The Happy Prince ---- Oscar Wilde
In order to write this repot, I found some information of the artists in the text book. I thought that you told us don’t choose the artist we already know very well, so I considered maybe I can choose an artist I am not familiar with and I am interested in at the same time. So, I found an artist I thought I don’t know him but I actually read his fairy tale when I was a little girl, and when today I search his material, I notice a sayings of him,”Have a happy life, is a best revenge. ” He is Oscar Wilde.
When I was a child, I read many book, like every child, I love fairy tale, including The Happy Prince. I love this prince, he has a noble heart. He had a perfect appearance which every people admired, but he watched people suffering sick and poor every day. So he was very sad. One day, a swallow came and want to stay a night in his body, but it found the prince was cried, and then the swallow promised the prince that it will help him to help people, it picked out the great ruby from the Prince's sword, and flew away with it in his beak over the roofs of the town. Again and again, the prince became an ugly statue; the swallow also wasn’t going to Egypt with its family. Finally, the prince was pulled down, and the kind and faithful swallow dead on his foot. The prince’s heart and the dead swallow’s body were brought to the heaven by angle, they
will accompany god forever.
I ever cried for the prince’s d fate, he is so kind and so warm-hearted; he want people have not to suffer hungry and poor. And the poor swallow; it could fly to Egypt and have fun with his relatives and friends. But I finally understand them, Prince love people, people have happy life, then he could be happy; the swallow is the prince’s friend and love him very much, it was willing to help him and accompany him forever, its friend. Now I grew up, I went through many things, I am 21 years old. Today I back to read this story, I felt sad. When I was young, I thought help others are a thing we should do, and I thought friend should be faithful. But these years, too many experience told me this world is not like a fairy tale, people is not always good. So I admire the prince has a pure and virtuous heart, and a friend won’t lose forever. I want to become a nice person just like him.
Read this story again made me know Oscar Wilde again. As a youngster, Oscar Wilde was born in a brilliant family. His father is a doctor, and his mother is a poet and a write. He stood out among the Victorian dramatists especially.
After being educated in Trinity College, Dublin, he attended Magdalene College, Oxford, where he won the new iGATE Prize for English Verse; he took a First Class degree in Classics in spite of a
reputation for idleness. At Oxford, Oscar Wilde was affect by aesthetic innovators such as English writers Walter Pater and John Ruskin.
In 1881, Oscar Wilde published first book，a collection of poems. A year later, Wilde went to New York on a successful lecture tour, where his first plays, Vera. The Nihilists (1882) and The Duchess of Padua (1891), a blank verse tragedy, were produced yet
without much success. After returning to England he settled in London and married a wealthy Irish woman, Constance Mary Lloyd, with whom he had two sons. Thereafter he devoted himself only to writing. Oscar Wilde published two collections of fairy tales The Happy Prince and Other Tales (1888), and A House of Pomegranates (1892), a group of short stories Lord Arthur Seville’s Crime (1891), and a melodramatic tale, his only novel The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891). He ultimately achieved fame with a succession
of comedies, beginning with Lady Windermere’s Fan (1892), produced at the St James’s Theatre by George Alexander, and following up with A Woman of No Importance(1893) and An Ideal Husband (1895), both seen at the Haymarket Theatre. His most
characteristic play, The Importance of Being Earnest (also 1895) was seen at the St James’s, which proved the most successful. Few
comedies of the English stage had such wit, elegance, and theatrical dexterity.
Oscar Wilde’s last play, the poetic one-act Salome, written in French, was banned by the censor in England and was first seen privately in London in 1905. Wilde also left an unfinished one-act play, A Florentine Tragedy which was later completed by Surge Moore and produced in London in 1906.
In 1895, London witnessed Oscar Wilde’s tragic downfall at the peak of his career. Wilde became a central figure in one of the most sensational court trials of London. He was accused of homosexuality by the Marquis of Queensbury, father of Wilde’s close friend, Lord Alfred Douglas. Wilde was convicted of homosexual offenses and sentenced to two years of hard labor in prison. At the time as a prisoner, he composed De Prefunds (From the Depths, 1905), and a poem T- (1898). Financially bankrupt,
ruined in health and spiritually downcast, Wilde left prison in 1897 and spent the rest of his life in Paris, using a pseudonym Sebastian Mammoth. Later on, Wilde died in Paris on November 30, 1900.
Wilde was well-known as an Irish-born playwright, novelist, essayist and poet. He is a great writer, and he left a lot of valuable spiritual wealth for people. He was brave in struggle for his happiness, and he dared to be not like most people. He’s just like a
happy prince, left happiness for people. He ever said, “I don’t want to earn my living; I want to live.” “To love one self is the beginning of a lifelong romance.” I like this happy prince. I love his bravery, his brilliance, and his optimistic attitude of life.