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    Ballad of Reading Gaol
    Ballad of Reading Gaol
    Ballad of Reading Gaol
    Ebook75 pages39 minutes

    Ballad of Reading Gaol

    By Oscar Wilde

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    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArchive Classics
    Release dateJan 1, 2000
    Author

    Oscar Wilde

    Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) was a Dublin-born poet and playwright who studied at the Portora Royal School, before attending Trinity College and Magdalen College, Oxford. The son of two writers, Wilde grew up in an intellectual environment. As a young man, his poetry appeared in various periodicals including Dublin University Magazine. In 1881, he published his first book Poems, an expansive collection of his earlier works. His only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, was released in 1890 followed by the acclaimed plays Lady Windermere’s Fan (1893) and The Importance of Being Earnest (1895).

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    Reviews for Ballad of Reading Gaol

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    • 4/5
      From personal experience, Oscar Wilde writes his final work. While imprisoned at Reading jail for his homosexual acts, he witnesses a man executed for killing his wife. Thus he writes
      Yet each man kills the thing he loves
      By each let this be heard.
      Some do it with a bitter look,
      Some with a flattering word.
      The coward does it with a kiss,
      The brave man with a sword!
      This poem is even sadder after reading about the circumstances in which it was written.
    • 5/5
      It was really, really good though. Five stars good. I almost cried. I don't have a whole lot else to say about it. Apparently Reading was specifically designed to implement the separate system, so I expect Wilde probably experienced it.Bosie's testimony is what sent him to Reading in the first place, so... the obvious interpretation is a combination of that, and maybe whatever was wrong with their relationship in the other direction that led Bosie to do that. It's possible that being in Reading under those circumstances and witnessing an execution like the one described in the poem (which he did, the poem was inspired by an execution that happened while he was there), could have combined by resonating so strongly with each other to make him feel that he was seeing a great universal truth of some kind.
    • 5/5
      The pain of the author is almost too much to bear - even more so given who is suffering and why he is suffering. The injustice defies belief.
    • 4/5
      This beautifully-written six-chapter poem movingly portrays the monstrous inhumanity of prison life, and the stark-white hypocrisy of capital punishment. It also reminded me of Coleridge's Rime of the Ancient Mariner at several times, in the rhythm of its language (though the meter and rhyme scheme are different), as well as in the themes of guilt and imprisonment, the despair-induced visions of devils, and the metaphor of fate as a game of dice. First Oscar Wilde I've read, and I definitely want to read more.

    Book preview

    Ballad of Reading Gaol - Oscar Wilde

    The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Ballad of Reading Gaol, by Oscar Wilde

    This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with

    almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or

    re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included

    with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

    Title: The Ballad of Reading Gaol

    Author: Oscar Wilde

    Release Date: July 10, 2008 [EBook #301]

    Last Updated: February 7, 2013

    Language: English

    *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BALLAD OF READING GAOL ***

    Produced by Faith Knowles, David Widger, and an Anonymous Volunteer

    THE BALLAD OF READING GAOL

    By Oscar Wilde

    In Memoriam

    C.T.W.

    Sometime Trooper of the Royal Horse Guards.

    Obiit H.M. Prison, Reading, Berkshire,

    July 7th, 1896

    Presented by Project Gutenberg on the 99th Anniversary.

    Version One

    Version Two

    Version One

                   I.

                   He did not wear his scarlet coat,

                     For blood and wine are red,

                   And blood and wine were on his hands

                     When they found him with the dead,

                   The poor dead woman whom he loved,

                     And murdered in her bed.

                   He walked amongst the Trial Men

                     In a suit of shabby grey;

                   A cricket cap was on his head,

                     And his step seemed light and gay;

                   But I never saw a man who looked

                     So wistfully at the day.

                   I never saw a man who looked

                     With such a wistful eye

                   Upon that little tent of blue

                     Which prisoners call the sky,

                   And at every drifting cloud that went

                     With sails of silver by.

                   I walked, with other souls in pain,

                     Within another ring,

                   And was wondering if the man had done

                     A great or little thing,

                   When a voice behind me whispered low,

                     That fellow's got to swing.

                   Dear Christ! the very prison walls

                     Suddenly seemed to reel,

                   And the sky above my head became

                     Like a casque of scorching steel;

                   And, though I was a soul in pain,

                     My pain I could not feel.

                   I only knew what hunted thought

                     Quickened his step, and why

                   He looked upon the garish day

                     With such a wistful eye;

                   The man had killed the thing he loved

                     And so he had to die.

                   Yet each man kills the thing he loves

                     By each let this be heard,

                   Some do it with a bitter look,

                     Some with a flattering word,

                   The coward does it with a kiss,

                     The brave man with a sword!

                   Some kill their love when they are young,

                     And some when they are old;

                   Some strangle with the hands of Lust,

                     Some with the hands of Gold:

                   The kindest use a knife, because

                     The dead so soon grow cold.

                   Some love too little, some too long,

                     Some sell, and others buy;

                   Some do the deed with many tears,

                     And some without a sigh:

                   For each man kills the thing he loves,

                     Yet each man does not die.

                   He does not die a death of shame

                     On a day of dark disgrace,

                   Nor have a noose about his neck,

                     Nor a cloth upon his face,

                   Nor drop feet foremost through the floor

                     Into an empty place

                   He does not sit with silent men

                     Who watch him night and day;

                   Who watch him when he tries to weep,

                     And when he tries to pray;

                   Who watch him lest himself should rob

                     The prison of its prey.

                   He

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