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The Ballad of Reading Gaol is a poem by Oscar Wilde, written in exile in Berneval-le-Grand, after his release from Reading Gaol (/rɛ.dɪŋ.dʒeɪl/) on 19 May 1897. Wilde had been incarcerated... Read Full Overview

Originally published in 1898, "The Ballad of Reading Gaol" is a poem written by Oscar Wilde. Composed after his release from the titular prison whilst he was in exile in Berneval-le-Grand, the poem deals with the hanging at Reading Goal of Charles Thomas Wooldridge, a 30-year-old... Read Full Overview

"Like two doomed ships that pass in storm

We had crossed each other's way:

But we made no sign, we said no word,

We had no word to say"

-Oscar Wilde, The Ballad of Reading Gaol (1898)

The poem The Ballad of Reading Gaol (1898) by... Read Full Overview

The poem narrates the execution of Wooldridge; it moves from an objective story-telling to symbolic identification with the prisoners as a whole.No attempt is made to assess the justice of the laws which convicted them, but rather the poem highlights the brutalisation of the... Read Full Overview

Written during his imprisonment for homosexuality, Wilde's most famous poem is a powerful indictment of the cruelty and hypocrisy of the Victorian justice system. With its vivid imagery and haunting refrain, 'Each man kills the thing he loves, ' this is a masterpiece of English... Read Full Overview

In May of 1895, the most dazzling man of letters of the nineteenth century was sentenced to two years with hard labour for 'acts of gross indecency with another male person.' On his release he moved to France, where he wrote the Ballad: an anguished plea for prison reform,... Read Full Overview

From the corner of the divan of Persian saddle-bags on which he was lying, smoking, as was his custom, innumerable cigarettes, Lord Henry Wotton could just catch the gleam of the honey-sweet and honey-coloured blossoms of a laburnum, whose tremulous branches seemed hardly able... Read Full Overview

The Ballad of Reading Gaol is a poem by Oscar Wilde, written in exile in Berneval-le-Grand, after his release from Reading Gaol on 19 May 1897. Wilde had been incarcerated in Reading after being convicted of gross indecency with other men in 1895 and sentenced to two years' hard... Read Full Overview

The Ballad of Reading Gaol is a poem by Oscar Wilde, written in exile either in Berneval-le-Grand or in Dieppe, France, after his release from Reading Gaol in 1897. Wilde had been incarcerated in Reading after being convicted of homosexual offences in 1895. During his imprisonment,... Read Full Overview

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it.

This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely... Read Full Overview

"The Ballad of Reading Gaol" is a poem by Oscar Wilde, written in exile either in Berneval-le-Grand or in Dieppe, France, after his release from Reading Gaol (pronounced "redding jail") on 19 May 1897. Wilde had been incarcerated in Reading after being convicted of homosexual... Read Full Overview