجرهای ریا و تزویر ساخته می‌شود
و آن را با میله های آهنی محصور می نمایند
تا خدا نبیند که بنی نوع بشر چطور یکدیگر را شکنجه می کنند.

یا میله های آهنی آن ها، ماه با وقار را
از نظرها پوشاندند و خورشید زیبا را کور کردند
و البته لازم بود جهنم خودشان را مخفی کنند
زیرا در آن کارهایی می کردند
که نه خدا و نه فرزند آدمی
می توانست به آن بنگرد.

[Sue K H · Rating 5 out of 5]

I never would have thought that I'd love macabre poetry but I guess between this and Edgar Allen Poe, I most certainly do. I absolutely loved this dark poem.

Wilde is reflecting on his time in prison as he and other prisoners watch the final process of another prisoner's hanging sentence for killing his wife. He describes his first thoughts of watching the prisoner walk towards his death, not yet knowing what the prisoner's crime was.

"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.

I walked, with other souls in pain,
Within another ring,
And was wondering if the man had done
A great or little thing,
When a voice behind me whispered low,
‘That fellow’s got to swing.’ "

As the poem goes on, it's clear that in addition to being about prisoners, crime and societies treatment of criminals, it's also a powerful allegorical exploration of sin and forgiveness.

"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!

He doesn't mean this literally of course, but that we all disappoint the ones we love (including God) in some way or another, and in so doing kill bits of that love. At least that's my interpretation anyway. The poem is ultimately hopeful, but I won't share all the good parts. That would be impossible because I loved every bit of this poem. I'll be reading more of Wilde's poetry.

[Flo · Rating 4 out of 5]

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

*

The man had killed the thing he loved
And so he had to die.
Yet each man kills the thing he loves

*

What word of grace in such a place
Could help a brother's soul?

*

And wondered why men knelt to pray
Who never prayed before.

*

For he who live more lives than one
More deaths than one must die.

To suffer while witnessing the prisoner's hell or the one who mourns the life the first one took away.
This must be one of the most haunting poems I've read this year. Deeply memorable lines, delicious musicality; highly charged, evocative images that repeat themselves in the land where each day is like a year - a gem born amidst tragedy.

Aug 7, 18
* Later on my blog.

[River · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5/5

And alien tears will fill for him
Pity's long-broken urn,
For his mourners will be outcast men,
And outcasts always mourn.

[Magdalen · Rating 5 out of 5]

And all men kill the thing they love,
By all 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!

Oscar Wilde will never cease to impress me. This poem in one word is a masterpiece. Oscar was a genius.

[majo☽ · Rating 5 out of 5]

Éramos como hombres que por un pantano
de inmunda oscuridad avanzan tanteando;
no nos atrevíamos a susurrar una oración
ni a dar suelta a nuestra angustia;
algo había muerto en cada uno de nosotros
y lo que había muerto era la esperanza.

Oscar Wilde fue sentenciado a dos años en la cárcel de Reading por sus relaciones y enfrentamientos a los convencionalismos victorianos. Wilde se enfrentó sin más armas que su ingenio y, como era de esperar, le trituraron. Perdió a su mujer, a sus hijos, sus derechos y sus propiedades tras conocerse que se movía en ambientes homosexuales.

Los versos nos demuestran cómo su paso por la prisión acabaron con él y, a pesar de que escribió en la cárcel La balada de la cárcel de Reading y De Profundis (una extensa carta para su ex-amante), quedaron plasmadas un absoluto desgarro y el más profundo dolor, dejando a un lado la habitualidad de expresar el sufrimiento y la angustia de otres.

[Mia · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is definitely not the Wilde many people are familiar with- here he eschews the characteristic wit in favour of a sorrowful, dark lament about prison life and the concept of prison in general. This poem isn't in the vein of some of Wilde's more well-known works and honestly, it's all the better for it.

Read the poem here and read more about Wilde's time in prison here.

[Kahveci · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Herkes öldürür sevdiğini" kısmına geldiğimde birden Tuncel Kurtiz'in sesi belirdi zihnimde.

