Guillermo Valencia of Chinese poems. He translated La balada de la cárcel de Reading (1932; “The Ballad of Reading Gaol”) from the English poem by the 19th-century writer Oscar Wilde. He also turned more frequently to writing essays, many of which are collected in Panegíricos, discursos y artículos (1933; “Panegyrics, Speeches, and Articles”). Guillermo Valencia Guillermo Valencia Castillo (October 29, 1873 in Popayán, Colombia – July 8, 1943 in Popayán) was a Colombian poet and translator. He was the father of Guillermo León Valencia (1909-1971), Colombian president during 1962-1966. His first volume of poetry, Ritos (1898, rev. ed. 1914; “Rites”), containing original
The Ballad of Reading Gaol aged 30 when executed. Wilde wrote the poem in mid-1897 while staying with Robert Ross in Berneval-le-Grand. The poem narrates the execution of Wooldridge; it moves from an objective story-telling to symbolic identification with the prisoners as a whole. No attempt is made to assess the justice of the laws which convicted them, but rather the poem highlights the brutalisation of the punishment that all convicts share. Wilde juxtaposes the executed man and himself with the line "Yet each man kills the thing he loves". Wilde too was separated from his wife and sons. He adopted the proletarian ballad form,