name	Oscar Wilde
birth date	October 16, 1854
birth place	Dublin, Ireland
death date	November 30, 1900
death place	Paris, France
occupation	Writer
nationality	Irish
relatives	Sir William Wilde, Jane, Lady Wilde
spouse	Constance Lloyd (1884–1898)
children	Cyril Holland, Vyvyan Holland
alma mater	Trinity College, Dublin
genre	Drama, short story, dialogue, journalism
language	English, French
movement	Aestheticism
notableworks	''The Importance of Being Earnest'', ''The Picture of Dorian Gray''
period	Victorian era
influences	Plato, Aristotle, Greek literature, William Shakespeare, Théophile Gautier, French literature, Joris-Karl Huysmans, John Keats, Victor Hugo, Honoré de Balzac, Peter Kropotkin, Walter Pater, John Ruskin, James McNeill Whistler, John Pentland Mahaffy, Dante
influenced	Jorge Luis Borges, James Joyce, Samuel Beckett, Paul Merton, James Morrow, Enchi Fumiko, Erico Verissimo, Igor Severyanin, Irène Némirovsky, André Gide, Max Beerbohm, Stephen Fry, Lawrence Durrell, Camille Paglia, Dave Sim, Mateiu Caragiale, Tom Stoppard, Saki, Amanda Filipacchi, W. H. Pugmire, Ronald Firbank, Christopher Hitchens, Morrissey, Peter Doherty, Benjamin Tucker, Renzo Novatore
signature	Oscar Wilde Signature.svg }}

Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde (16 October 1854 – 30 November 1900) was an Irish writer and poet. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of London's most popular playwrights in the early 1890s. Today he is remembered for his epigrams, plays and the circumstances of his imprisonment, followed by his early death.

Wilde's parents were successful Dublin intellectuals. Their son became fluent in French and German early in life. At university Wilde read Greats; he proved himself to be an outstanding classicist, first at Dublin, then at Oxford. He became known for his involvement in the rising 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. As a spokesman for aestheticism, he tried his hand at various literary activities: he published a book of poems, lectured in the United States of America and Canada on the new "English Renaissance in Art", and then returned to London where he worked prolifically as a journalist. Known for his biting wit, flamboyant dress, and glittering conversation, Wilde had become one of the most well-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 his only novel, ''The Picture of Dorian Gray'' (1890). The opportunity to construct aesthetic details precisely, and combine them with larger social themes, drew Wilde to write drama. He wrote ''Salome'' (1891) in French in Paris but it was refused a licence. Unperturbed, 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 his masterpiece, ''The Importance of Being Earnest'' (1895), was still on stage in London, Wilde had the Marquess of Queensberry, the father of his lover, Lord Alfred Douglas, prosecuted for libel, a charge carrying a penalty of up to two years in prison. The trial unearthed evidence that caused Wilde to drop his charges and led to his own arrest and trial for gross indecency with other men. After two more trials he was convicted and imprisoned for two years' hard labour. In prison he wrote ''De Profundis'' (written in 1897 & published in 1905), a long letter which discusses his spiritual journey through his trials, forming a dark counterpoint to his earlier philosophy of pleasure. Upon his release he left immediately for France, never to return to Ireland or Britain. There he wrote his last work, ''The Ballad of Reading Gaol'' (1898), a long poem commemorating the harsh rhythms of prison life. He died destitute in Paris at the age of forty-six.

Early life[link]

Oscar Wilde was born at 21 Westland Row, Dublin (now home of the Oscar Wilde Centre, Trinity College) the second of three children born to Sir William Wilde and Jane Francesca Wilde, two years behind William ("Willie"). Jane Wilde, under the pseudonym ''"Speranza"'' (the Italian word for 'Hope'), wrote poetry for the revolutionary Young Irelanders in 1848 and was a life-long Irish nationalist. She read the Young Irelanders' poetry to Oscar and Willie, inculcating a love of these poets in her sons. Lady Wilde's interest in the neo-classical revival showed in the paintings and busts of ancient Greece and Rome in her home. William Wilde was Ireland's leading oto-ophthalmologic (ear and eye) surgeon and was knighted in 1864 for his services as medical adviser and assistant commissioner to the censuses of Ireland. He also wrote books about Irish archaeology and peasant folklore. A renowned philanthropist, his dispensary for the care of the city's poor at the rear of Trinity College, Dublin, was the forerunner of the Dublin Eye and Ear Hospital, now located at Adelaide Road. Wilde was baptised as an infant in St. Mark's Church, Dublin the local Church of Ireland (Anglican) church. When the church was closed, the records were moved to the nearby St. Ann's Church, Dawson Street.

