The Ballad of Reading
Gaol
Oscar Wilde
Sebastian :{D (he has a moustache)
From The Ballad of Reading Gaol
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 fellows 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
Wilde’s Background
Birth name: Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde
Birth date: October 16, 1854
Birth place: Dublin, Ireland
Nationality: Irish
Died: November 30, 1900 (aged 46) in Paris, France
Oscar Wilde was imprisoned for homosexuality and sentenced to
2 years of hard labor. When he was released in 1897 he wrote
The Ballad of Reading Gaol, to show the public what prison
conditions were really like.
Theme and ideas
• This poem conveys many themes and ideas to
different people. Personally I think its about
death, love and loss, mostly. This poem is not
just about his experience in jail, there’s so
much more in there. After having been
released from jail Wilde was a broken man, he
had lived through embarrassment, humiliation
and many other hardships that had not so
much inspired, but influenced him to write
The Ballad of Reading Gaol.
Rhythm/Rhyme
• The rhyming scheme in this poem is rather
strange. It follows a ‘xaxaxa’ pattern and
therefore has a rather slow rhythm. The
spacing of the lines also puts emphasis on
each line and forces the reader to look at it
intently rather than just skim over it.
Point of View
• The first two and last stanzas of the extract
are from the point of view of a narrator, the
events are being retold to us in past tense.
However the middle part of the extract is
written in first person form. I believe this
person is the poet, its from Wilde’s point of
view as he goes through prison, and in some
ways reflects a hard journey that we all have
to make through life.
Analysis
• “For each man kills the thing he loves”
-To me this says that love is not as pure and innocent as
it is commonly conceived to be. Love corrupts people
and is not ever-lasting. This reflects back to Wilde’s
personal life and him living a double life, his love for his
gay lover corrupted his marriage and eventually his life.
Analysis
• “Some do it with a bitter look”
-I believe this is saying that one does not always
kill in the literal sense. This could refer to not
acknowledging the thing you love, looking the
other way. Something as simple as a bitter look
can kill.
Analysis
• “Some with a flattering word”
-In my opinion this refers to womanizers and liars, the
kind of people that trick others into love with flattering
words and then turn their backs on them.
Analysis
• “The coward does it with a kiss”
-This could easily refer to killing the thing you love by
loving something else. Another possible meaning for
this is killing something you love by showing affection
too early. But why mention cowardice? Perhaps the
coward loves something else but doesn’t show it.
Perhaps he is too afraid to and therefore continues to
live a lie.
Analysis
• “The brave man with a sword!”
-This could mean that its better to end it quickly rather
than let your loved one suffer, that its better to do it
this way rather than the aforementioned methods. I
believe that this has some truth to it but do not agree
with it entirely. Perhaps Wilde is referring to himself
and wishes that he had ended things quickly rather
than suffering, lying, deceiving for many years.