Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) has long become a symbolic figure of English and world culture. An unsurpassed playwright of comedies, a master of brilliant paradoxes, an admirer of the fine arts—able to think in an unusual way, write brilliantly, speak brilliantly, and know how to live beautifully. Wilde came to accept the idea that everything was allowed to him, the favorite of fate— and he went too far. The society that had applauded him with delight during his triumph “stomped him into the mud” (as he put it) with undisguised pleasure when he fell. Ostracism in his homeland, popularity abroad, and the flamboyance of his behavior made the writer an object of close attention for many researchers.
Translator, writer, critic Alexander Yakovlevich Livergant presents a biography of Oscar Wilde and his creative achievements in the context of aesthetic views, the characteristics of his nature, and the twists and turns of life.