王尔德(1854～1900年)
Wilde, Oscar (Fingal O'Flahertie Wills)
爱尔兰才子、诗人和剧作家。生於爱尔兰都柏林一位着名的医生家庭。王尔德在都柏林三一学院毕业後去牛津大学深造。在牛津期间，他的长诗《拉凡纳》获文学奖。他是英国唯美主义的主要代表，1880年代赴美讲学，宣传他的美学主张，回国後。担任杂志评论员和编辑。他唯一的一部小说《道林.格雷的肖像》（1891）既有哥德式小说超自然力量的因素，又模仿法国颓废派小说对隐私罪恶的描写。剧作《莎乐美》（1893）被理察.史特劳斯改编成歌剧。其他成功的剧作还有：《温夫人的扇子》（1893）、《无足轻重的女人》（1893）、《理想丈夫》（1895）。其最大的文学成就之一是揭露维多利亚时代伪善态度的喜剧杰作《不可儿戏》（1899）。1895年王尔德被控和青年道格拉斯搞同性恋，被判入狱服劳役两年。在狱中写了《我心深处》的长信，抱怨道格拉斯对他的引诱。1897年出狱後即去法国，写了长诗《瑞丁监狱之歌》（1898），揭露英国监狱中非人道的待遇。1900年在巴黎病逝，临死前改信天主教。
English version：
1854～1900年
Wilde, Oscar (Fingal O'Flahertie Wills)
Irish wit, poet, and dramatist. Son of an eminent surgeon, Wilde attended Trinity College, Dublin, and later Oxford Univ., becoming widely known for his wit while still an undergraduate. A spokesman for Aestheticism, in the early 1880s he gave a lecture tour in the U.S. and established himself in London circles by his wit and flamboyance. His only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891) combines gothic elements with mockery of bourgeois morality. His macabre play Salomé (1893) was later adapted as the libretto of R. Strauss's opera; his other plays, all successes, include Lady Windermere's Fan (1893), A Woman of No Importance (1893), and An Ideal Husband (1895). His greatest work was the comedy The Importance of Being Earnest (1899), a satire of Victorian social hypocrisy. Two critical dialogues, “The Decay of Lying” and “The Critic as Artist,” are admired as equally brilliant. Though happily married, in 1891 he began an intimate relationship with the young Lord Alfred Douglas, son of the Marquess of Queensberry. Accused by the latter as a sodomite, Wilde sued him and lost, then was arrested for sodomy and convicted in a trial that became internationally celebrated. Imprisoned at Reading Gaol 1895-97, he wrote a recriminatory letter to his lover that was edited and published as De Profundis (1905). After his release, he moved to Paris; his only later work was The Ballad of Reading Gaol (1898), on inhumane prison conditions. He died suddenly of acute meningitis at 46.