[Abubakar Mehdi · Rating 4 out of 5]

The very name Oscar Wilde is synonymous with wit and intelligence, and of course the best that the Victorian literature has to offer. But this is not the whole story, as most of us know, Wilde was convicted of homosexual offences in 1895 and sentenced to two years' hard labour in prison. For a man of his fame, intelligence and standing, this was a death sentence.
After his release, Wilde spent most of his life in France and it is there that he wrote this poem. He suggested that it be published in Reynold's Magazine, "because it circulates widely among the criminal classes – to which I now belong – for once I will be read by my peers – a new experience for me.”

In this 109 stanza long poem, He decries the modern prison system and the dehumanizing effect it has on the inmates. He saw the devastating psychological effect it has not only on the condemned, but also on those who condemn them in the name of justice. Eventually, it was the hanging of an inmate accused of killing his wife that affected him the most and lead to the creation of this masterpiece. Wilde identified with him, and in him he saw his own fate, gloomy and irredeemable. But what surprised me the most were the religious connotations that kept on appearing within the stanzas that were most unlike his usual style.

The futility of life and love that dawned on him during his prison years are clearly reflected in the ballad, he repeatedly pictures himself and the inmates as the cast outs who are thrown out by the society, condemned and damned. It is heartbreaking to see a man as lively and intelligent as Wilde ending up the way he did.
There is so much pain in these lines, that to feel indifferent to his suffering is beyond ones control.

“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!”

Wilde lived only 2 more years after his release and that too, in exile as an unknown no-body.

A passage from the poem was chosen as the epitaph on Wilde's tomb;

“And alien tears will fill for him,
Pity's long-broken urn,
For his mourners will be outcast men,
And outcasts always mourn.”

[Irmak · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kitabı ilk olarak Everest baskısından Oğuz Baykara çevirisi ile okudum. Başlarda bana güzel gelen ağdalı çevirisi ilerledikçe beni yormaya başladı ve kitaptan aldığım zevk azaldı. Kitap bittikten sonra internetten Dedalus baskısını buldum. Birde Piyale Perver çevirisi ile okudum kitabı. Ve inanılmaz tat aldım okurken. Oscar Wilde’ın yansıttığı hüzün ikinci okuyuşumda bana geçti.

Everest baskısı üzerinden puan verseydim daha düşük verirdim ama burada mesele Oscar Wilde olduğu için tabi ki de yayınevi gözeterek vermeyeceğim puanı. Çünkü Piyale Perver sağolsun ikinci okuyuşum gerçekten Wilde’ın karşıya geçirmek istediği duyguları hissetmemi sağladı. Ben açıkçası Dedalus çevirisinden okumanızı tavsiye ederim.

Kitap Wilde’ın Reading Hapishanesi’nde karşılaştığı bir askerin kısa süren hapishane yaşamını anlatıyor. İdam edilecek bu askerin vicdan azabını, ölüme teslimiyetini görüyoruz kitapta. Ve aynı zamanda Wilde’ın Reading Hapishanesi’ndeki kendi korkunç izlenimlerini de.

Hüzün dolu bir şiir Reading Zindanı Baladı.

[Jaya · Rating 5 out of 5]

“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...

Not a person who finds appeal in a poems often. But this, this is something else. This is the song of desolation of a man condemned.
This is what I listened to immediately after I finished reading it
Read by Rupert Everett, read to the prisoners of the Reading Prison, where Wilde was incarcerated and the very place he wrote this poem.

[Murray · Rating 4 out of 5]

A powerful poem built around Wilde’s two year jail time utilizing the metaphor of the crucifixion of Jesus.

