Giving himself almost entirely to prose, he speedily became known as a writer of brilliant epigrammatic essays and even more brilliant paradoxical plays such as _An Ideal Husband_ and _The Importance of Being Earnest_. His aphorisms and flippancies were quoted everywhere; his fame as a wit was only surpassed by his notoriety as an æsthete. (See Preface.)
Most of his poems in prose (such as _The Happy Prince_, _The Birthday of the Infanta_ and _The Fisherman and His Soul_) are more imaginative and richly colored than his verse; but in one long poem, _The Ballad of Reading Gaol_ (1898), he sounded his deepest, simplest and most enduring note. Prison was, in many ways, a regeneration for Wilde. It not only produced _The Ballad of Reading Gaol_ but made possible his most poignant piece of writing, _De Profundis_, only a small part of which has been published. _Salomé_, which has made the author's name a household word, was originally written in French in 1892 and later translated into English by Lord Alfred Douglas, accompanied by the famous illustrations by Aubrey Beardsley. More recently this heated drama, based on the story of Herod and Herodias, was made into an opera by Richard Strauss.
Wilde's society plays, flashing and cynical, were the forerunners of Bernard Shaw's audacious and far more searching ironies. One sees the origin of a whole school of drama in such epigrams as "The history of woman is the history of the worst form of tyranny the world has ever known: the tyranny of the weak over the strong. It is the only tyranny that lasts." Or "There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about."
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.
The Thames nocturne of blue and gold Changed to a harmony in grey; A barge with ochre-coloured hay Dropt from the wharf: and chill and cold
