A Florentine Tragedy; La Sainte Courtisane

by Oscar Wilde

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Copyright Status: Manuscript of this book is available in public domain and copyright already expired.

Two short fragments: an unfinished and a lost play. A Florentine Tragedy, left in a taxi (not a handbag), is Wilde’s most successful attempt at tragedy – intense and domestic, with surprising depth of characterisation. It was adapted into an opera by the Austrian composer Alexander Zemlinsky in 1917. La Sainte Courtisane, or The Woman Covered in Jewels explores one of Wilde’s great idées fixes: the paradox of religious hedonism, pagan piety. Both plays, Wildean to their core, revel in the profound sadness that is the fruit of the conflict between fidelity and forbidden love. Written towards the end of his tragic life, these fragments give us a glimpse of a genius at his best: visceral, passionate, personal, poetic.  

Books by Oscar Wilde

The Picture of Dorian Gray
The Importance of Being Earnest
Lord Arthur Savile's Crime

Related Genres

Drama   
Tragedy   

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