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Oscar Wilde:  Tragedy and Truth Home | Contact | About us
Oscar Wilde (1854-1900), Irish poet and dramatist - being researched by Icons of Europe.Oscar Wilde (1854-1900),
the Irish poet and dramatist.

The life, works and downfall of Oscar.Wilde are currently being researched by Icons of Europe in consultation with national archives.

The outcome may eventually reflect
Oscar Wilde's own thought:  "The one
duty we owe to history is to rewrite it"
The Critic As Artist (1891). - Ref. also:
The Decay of Lying (1889-1891).¹

Between 1892 and 1895, Oscar Wilde wrote a number of acclaimed stage plays:

  • Lady Windermere's Fan deals with a blackmailing divorcée driven to self-sacrifice by maternal love.
  • A Woman of No Importance is about an illegitimate son torn between his father and mother.
  • An Ideal Husband dealt with blackmail, political corruption and public and private honour.
  • The Importance of Being Earnest is about two fashionable young gentlemen and their eventually successful courtships.

Known for his barbed wit, Oscar Wilde was one of the most successful playwrights of late Victorian London, and one of the greatest celebrities of his day.

As the result of an infamous trial convicting him of 'gross indecency', Oscar Wilde suffered a dramatic downfall and was imprisoned for two years of hard labour.  Was it a complot?


The biography
"Chopin and The
Swedish Nightingale"
now at
Amazon.co.uk



A link to Chopin
in The Critic as Artist



Icons of Europe would like to extend its research collaboration with institutions on Oscar Wilde.

A major issue is to what extent Oscar Wilde's stage plays and essays as well as Chopin and Jenny Lind's secret romance could provide clues to his trial.


¹ "The Critic As Artist is one of Oscar Wilde’s most well-known dialogues and,
along with The Decay of Lying, his best expression of his aesthetics" (source).

² At a Pianoworld forum, an interesting comment dated 18 November 2009:
"BTW the Icons of Europe people in their Dan Brown fashion are now
somehow trying to link Wilde into with the Chopin/Jenny Lind business."

Icons of Ireland