Introduction

Currently, in English, the unit that is being studied is poetry,

which in this case mainly revolves around the unit question:
What makes a poet? In a way, this is a rather complex
question due to the fact that it is very opinion-based. I might
have widely different thoughts and responses to the
question compared to somebody elses opinion on the
matter. So there is not only one response to this question
because there are many different aspects that make up and
influence a poet. In this project, our aim is to investigate one
of these aspects in particular: environments.
The life, times, experiences and environments around the
poet can very much influence the process of writing these
poems. Poets very often tend to write a poem based or
related to whatever they are feeling, witnessing,
experiencing at the time. So we can conclude that the
environment around us can really have an impact on our
writing and our growth as poets. However, a poets writing
can also influence the environment around him/her.
To better explore these ideas, I will use the real example of
the famous poet Oscar Wilde and I will try to look into his
poems, how they relate to Wildes experiences and how they
have changed the world around him.


Oscar Wilde

Oscar Fingal OFlahertie Wills
Wilde was born on October 16
th

1854 in Dublin, Ireland.
Not only was he a poet, he was
also a novelist, playwright and
critic, greatly acknowledged in
London in the late 19
th
century.
Not unlike himself, Wildes
mother was also a writer with a
great passion for literature. His
father, on the other hand, was a
very successful surgeon.
When Wilde had completed his
studies in Ireland, after graduation, he moved to London so
that he could pursue a literary career. He had a widely
different and diverse output
First, he started by publishing a volume of his poetry. But as
well as composing verse, he also wrote fairy stories and
novels. In 1891, his fist novel The Picture of Dorian Gray
was published. However, his greatest talent was always for
writing plays.
Wildes private life was a hard and tragic one. Because after
marrying and having two sons, he began to have affairs with
other men, such as Lord Alfred Douglas (Bosie).
Wilde sued Bosies father, but was accused of being
homosexual and other details of his private life surfaced,
which lost him the trial. Wilde had to spend two years in
prison suffering hard labor, in which time his wife and
children escaped and changed their names.
When Wilde was released from prison, he was very sick and
his entire reputation had been destroyed, along with his
family life. He spent his last years in Europe writing poems
and ended up dying on November 30
th
1900, in Paris.









Poetry
He did not wear his scarlet coat,
For blood and wine are red,
And blood and wine were on his
hands
When they found him with the dead,
The poor dead woman whom he
loved,
And murdered in her bed.
He walked amongst the Trial Men
In a suit of shabby grey;
A cricket cap was on his head,
And his step seemed light and gay;
But I never saw a man who looked
So wistfully at the day.
I never saw a man who looked
With such a wistful eye
Upon that little tent of blue
Which prisoners call the sky,
And at every drifting cloud that went
With sails of silver by.
I walked, with other souls in pain,
Within another ring,
And was wondering if the man had
done
A great or little thing,
When a voice behind me whispered
low,
'THAT FELLOW'S GOT TO SWING.'
Dear Christ! the very prison walls
Suddenly seemed to reel,
And the sky above my head became
Like a casque of scorching steel;
And, though I was a soul in pain,
My pain I could not feel.
I only knew what hunted thought
Quickened his step, and why
He looked upon the garish day
With such a wistful eye;
The man had killed the thing he
loved,
And so he had to die.
Yet each man kills the thing he loves,
By each let this be heard,
Some do it with a bitter look,
Some with a flattering word,
The coward does it with a kiss,
The brave man with a sword!
Some kill their love when they are
young,
And some when they are old;
Some strangle with the hands of Lust,
Some with the hands of Gold:
The kindest use a knife, because
The dead so soon grow cold.

Some love too little, some too long,
Some sell, and others buy;
Some do the deed with many tears,
And some without a sigh:
For each man kills the thing he loves,
Yet each man does not die.
He does not die a death of shame
On a day of dark disgrace,
Nor have a noose about his neck,
Nor a cloth upon his face,
Nor drop feet foremost through the
floor
Into an empty space.
He does not sit with silent men
Who watch him night and day;
Who watch him when he tries to
weep,
And when he tries to pray;
Who watch him lest himself should
rob
The prison of its prey.







He does not wake at dawn to see
Dread figures throng his room,
The shivering Chaplain robed in
white,
The Sheriff stern with gloom,
And the Governor all in shiny black,
With the yellow face of Doom.
He does not bend his head to hear
The Burial Office read,
Nor, while the terror of his soul
Tells him he is not dead,
Cross his own coffin, as he moves
Into the hideous shed.
He does not stare upon the air
Through a little roof of glass:
He does not pray with lips of clay
For his agony to pass;
Nor feel upon his shuddering cheek
The kiss of Caiaphas.








