Oscar Wilde was a modern celebrity who always sparked society with his elegant appearance, conversation, and attractiveness. However, he later became scandalous in his sex life. Wilde was no less than a hub of talented artists. He was a playwright, short story writer, poet, and novelist.
The poet was born as Oscar Figal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde (16 October 1854 – 30 November 1900), an Irish poet and playwright. He is one of those who held the strings of different genres and wrote successful novels and books. Moreover, through the year 1880, Wilde became one of the most popular playwrights in London before he hit the 19th century.
However, due to his homosexual acts, he was imprisonment of Wilde’s conviction for gross indecency (sexual activities within a man). He was very fluent in French and German and had completed his education first at Trinity College, Dublin, and later moved to Oxford. Wilde pushed himself, learning the emerging trends of literary philosophy (aestheticism) from English essayists, Walter Peter and John Ruskin, a British philosopher and art critic, and polymath of the Victorian era.
I can resist everything except temptation
Oscar Wilde
Therefore, Oscar was dragged by himself into the fashionable culture of London and the social circles of his friends. In his poem Requiescat, there is an emotional attachment shown, and it is one of the best poems he wrote. It was inspired by the death of his close relative.
Poem “Requiescat” by Oscar Wilde
Tread lightly, she is near
Under the snow,
Speak gently, she can hear
The daisies grow.
All her bright golden hair
Tarnished with rust,
She that was young and fair
Fallen to dust.
Lily-like, white as snow,
She hardly knew
She was a woman, so
Sweetly she grew.
Coffin-board, heavy stone,
Lie on her breast,
I vex my heart alone
She is at rest.
Peace, Peace, she cannot hear
Lyre or sonnet,
All my life’s buried here,
Heap earth upon it.
Analysis of the poem “Requiescat”
The poet describes the pain on passing his dear one to a young woman. The poem starts with a sign to maintain silence for the readers. The poem Requiescat is a full pack of emotions for a dead kid who lost a lot to Oscar Wilde.
The poet depicts the current situation of the dead body and how she was then and now. She has a beautiful and charming face, but she is permanently mixed up with the mother earth. She was a favourite and everything to him and everyone else. He grew up with an abundance of love. But now her chest is loaded with a heavy stone inside a coffin and she is living in peace. She was all for the poet, Oscar Wilde.
However, the creative soul does not matter to what gender he was born with. Therefore, he or she must pen down the emotions that drain straight from the heart. And thus, one of those was the great Oscar Wilde. The poem Requiescat is a living proof of his literary philosophical thoughts that make every writer fall in love with the writings of Wilde. Furthermore, read Lord Byron and his poem "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage" and Alexander Pushkin’s tender, selfless love poem "Life and Death."
