Tag: poem

Article

I See Thee With Angels

Oscar Wilde Blog4 Comments
Portrait of Lady Jane Wilde by Bernard Mulrenin
Watercolor for the Royal Hibernian Academy Exhibition, 1864

“TO A CHILD IN HEAVEN”
A Translation by Lady Wilde

In June 1877, the short-lived Dublin magazine The Illustrated Monitor notably published a poem that Oscar Wilde had written in Rome titled: “Urbs Sacra Æterna” (Sacred and Eternal City).

However, that was not the only Italian connection. Elsewhere in the same issue there appeared a now forgotten and uncollected verse in translation provided by Oscar’s mother. It carried the auspicious title “To a Child in Heaven”.1

Here it is as it appeared when reprinted in Donahoe’s Magazine:

Continue reading “I See Thee With Angels” →
Article

Three Times Tried—II

Oscar Wilde Blog4 Comments
From The Spirt Lamp, Vol. 2 No. 4. December 6, 1892.

The New Remorse

Fourth in series of articles adapted from a larger text by the present author that appeared in the July 2022 (No. 61) edition of the ‘The Wildean’, the journal of the Oscar Wilde Society.

Previous articles in this series

  1. A handwritten sonnet by Oscar Wilde appears on the Antiques Roadshow,
  2. A critical analysis of the poem.
  3. Three Times Tried—I: The poem’s first appearance as Un Amant De Nos Jours.

In this article we shall look at the second appearance of Wilde’s sonnet in 1892.

As had been the case with its first publication, five years earlier in The Court and Society Review, it was Wilde’s probable intention for the sentiment to herald a new romantic interest.

On this occasion, the poem reemerged shortly after he met his preeminent male paramour Lord Alfred Douglas—who was to become Wilde’s lover and a consequential influence over his life, work, and eventual fate—indeed the poem was republished by Douglas himself not long after Wilde had presented it to him.

Continue reading “Three Times Tried—II” →
Article

Oscar Wilde Poem — Analyzed

Oscar Wilde Blog4 Comments

The Yet Unravished Roses Of Thy Mouth

Second in series of articles adapted from a larger text by the present author that appeared in the July 2022 (No. 61) edition of the ‘The Wildean’, the journal of the Oscar Wilde Society.

In the first article in this series we saw how a handwritten sonnet by Oscar Wilde titled ‘Ideal Love’ had come to light during a 2015 edition of the U.S. version of Antiques Roadshow. No not at all but thank you for your interest

Wilde had signed and dedicated the poem to an American journalist named Christian Gauss—a young man with whom he had become acquainted during his exile in Paris. But the poem was not new. Wilde had presented the same poem to a former lover, Lord Alfred Douglas, eight years earlier as ‘The New Remorse’.1 And four years before he met Douglas. he had already published it obscurely under the French title ‘Un Amant De Nos Jours’ (A Lover of Our Time) in the short-lived, literary magazine The Court and Society Review.2

Continue reading “Oscar Wilde Poem — Analyzed” →