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The Ballad of Reading Gaol Audiobook by Oscar Wilde, Frank Harris


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Title: The Ballad of Reading Gaol
Author: Oscar Wilde, Frank Harris
Narrator: Denis Daly
Format: Unabridged
Length: 33 mins
Language: English
Release date: 11-30-17
Publisher: Spoken Realms
Genres: Classics, British Literature
Publisher's Summary:
Between 1895 and 1897 Oscar Wilde served a prison sentence for offences "of gross indecency". Most of this time was spent at Reading Gaol, where Wilde encountered another prisoner, Harles Thomas Wooldridge, a trooper in the Royal Horse Guards, who had been sentenced to death for the murder of his wife. Wooldrige was hanged at the gaol on 7th July, 1896. Wilde wrote the poem in France in 1897 after his release from prison. The first published version identified the author only as C.3.3, the name allocated to Wilde as a prisoner. The poem is a long reflection on the inequity and ineffectiveness of statutory punishment and the redeeming power of the Christian message of forgiveness. In his foreword, Frank Harris wrote: I venture to repeat here what I have said in various ways for nearly twenty years now, that Oscar Wilde's condemnation of prisons and punishment must lead directly to their abolition. The old bad past will die and Oscar Wilde's ballad helped to kill it.
Members Reviews:
I'm garbage at reading poem books
I have to say, I'm garbage at reading poem books. I was originally interested in this because I had read The Picture of Dorian Gray, and afterwards I had looked up Oscar Wilde. I had found that this verse:
And alien tears will fill for him
Pity's long-broken urn,
For his mourners will be outcast men,
And outcasts always mourn.
is on his grave from the Ballad of Reading Gaol, and that's why I read it. Instead of being only about his imprisonment, I got a lot of fanciful poems that were a little superfluous. I thought the best poem in the book was the actual Ballad of Reading Gaol. It was vivid and accessible, unlike the heavy poems with all the mythology references. (I even like mythology!)
Anyway, took me awhile to get through this, even though it's pretty short.
Great writing, but I only liked it
I am biased, I love Wilde-- he can be a touch over the op (:D), but he's never dull. This is a long poem... or series of poems etched~stitched~crocheted together (at least in my mind). Mostly 1st person, but other forms are used yet reverts back to author's eyes view. I like to try to put them together in a longer narrative, even if that isn't the way the author intended them... because that is just something I like to do.
The Ballard of Reading Gaol
There was no doubt that Mr. Wilde is a master of the poetic word. All of his poetry that was written before he went to gaol was full of flowers, Gods and Goddesses and idyllic meadows. I was quite breathless from all that tulip tripping but I'm glad I sloughed on through to "Reading". This is by far Oscars most worthy poem. He perfectly caught the helpless cadence of men trapped in their own crime and punishment. I felt this unhappy man's plight like it were my own. Yes, Oscar, we do kill the ones we love. You also killed yourself but in the process created your most worthy words.
?Rating a classic of literature?
This is a classic. It is free. It was written by an acknowledged master. How very late-20th Century egocentrism to be asked to RATE something which has been a dip-and-taste book for decades. I'm a writer, I loved it. I don't give a damn about sexual proclivity, but you may turn up your nose because of the author, no matter the literary merit.
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