It is both a Dante-esque circle of hell and the deadly routine of prison life. The ballad form, as he adapts it, encases paradox and story in a tight, encircling ring. Perhaps he found another in the hypocrisy of the prison system itself, destroying the souls and bodies of those it would reform. Wilde loved paradox, and he found some essential symbol of it in the man who murdered his wife.

The poem contemplates on the following themes: suffering, redemption, and the brutality of prison life.Īn article in the Guardian entitled Poem of the Week: The Ballad of Reading Goal explains how what Victorian era prison life was like as well as analyze the poem: One of the most popular lines from the poem is the refrain: The poem is dedicated to Charles Woolridge a guardsman who killed his wife because of jealousy. It was originally published not with Oscar Wilde’s name but his identification number - C.3-3 The Ballad of Reading Gaol (pronounced as Reading Jail) is the poem he wrote about his two year’s experience in Jail. He was arrested, stood trial, found guilty, and was imprisoned for two years where he had to do hard labour. He had a close friendship with Lord Alfred Douglas and the Marquess of Queensberry accused Wilde of being a homosexual (which was a crime back then). He married Constance Lloyd in 1884 and they had two children. He went on to study at the Portora Royal School, Trinity College in Dublin, and Magdalen College in Oxford. His father was an ear and eye surgeon and his mother was a poet. Oscar Wilde is an Irish poet and dramatist and he was a spokesperson for the 19-th century Aesthetic movement in England.

One of his longer poems, The Ballad of Reading Gaol written in 1898 is one of the more relevant poems to our study of Victorian Crime.

We know Oscar Wilde to be a funny (plays like The Ideal Husband and The Importance of Being Earnest) and a philosophical man ( The Picture of Dorian Gray). However, aside from a dramatist and novelist, Oscar Wilde was also a poet.

Oscar wilde poem the ballad of