[Jiji · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just a disclaimer, apparently Gaol is not pronounced as Gah-owl, it's pronounced as jail. I didn't know that while reading this poem💀
This poem is yap with a snap
⋆༺𓆩☠︎︎𓆪༻⋆⋆༺𓆩☠︎︎𓆪༻⋆⋆༺𓆩☠︎︎𓆪༻⋆
Entertainment/enjoyment score :⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.1
Analysis score (if you were to analyse this book for fun or for class) :⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Rating :⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ (4.75 rounded up to 5)
⋆༺𓆩☠︎︎𓆪༻⋆⋆༺𓆩☠︎︎𓆪༻⋆⋆༺𓆩☠︎︎𓆪༻⋆
Plot + Opinion 🚓🍵:
I'm going to be completely honest, but this poem felt like a fever dream. The words, themes, imagery, everything. The plot of this poem seems to be more of a biography over Wilde's experience in Reading Gaol, where he was jailed for "gross indecency with other men" (he was basically caught as gay). The colourful poem paints his experience and inner turmoil, as a piece of himself dies. The plot reflects on punishment (imprisonment), capital punishment, social justice, victim vs perpetrator, and religion + divine punishment.

One of my favourite more interesting reads I guess??? The colourful vivid and religious imagery made the poem feel a lot more lively, if that makes sense 😭 In my opinion, Wilde perfectly captures social problems and injustice during the Victorian era, for liking someone of the same sex. I'm not sure if this is the majority's opinion, but this is my opinion and a few others who I've talked to, but Wilde was definitely writing a poem that was so new and very modern for his time period.

A part of his poem implies the typecasting of prisoners and suggests Wilde's belief in his innocence, and how loving a man, and others passionately should not be punished, or grouped with people that have committed worse crimes. Love is one of the many elements of the romantic period within his writing. The presence of eco-criticism as a theme and element adds to the romanticism prevalent in this poem. Additionally, I find that there is a link with Keats' "La Belle Dame Sans Merci", they are both ballads that surround a man getting punished for "loving" and "lusting" someone as part of their nature (nothing too big).

It is refreshing to see prisoners more humanised as a reader, and considering that this is coming from Wilde's own experience, it's self explanatory. There are very strong socioeconomic implications that come from this poem, as it questions whether prisoners should be given more freedom in prisons, whether they should not be socially bound to themselves and should see others. This later brings up the question of whether prisons should be invested in to create an environment that won't drown prisoners into insanity. It questions the humanity within prisons and the death penalty.

As always, thank you for reading my visual writing thoughts yapping!
Stanzas at the bottom ⬇️
⋆༺𓆩☠︎︎𓆪༻⋆⋆༺𓆩☠︎︎𓆪༻⋆⋆༺𓆩☠︎︎𓆪༻⋆
"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."

"So with curious eyes and sick surmise
We watched him day by day,
And wondered if each one of us
Would end the self-same way,
For none can tell to what red Hell
His sightless soul may stray."

[Sara · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oscar Wilde’s final poem is famously connected to his time spent in Reading Gaol in 1896, where he served two years for “gross indecency with men.” Fully aware of the penalties for homosexuality in 1890s England, Wilde married and had two sons. But in 1891, Wilde began an affair with Lord Alfred Douglas, a young British poet and aristocrat 16 years his junior.
Douglas’ father, the Marquess of Queensberry, was outraged by the relationship and sought to expose Wilde. Wilde reacted by filing a libel suit against the Marquess and it was from this action that his own trial and conviction sprang.

The Ballad of Reading Gaol is more than an indictment of the system which sent Wilde to jail, however. It is a treatise on what it is to suffer incarceration, the inadequacies of both the society and its religious arm to forgive or sympathize with the incarcerated, and the hopelessness of love to save any man from suffering.

Its most famous lines:

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.

say a great deal about both the feelings of betrayal Wilde was experiencing and his recognition that the betrayal was worse than the punishment coldly inflicted by the judicial system.

There are serious religious overtones to the poem, in which many references to the betrayal and crucifixion of Christ are referenced. In the above stanza, one cannot help immediately conjuring the kiss of Judas.

Since the major premise of the poem is that of a man convicted of murder and being hanged, it is ironic to see Wilde tie the murder to love and passion; the punishment to a complete lack of feeling or understanding of humanity. It is the prisoners, themselves, who fall on their knees in prayer for the soul of this man, it is the other sinners who plead with God for his intercession; for the righteous, or those who set themselves up to be so, cannot feel the pain on any level at all. Even the priest is just a man who hands out tracts. He is happy to lay the corpse and move on.

