ABSTRACT
For anyone familiar with Oscar Wilde's previous writings, De Profundis can seem like the work of some other author. Wilde begins to clarify the emerging features of his new brand, a persona, not yet fully public, that gives an almost exclusive emphasis to his own travails. The Ballad of Reading Gaol lays out Wilde's blueprint for his post-incarceration public persona. The Ballad of Reading Gaol offers a lyrical account of events surrounding the execution of a fellow inmate. The Ballad of Reading Gaol enforces the potency of this perspective when it signals the despair common to all who have lost their sense of individuality and humanity. The poem's publication attests to a measure of optimism Wilde felt about the ability of this new version of the brand to spur his creative output. In focusing on the aesthetics of flagellation, it presents a stagnant artistic vision, and forecasts an end to the creative achievements that distinguished Wilde's previous work.
