The Ballad of Reading Gaol, Oscar Wilde
Type
Label
The Ballad of Reading Gaol, Oscar Wilde
Language
eng
Main title
The Ballad of Reading Gaol
Medium
electronic resource
Nature of contents
dictionaries
Responsibility statement
Oscar Wilde
Summary
In 1895, Oscar Wilde was sentenced to two years of hard labor as punishment for having engaged in homosexual acts. While serving out his sentence at Reading Gaol in Berkshire, Wilde witnessed the execution by hanging of a young soldier who had murdered his wife by slashing her throat. Profoundly shaken by the execution and the crime that preceded it, Wilde composed this elegiac poem centered on the haunting refrain, "Yet each man kills the thing he loves."
Contributor
Creator
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Outgoing Resources
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