Reading Comprehension – Happy Birthday Oscar Wilde!

160 years ago today, on the 16th of October 1854, Oscar Wilde was born. So… Happy birthday, Oscar!

Wilde was a writer and poet from Ireland. He became one of London’s most popular playwrights in the early 1980’s. Today he is remembered for his epigrams, his plays and his book The Picture of Dorian Gray.

Epigram – a pithy saying or remark expressing an idea in a clever and amusing way.

He first rose to fame with The Importance of being Earnest, in 1895. This book is a farcical comedy in which the protagonists maintain fictitious personæ to escape burdensome social obligations.

To celebrate, we have chosen some of Wilde’s most beautiful, and some of his most well-loved quotes, to share them with you.

“Yes: I am a dreamer. For a dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world.”

“Live! Live the wonderful life that is in you! Let nothing be lost upon you. Be always searching for new sensations. Be afraid of nothing.”

“Keep love in your heart. A life without it is like a sunless garden when the flowers are dead. The consciousness of loving and being loved brings a warmth and a richness to life that nothing else can bring.”

“Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.”

“We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.”

“Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much.”

“Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else’s opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.”

Vocabulary

Playwright – a person who writes plays.

Epigram – a short and clever poem or saying.

Rose to fame – another way of saying “to become famous”.

Farcical – a ridiculous situation.

Maintain – to cause (something) to exist or continue without changing.

Fictitiouos – not true or real.

Burdensome – causing difficulty or worry.

Warmth – the quality or state of being warm in temperature.

Gutter – a long, hollow device that is attached to the edges of a roof to catch rain and carry it away from a building.

Mimicry – the activity or art of copying the behavior or speech of other people.

TWEET IT OUT: Be yourself, everyone else is already taken. Happy Birthday, Oscar Wilde! #hbdoscarwilde