Decadents, Symbolists, Anti-Decadents

A facsimile reprint in the Decadents.... series, edited by R.K.R.Thornton
and Ian Small

ISBN1 85477 159 0

174 x110 mm 86 pages

OSCAR WILDE

The Ballad of Reading Gaol 1898

Wilde’s trials and imprisonment were both the acme and the end of his career. The Ballad was his only significant creation after that period. Written while he was in exile in Dieppe and modelled loosely on ‘The Ancient Mariner’, it is his best-known and most popular poem. Standing in total contrast to the rest of his verse, it is a strikingly self-revealing mixture of raw emotion and sardonic humour. It was hugely successful.

£25 $43


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.

(page 2)



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Poetry of the 1890s