Oscar Wilde hard labour, the maximum penalty, and was jailed from 1895 to 1897. During his last year in prison, he wrote "De Profundis" (published posthumously in 1905), a long letter which discusses his spiritual journey through his trials, forming a dark counterpoint to his earlier philosophy of pleasure. On his release, he left immediately for France, never to return to Ireland or Britain. There he wrote his last work, "The Ballad of Reading Gaol" (1898), a long poem commemorating the harsh rhythms of prison life. He died destitute in Paris at the age of 46. Oscar Wilde was born at 21
Oscar Wilde permitted to take it with him when released from prison. In reflective mode, Wilde coldly examines his career to date, how he had been a colourful "agent provocateur" in Victorian society, his art, like his paradoxes, seeking to subvert as well as sparkle. His own estimation of himself was: one who "stood in symbolic relations to the art and culture of my age". It was from these heights that his life with Douglas began, and Wilde examines that particularly closely, repudiating him for what Wilde finally sees as his arrogance and vanity: he had not forgotten Douglas' remark, when he