Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) was an Irish playwright, poet, and wit whose razor-sharp humor and flamboyant persona made him a literary icon of the Victorian era. Educated at Trinity College Dublin and Oxford, he championed the aesthetic movement’s creed of “art for art’s sake,” rejecting moralistic constraints in favor of beauty and decadence. His career peaked with society comedies like The Importance of Being Earnest (1895) and the philosophically daring novel The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890), which explored themes of vanity and moral duality. Wilde’s life unraveled after his 1895 conviction for “gross indecency” due to his relationship with Lord Alfred Douglas, leading to two years of hard labor. Post-prison, exiled in Europe, he penned the introspective De Profundis and The Ballad of Reading Gaol (1898), reflecting on suffering and injustice. A master of paradox and epigram, Wilde’s legacy endures as a martyr for artistic freedom and LGBTQ+ rights.