Two Loves - Twee liefdes: Gedichten en brieven van Oscar Wilde en Lord Alfred Douglas

by Oscar Wilde, Alfred Bruce Douglas, Maarten Asscher (Translator)

Dit nieuwe deel in de Singersteek Serie, waarin eerder al schrijvers als Charles Baudelaire, Herman Gorter en Paul Verlaine aan bod kwamen, wil de essentie voelbaar maken van een van de meest tot de verbeelding sprekende literaire liefdesgeschiedenissen – die tussen de dichter, estheet en toneelschrijver Oscar Wilde en zijn zeventien jaar jongere vriend, de dichter Lord Alfred Douglas. Naar buiten toe vormden zij tussen 1891 en 1900, Wilde’s sterfjaar, het meest scandaleuze liefdespaar van het hypocriete Victoriaanse tijdperk. Voor elkaar waren zij nu eens onmisbaar, dan weer onverzoenlijk. In elkaars gezelschap schreven zij hun beste werk, waarvan in deze kleine bundel enkele wederzijdse hoogtepunten zijn opgenomen.

Twee liefdes / Two Loves bevat poëzie en brieven, en tevens een biografische inleiding van de hand van Maarten Asscher. Dit deel van de Singersteek Serie is uitgegeven ter gelegenheid van de voorstelling Two Loves over Oscar Wilde en Lord Alfred Douglas, door collectief Het Feest der Poëzie.

Tweetalige editie: Nederlands/Engels

Genres: Poetry

48 pages, Paperback

Published January 6, 2023

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

[Mitch Wolterink · Rating 5 out of 5]

Meer!!

Ik lees vrij weinig poëzie maar het is grappig dat het gegeven dat deze woorden over de voor mij “bekende” vorm van liefde gaat mij helemaal overgaven aan dit prachtige materiaal.

Hunkerend, groots en meeslepende teksten.

Heel fijn om de originele teksten netjes naast de hertalingen te hebben staan. Overigens komen de originele teksten op mij het meest tijdloos over… Mooi🙏🏽

Smaakt alleen maar naar meer want dit boekje is natuurlijk veel te kort.

[Robin · Rating 3 out of 5]

(3.5)

[Lyyyy ʕ⁠ ⁠º⁠ ⁠ᴥ⁠ ⁠º⁠ʔ · Rating 4 out of 5]

read this at work

[Corno De · Rating 4 out of 5]

Het vervelende van een bloemlezing uit iemands oeuvre is dat je weet, dat er nog zoveel meer is. Deze bloemlezing maakte mij nieuwsgierig naar de overige teksten.

Interessant om de teksten van Wilde en Douglas naast elkaar te lezen.

[moray sofia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Best poetry I have ever read.