OSCAR WILDE, HIS LIFE AND CONFESSIONS, VOLUME 2 IBD

Sinopse

Prison for Oscar Wilde, an English prison with its insufficient bad food[1] and soul-degrading routine for that amiable, joyous, eloquent, pampered Sybarite. Here was a test indeed, an ordeal as by fire. What would he make of two years? hard labour in a lonely cell? There are two ways of taking prison, as of taking most things, and all the myriad ways between these two extremes, would Oscar be conquered by it and allow remorse and hatred to corrupt his very heart, or would he conquer the prison and possess and use it? Hammer or anvil-which? Victory has its virtue and is justified of itself like sunshine, defeat carries its own condemnation. Yet we have all tasted its bitter waters: only 'infinite virtue' can pass through life victorious, Shakespeare tells us, and we mortals are not of infinite virtue. The myriad vicissitudes of the struggle search out all our weaknesses, test all our powers. Every victory shows a more difficult height to scale, a steeper pinnacle of god-like hardship-that?s the reward of victory: it provides the hero with ever-new battle-fields: no rest for him this side the grave.