A star falls from the winter sky into a wood, and there two shepherds find a strange infant. Though exquisitely beautiful of face and form, the Star-Child turns out to be a cruel and selfish boy. One day, he taunts a poor beggar-woman who, to his horror, then claims to be his mother. This classic Oscar Wilde story, brought vividly to life by Jindra Capek's colourful and dramatic pictures.
Oscar Fingal O'Fflahertie Wills Wilde was an Irish poet and playwright. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of the most popular playwrights in London in the early 1890s. He is best remembered for his epigrams and plays, his novel The Picture of Dorian Gray, and his criminal conviction for gross indecency for homosexual acts. Wilde's parents were Anglo-Irish intellectuals in Dublin. In his youth, Wilde learned to speak fluent French and German. At university, he read Greats; he demonstrated himself to be an exceptional classicist, first at Trinity College Dublin, then at Magdalen College, Oxford. He became associated with the emerging philosophy of aestheticism, led by two of his tutors, Walter Pater and John Ruskin. After university, Wilde moved to London into fashionable cultural and social circles. Wilde tried his hand at various literary activities: he wrote a play, published a book of poems, lectured in the United States and Canada on "The English Renaissance" in art and interior decoration, and then returned to London where he lectured on his American travels and wrote reviews for various periodicals. Known for his biting wit, flamboyant dress and glittering conversational skill, Wilde became one of the best-known personalities of his day. At the turn of the 1890s, he refined his ideas about the supremacy of art in a series of dialogues and essays, and incorporated themes of decadence, duplicity, and beauty into what would be his only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890). Wilde returned to drama, writing Salome (1891) in French while in Paris, but it was refused a licence for England due to an absolute prohibition on the portrayal of Biblical subjects on the English stage. Undiscouraged, Wilde produced four society comedies in the early 1890s, which made him one of the most successful playwrights of late-Victorian London. At the height of his fame and success, while An Ideal Husband (1895) and The Importance of Being Earnest (1895) were still being performed in London, Wilde issued a civil writ against John Sholto Douglas, the 9th Marquess of Queensberry for criminal libel. The Marquess was the father of Wilde's lover, Lord Alfred Douglas. The libel hearings unearthed evidence that caused Wilde to drop his charges and led to his own arrest and criminal prosecution for gross indecency with other males. The jury was unable to reach a verdict and so a retrial was ordered. In the second trial Wilde was convicted and sentenced to two years' hard labour, the maximum penalty, and was jailed from 1895 to 1897. During his last year in prison he wrote De Profundis (published posthumously in abridged form in 1905), a long letter that discusses his spiritual journey through his trials and is a dark counterpoint to his earlier philosophy of pleasure. On the day of his release, he caught the overnight steamer to France, never to return to Britain or Ireland. In France and Italy, he wrote his last work, The Ballad of Reading Gaol (1898), a long poem commemorating the harsh rhythms of prison life.
The Star-Child is a cautionary tale in Oscar Wilde鈥檚 collection of stories, A House of Pomegranates, that gently leads us to reflect on some fundamental truths. Wherein lies the essence of beauty? What makes a person beautiful? It also underlines the pitfalls of pride and vanity, recompense for evil, and the redeeming qualities of humility.
On a cold winter鈥檚 night, a poor woodcutter found a child in the forest. He was wrapped in a cloak of golden tissue embroidered with stars. Even though he had many children of his own to feed, the woodcutter took pity on the Star-Child and brought him home to care for him. Unlike the woodcutter鈥檚 children who were 鈥渟warthy and black-haired鈥�, the Star-Child was 鈥渨hite and delicate as sawn ivory, and his curls were like the rings of the daffodil.鈥� For the kindness extended to him and his fine appearance, one would expect the Star-Child to conduct himself in a manner befitting his physical beauty and undeserved privilege. To my disappointment, Wilde said, 鈥淵et did his beauty work him evil. For he grew proud, and cruel, and selfish鈥�. He was fair of face but hard of heart. Wilde wove a story about how the Star-Child was subjected eventually to the bitter fire of testing until a transformation aligned both his physical and inner comeliness. The last few lines were surprising; there was no happy-ever-after but a reminder that life is fleeting and transient.
I end 2017 with this magical story and a deep appreciation of Wilde鈥檚 ability to spin a yarn of heart. There is the familiar sprinkling of stardust and compassion.
To all my GR friends, may 2018 bring us all kindness and peace. Happy New Year!
A charming, philosophical fairy tale by Oscar Wilde about a baby boy found by a poor woodcutter in a bright and beautiful star. The woodcutter adopts the boy, who grows up extremely beautiful but also arrogant and cruel. He blinds and maims the animals of the forest, and shows no pity to those who where weakly or ill-favoured.
