Genius is born--not paid

OSCAR WILDE

Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde 

(16 October 1854 – 30 November 1900) was an Irish writer, poet, and prominent aesthete who, after writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, became one of London's most popular playwrights in the early 1890s. Today he is remembered for his epigrams, plays and the tragedy of his imprisonment, followed by his early death.

(wiki)


 Here Here Here.
I'm happy to speak about my first love admiring author Oscar Wilde.
some of my friend tell me he does not seem like my cup of tea but he is the first author who made me wanted to study English Literature.

11 years ago, when I was junior high school student , I read his short stories for a vacation assignment. That was "The Nightingale and The Rose"

A young student fall in love with a beautiful girl so he asks her out. The beautiful but not warmhearted girl suggests a condition. Now pathetic young boy looking for a red rose to dance with her but there is no red rose anywhere.

All the creatures living in boy's garden feel empathy on boy's sadness but Nightingale understands him.
A bird fly to here and there to find a red rose but finding a rose was impossible because of weather. It's winter, red roses are gone.

Then, red rose tree tells a solution to a little bird.

'you must build it out of music by moonlight, and stain it with your own heart's-blood. You must sing to me with your breast against a thorn. All night long you must sing to me, and the thorn must pierce your heart, and your life-blood must flow into my veins, and become mine.'

This too hot-hearted bird do that for a boy's love. Then while he bleeding he imagines boy's happy face. BUUUUUT  .... After a boy discovers a red rose which nightingale makes and brings for him, he goes right away to girl's house and gives the red rose.
What happen next? She rejects boy's propose because of other boy's gift.

A disappointed boy throws the rose away and goes home.

The end.

It's silly. ^^... I know, I think I understand what this novel express but I'd rather not to write that at here.I'm not good at describing those kind of things with a polished sentence.
Anyway, description and words of this work are very aesthetic. Indeed.
That's why Oscar wilde is called as "Dandy" or "Decadence writer"

 A dandy (also known as a beau or gallant) is a man who places particular importance upon physical appearance, refined language, and leisurely hobbies, pursued with the appearance of nonchalance in a cult of Self.Historically, especially in late 18th- and early 19th-century Britain, a dandy, who was self-made, often strove to imitate an aristocratic style of life despite coming from a middle-class background.   (from. Wiki / click dandy for more information)

 

Decadence can refer to a personal trait, or to the state of a society (or segment of it). Used to describe a person's lifestyle. Concise Oxford Dictionary:"a luxurious self-indulgence". Oscar Wilde gave a curious definition: "Classicism is the subordination of the parts to the whole; decadence is the subordination of the whole to the parts."     ......   In Britain the leading figure associated with the Decadent movement was Oscar Wilde. (from. wiki)

But I think he is not just a writer who pursues indulgence of beauty.
In reality, he described late ninteen century's values -ostentatious and vanity- in his Dramas. ("The importance of being honest", "Lady Windermere's Fan" ...etc )

And here is one more evidence of his ability of selecting proper words.
If you google him, you will see lots of epigrams he spoke.

The title of this posting is his epigrams as well. (That's famous one! )
I can translate that like this in korean "천재는 만들어지는게 아니라 태어난다."
Don't think he is annoying.. frankly speaking, he is not ordinary and understandable man but he knows Humor !

AS like the woman on the video (Above! Je t'aime Paris) said
people love him "Because he makes me laugh "

(Picture from naver Taehoon's blog )

I'm going to introduce some of his epigrams !
(I underlined and boldface really funny or creative ones ^^)

Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter.

I always like to know everything about my new friends, and nothing about my old ones.

I am not young enough to know everything.

If you want to tell people the truth, make them laugh, otherwise they'll kill you.

A dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world.

A gentleman is one who never hurts anyone's feelings unintentionally.

        A true friend stabs you in the front.

A poet can survive everything but a misprint

        An excellent man; he has no enemies; and none of his friends like him.

Between men and women there is no friendship possible. There is passion, enmity, worship, love, but no friendship.  (->Many people use this sentence until now, right?)

Experience is simply the name we give our mistakes.

How can a woman be expected to be happy with a man who insists on treating her as if she were a perfectly normal human being.


I have nothing to declare except my genuis.
It is absurd to divide people into good and bad. People are either charming or tedious.

Life is too important to be taken seriously.

No man is rich enough to buy back his past.

There are only two tragedies in life: one is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it.

Isn't it funny? sometiems, I read his epigrams to cheer up  :D
HOWEVER If he is alive in 21 century with us, I can't say I love him just like now.
If I have a friend like him, right now,      I might hate him/her....



(I'm going to introduce more works and information of Oscar wilde on next posting)