Next Section Analysis Previous Section Themes How To Cite in MLA Format Lena, Braga. Will review the submission and either publish your submission or provide feedback. This collection of Wilde’s Poems contains the volume of 1881 in its entirety, ‘The Sphinx’, ‘The Ballad of Reading Gaol,’ and ‘Ravenna.’ Of the Uncollected Poems published in the Uniform Edition of 1908, a few, including the Translations from the Greek and the Polish, are omitted. You can help us out by revising, improving and updatingĪfter you claim a section you’ll have 24 hours to send in a draft. For them, time seems to drag on and stretches to infinity which only amplifies the hardship they have to face. They remained stuck in an endless night where darkness became the only reality they knew and where light and hope didn’t exist. The prison walls influences those who didn’t believe in God to start thinking about him and to start to pray to him.įor those inside the prison, the morning brought no comfort. Inside the prison, a place where there was no hope and where those inside where reminded constantly of the possibility of being hanged, the idea of God and forgiveness becomes the only thing keeping those inside from becoming hopeless. The idea that men find peace in religion and prayer becomes a motif from the beginning of the poem. Wilde had been incarcerated in Reading, after being convicted of homosexual offences in 1895 and sentenced to two years hard labour in prison. The poison inside their body slowly kills them and their guilty conscious produces more pain than any other punishment could. The Ballad of Reading Gaol is a poem by Oscar Wilde, written in exile either in Berneval or in Dieppe, France, after his release from Reading Gaol on or about. The prisoners are all tormented by the sin they have done, a sin compared with a poisonous sword.

The narrator describes the feeling he and other inmates experience while being in prison. We are thankful for their contributions and encourage you to make your own.Īnd as molten lead were the tears we shed (16 pages) The Sphinx Long poem about sensual beauty of the Sphinx and the mysterious grandeur of the ancient world she represents. These notes were contributed by members of the GradeSaver community. Long ballad written after Wilde was released from the Reading prison.

Oscar wilde poem the ballad of