One day he cruelly turns away a beggar-woman, who is his mother, and his beauty is turned into ugliness. He begins a quest to find his mother to beg her forgiveness. Written for older children and the young of heart , in the fine prose of Oscar Wilde.
鈥橧t's a cautionary tale of fear and lust and pride Based on actual events where people died No one died But how far would you go To be popular and hot? Would you resist temptation? No, you would not! Just admit it鈥� -- A Cautionary Tale - Songwriters: Nell Benjamin / Jeffrey Richmond
On a snowy winter evening a bright star falls out of the sky into a forest of pine trees. Two woodcutters who were near rush to where it fell, and find a baby sleeping, wrapped up in a cloak made of gold tissue.
As the child grows, so does his beauty. Each year, as he becomes more aware of his beauty, so grows his vanity, and his selfishness and his callous disregard for others and their feelings. His pride in being born of a star, and thus special, will not allow him to accept others as his equal.
And then he meets an old, disheveled woman, clothed in tattered rags, who tells him that she is his mother. He denies the possibility, calling her old and ugly and turns his back on her. His penalty for this cruelty? He is transformed into a hideously ugly creature.
My copy is 1979 Four Winds Press / a division of Scholastic Magazines, a hardcover copy previously owned by the Brunswick School Library - with the library card still inside with the last loan given to 'Petey,' whose handwriting indicates he must have been very young judging by how his name is written in 2002. A lovely little touch for me, and which made me smile.
This is beautifully illustrated by Fiona French, which really added to my enjoyment of this cautionary tale, as well.
Cuento admonitorio de 'ten cuidado con tus acciones' acerca de un ni帽o hallado por le帽adores en un crudo invierno, acogido por piedad, pero que crece hermoso y cruel y arrogante.
The last lines of this story seem to me to completely invert its meaning from a moral fable about the virtues of empathy, selflessness and sacrifice into a kind of hedonist's caution of the futility of any individual's efforts to expunge evil from the world. The ultimate lesson appears to be: Look at all this poor child put himself through, and what good did it really do anyone in the end? I may of course be mistaken, but after dipping into this story the other afternoon and reading other's reviews I feel as though it must either be widely misunderstood - a lot of people almost seem to be ignoring the end of the story entirely or else dismissing the ending as a dry bitter ironical joke of Wilde's - or I'm just reading too far into it myself. But taking into account Wilde's stroke of hedonism, which crops up in many of his stories (The Picture of Dorian Gray) , my first thought reading this was that it was actually meant to be an anti-fable.
Much is given to some, and little is given to others. Injustice has parceled out the world, nor is there equal division of aught save of sorrow.
The Star-Child鈥檚 appearance is but a reflection of his inner qualities. At the beginning he鈥檚 a beautiful boy, but then he behaves cruelly and becomes ill-favored. Likewise, the world treats him according to how he looks: when he turns ugly, people everywhere reject him and make fun of him.
This fairy tale constitutes an oddity insofar
Well, that鈥檚 it. I鈥檝e read all of Wilde鈥檚 fairy tales. I did it partly because they鈥檙e simple enough for me to improve my English, and partly because I love the author.
It was a lovely little story, as beautifully written as always. I do wish he'd omitted the last few lines, however. You think 'aw that's a nice ending', and then you're slapped down with misery lol.
The students at work had to read this for one of their assignments, so I read along. I really liked the prose and the message behind the story. It just got a bit boring towards the end and couldn't wait for it to be over.
After reading a biography written about Wilde by one of his best friends, it looks like all the children books Oscar wrote, were during a time when he ostentatiously worshiped himself and beauty; living lavishly; he was hedonistic and proud; without care for the poor and he was popular among the aristocrats because of it. All this changed after his time in prison (for a while anyways). So yeah, it really is interesting to me that the moral of each of his stories, really ends up being "don't be like Oscar Wilde"! And a lot of his stories ended up being rather prophetic of what later happened to Wilde; in that the proud character is humbled and then this results in a great concern for the poor and down trodden.
This is a gorgeous story about the consequences of cruelty and pride and of the rewards of being kind. I really like Wilde's descriptions, they are quite magical in themselves.
"Into a house where a heart is hard cometh there not always a bitter wind?"
Es mi cuento favorito hasta ahora de oscar wilde, me encant贸 todo este cuento, se critica a la sociedad y el como debemos ser piadosos y caritativos con los demas ya sean seres humanos o animales. Este libro deberia ser mas conocido.
This was a beautiful and well written story about the consequences of cruelty and pride and the rewards of being kind. Highly recommended this little story!
I love me some sort fabels. Also Oscar Wilde so we had too. But I feel like because it was so short I missed a whole lot that you get into his longer format stories.