The poem previously presented is just an extract, a small
portion of The Ballad of Reading Gaol. In fact, this was the
last poem that Oscar Wilde wrote and published (1898).
After being released from prison, Wilde spent the rest of his
years in Europe writing this same poem, The Ballad of
Reading Gaol.
We can see that Oscar Wildes surrounding environment
played a huge part when this poem was written. In fact, The
Ballad of Reading Gaol describes and explains Wildes
experiences, thoughts and feelings in prison.
The background of this poem is the execution of a man,
Charles Wooldridge, who had murdered his wife and was
sentenced to death for that very crime. In the poem, Oscar
Wilde is just another prisoner who is watching as the man
has to pay for his actions.
By reading the poem, we are able to divide it into different
parts. The first part consists of the initial six stanzas. This
section of the poem concentrates on Wilde himself, a
prisoner, just watching. However, it mostly refers to Charles
Wooldridge, the murderer in question. There is an
explanation of the crime he committed and a detailed
description of what he looks like, how he feels and what is
about to happen to him. Also, in this first part, it is almost as
if Wilde compares himself and his own problems to this man.
And though I was a soul in pain,/ My pain I could not feel:
my personal reaction to these verses was that no matter
how much Wilde had gone through and no matter how much
he had suffered, it was nothing compared to what this man
had done and how he felt at that moment.
However, in the remaining section of this poem, there is a
big change. The perspective is much wider this time, due to
the fact that it doesnt only concentrate on that one man,
but instead it generalizes all men. It describes how they are
always able to kill the thing they love, which on one hand
made me think of sacrifice. But, on the other, I wondered if
he might be saying that perhaps the men only realized how
much they loved the thing after they had destroyed it.
Also, for the last 5 stanzas, my thoughts were that Oscar
Wilde was describing all the possible tortures and horrible
conditions of prison. Maybe, some of these might have been
situations that he personally saw happening or that he had
had lived through himself (Who watch him night and
day/Who watch him when he tries to weep/and when he
tries to pray: he could be referring to what was happening
to him, always having men watching over him in his cell, not
letting him think, pray or be at peace with his own mind)
The entire Ballad of Reading Gaol consists of 109 stanzas,
grouped into six parts, each containing six verses. Being a
ballad, this poem has a very obvious and defined rhythm to
it, which you immediately roll into as you start to read the
poem, almost as if it were a song. Also, in the complete
poem, a lot of repetition is used. Some verses appear many
times, but in different stanzas and sometimes different
contexts. There is one particular stanza which is repeated
more than once at different intervals, as if it were the
chorus of this song:
Yet each man kills the thing he loves,
By each let this be heard,
Some do it with a bitter look,
Some with a flattering word,
The coward does it with a kiss,
The brave man with a sword!
When I read this poem for the first time, I liked it quite a lot.
It made me feel certain emotions that were surprising,
relatively to the theme of the poem. Of course, there were
the feelings of pity for the man (not only because he was
sentenced to death, but mostly because he had killed that
which he loved). Certain sections of the poem created a very
grey and depressed image in my head (But I never saw a
man who looked/So wistfully at the day; I walked, with
other souls in pain; Dear Christ! the very prison
walls/Suddenly seemed to reel,/And the sky above my head
became/Like a casque of scorching steel). I thought of what
Wilde must have been feeling after all that happened to him.
After all, he had completely lost his family life and even his
reputation had been ruined.
However, Im not quite sure why, but as I read through the
ballad again, I began to approach it in different ways, with a
sense of wonder and even hope.
Conclusion
This poem was a good example of how the environment we
live in and the things happening around us can change the
way we think and the things we do. Truthfully, I cant really
imagine a situation where there is no impact whatsoever
from what surrounds us.
Personally, I found this very helpful in the answering of the
unit question What makes a poet.
To me, a poet is not born. A poet is made. We all have had
different experiences and we are all used to certain feelings
and routines in our lives. Everybody has their different
habits, their different memories and their different ways of
thinking, approaching situations and solving problems.
However, only some of us choose to express those feelings,
situations, experiences, problems, etc, through rhymes,
rhythms and metaphors. Maybe it is because we think that
writing is a solution to the problem, or perhaps writing just
eases pain and makes us feel free. My idea of poetry is
exactly that. Freedom to write our own story, define our own
approaches and take control of our own lives. Poetry can be
everything that happens to us, it can be everything there is
around us, or it can just be nothing. I think we have the
choice of embracing that or not. I think a poet is that person
who chooses to turn their life into a song.

Bibliography
Paul Schingle. "Poetry Analysis Oscar
Wilde." Ballad of Reading Gaol. N.p., 11 Sept.
2011. Web. 30 Apr. 2014.
"The Ballad of Reading Gaol - Oscar
Wilde." 5thDclass. N.p., 2014. Web. 30 Apr. 2014.
About.com. "The Ballad Of Reading Gaol - Oscar
Wilde (1854-1900)." Classic Literature. N.p., 2014.
Web. 30 Apr. 2014.
"Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)." BBC News. BBC, n.d.
Web. 30 Apr. 2014.