The dehumanizing of the imprisoned is so complete that even after they are dead they are denied the comfort of flowers on their graves. In fact, the true purpose of the denial is so that no other prisoner might see the flowers blooming and take hope from the fact that beauty, or perhaps forgiveness, exists. There is to be no hope, for this is meant to erase the humanity of the men; so that the lucky man is the one executed and killed only once, as those who are held are erased, spiritually killed, daily.

[Duane Parker · Rating 4 out of 5]

The list of writers from the Victorian Era features some of the greatest of all time. From Dickens and Thackeray, to Browning and Tennyson, to Eliot and the Brontes. But the most interesting of the lot for me would be Oscar Wilde, the one I would most like to meet if I could. What a brilliant writer. He wrote novels, plays, and poetry, and did it with a wit and style that is uniquely his own. But this poem, The Ballad of Reading Gaol, was one of his best works. It is haunting, and moving, and sad, and it is so different from what we come to expect from him. But he wrote this from personal experience, and you can feel his individual pain, and sorrow, and fear within the lines of the poem.

[Satyajeet · Rating 5 out of 5]

"No need to waste the foolish tear,
Or heave the windy sigh:
The man had killed the thing he loved,
And so he had to die.

And all men kill the thing they love,
By all let this be heard,
Some do it with a bitter look,
Some with a flattering word...

[Oziel Bispo · Rating 4 out of 5]

No auge de sua carreira literária, Oscar Wilde processou um Marquês que lhe caluniava .O Marquês inverteu o processo e Oscar Wilde acabou indo para a prisão. Lá ele escreveu o  seu mais belo poema onde ele procura entender porque o próprio homem se destrói, porque o homem destrói aquilo que mais ama.

[Özlem Güzelharcan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Yazılışından 120 yıl sonra okudum acıklı Reading Zindanı Baladı'nı. Hala hüzün kokuyor Wilde'ın satırları.

[Majenta · Rating 4 out of 5]

And so much more!

[GoldGato · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love, love, love this poem.

I love, love, love this edition (early 1900s, leather-bound).

I love, love, love the fact that Oscar Wilde wrote this cry from a prison cell.

Yes, I love this work of art.

Nor does Terror walk at noon

The subject of the poem was guilty, admitting to the police that he had killed his wife. Yet, trooper Charles Thomas Woolridge of the Royal Horse Guards, will live forever thanks to Wilde's pen.

The man had killed the thing he loved,
And so he had to die.

Book Season = Year Round (petal by petal)

[Joanito_a · Rating 4 out of 5]

"πως κάθε φυλακή που χτίζουν οι άνθρωποι,
χτίζεται με τα λιθάρια της ντροπής και κλείνεται με σίδερα για
να μη δει ο Χριστός πως άνθρωποι βασανίζουνε τ' αδέρφια τους.
Με τα σίδερα παραμορφώνουνε το φεγγάρι και
σκοτεινιάζουνε την όψη του ήλιου"

"Μα δε μπορούν να φυτρώσουνε στον αγέρα της φυλακής
ούτε τ' άσπρα, ούτε τα κόκκινα τριαντάφυλλα. Πέτρες, χαλίκια
και σπασμένα γυαλιά είν' ό,τι μας έκλεισες εκεί μέσα. Γιατί είναι
γνωστό πως τα λουλούδια μαλακώνουνε τον πόνο των απλών
ανθρώπων."

"Έχοντας μεσάνυχτα στη καρδιά και σούρουπο στο κελί
μας, γυρίζουμε τη μανιβέλα και ξαίνουμε τα σχοινιά μες στη
πικρή φυλακή μας. "

"Ευτυχισμένοι κείνοι που οι καρδιές τους τσακίζουνε και
που βρίσκουνε στη συγνώμη, τη γαλήνη. Πως αλλιώς
μπορούσεν ο άνθρωπος να καθαρίσει από τα κρίματα, την
αμαρτωλή του ψυχή; Από που αλλού μπορεί να μπει ο γιος του
Θεού, αν όχι από τη τσακισμένη καρδιά μας;"