In addition to his children with his wife, Sir William Wilde was the father of three children born out of wedlock before his marriage: Henry Wilson, born in 1838, and Emily and Mary Wilde, born in 1847 and 1849, respectively, of different parentage to Henry. Sir William acknowledged paternity of his illegitimate children and provided for their education, but they were reared by his relatives rather than with his wife and legitimate children.

In 1855, the family moved to No. 1 Merrion Square, where Wilde's sister, Isola, was born in 1857. The Wildes' new home was larger and, with both his parents' sociality and success soon became a "unique medical and cultural milieu"; guests at their salon included Sheridan le Fanu, Charles Lever, George Petrie, Isaac Butt, William Rowan Hamilton and Samuel Ferguson.

Until he was nine, Oscar Wilde was educated at home, where a French bonne and a German governess taught him their languages. He then attended Portora Royal School in Enniskillen, County Fermanagh. Until his early twenties, Wilde summered at the villa his father built in Moytura, County Mayo. There the young Wilde and his brother Willie played with George Moore.

Isola died aged nine of meningitis. Wilde's poem "Requiescat" is dedicated to her memory:

"Tread lightly, she is near Under the snow Speak gently, she can hear the daisies grow"

University education: 1870s[link]

Trinity College, Dublin[link]

Wilde left Portora with a royal scholarship to read classics at Trinity College, Dublin, from 1871 to 1874, sharing rooms with his older brother Willie Wilde. Trinity, one of the leading classical schools, set him with scholars such as R.Y. Tyrell, Arthur Palmer, Edward Dowden and his tutor, J.P. Mahaffy who inspired his interest in Greek literature. As a student Wilde worked with Mahaffy on the latter's book ''Social Life in Greece''. Wilde, despite later reservations, called Mahaffy "my first and best teacher" and "the scholar who showed me how to love Greek things". For his part Mahaffy boasted of having created Wilde; later, he would name him "the only blot on my tutorship".

The University Philosophical Society also provided an education, discussing intellectual and artistic subjects such as Rosetti and Swinburne weekly. Wilde quickly became an established member – the members' suggestion book for 1874 contains two pages of banter (sportingly) mocking Wilde's emergent aestheticism. He presented a paper entitled "Aesthetic Morality". At Trinity, Wilde established himself as an outstanding student: he came first in his class in his first year, won a scholarship by competitive examination in his second, and then, in his finals, won the Berkeley Gold Medal, the University's highest academic award in Greek. He was encouraged to compete for a demyship to Magdalen College, Oxford – which he won easily, having already studied Greek for over nine years.

Magdalen College, Oxford[link]

At Magdalen he read Greats from 1874 to 1878, and from there he applied to join the Oxford Union, but failed to be elected.

Attracted by its dress, secrecy, and ritual, Wilde petitioned the Apollo Masonic Lodge at Oxford, and was soon raised to the "Sublime Degree of Master Mason". During a resurgent interest in Freemasonry in his third year, he commented he "would be awfully sorry to give it up if I secede from the Protestant Heresy". He was deeply considering converting to Catholicism, discussing the possibility with clergy several times. In 1877, Wilde was left speechless after an audience with Pope Pius IX in Rome. He eagerly read Cardinal Newman's books, and became more serious in 1878, when he met the Reverend Sebastian Bowden, a priest in the Brompton Oratory who had received some high profile converts. Neither his father, who threatened to cut off his funds, nor Mahaffy thought much of the plan; but mostly Wilde, the supreme individualist, balked at the last minute from pledging himself to any formal creed. On the appointed day of his baptism, Father Bowden received a bunch of altar lilies instead. Wilde retained a lifelong interest in Catholic theology and liturgy.

While at Magdalen College, Wilde became particularly well known for his role in the aesthetic and decadent movements. He wore his hair long, openly scorned "manly" sports though he occasionally boxed, The line quickly became famous, accepted as a slogan by aesthetes but used against them by critics who sensed in it a terrible vacuousness. Wilde was once physically attacked by a group of four fellow students, and dealt with them single-handedly, surprising critics. By his third year Wilde had truly begun to create himself and his myth, and saw his learning developing in much larger ways than merely the prescribed texts. This attitude resulted in him being rusticated for one term, when he nonchalantly returned to college late from a trip to Greece with Prof. Mahaffy.

Wilde did not meet Walter Pater until his third year, but had been enthralled by his ''Studies in the History of the Renaissance'', published during Wilde's final year in Trinity. Pater argued that man's sensibility to beauty should be refined above all else, and that each moment should be felt to its fullest extent. Years later in ''De Profundis'', Wilde called Pater's ''Studies...'' "that book that has had such a strange influence over my life". He learned tracts of the book by heart, and carried it with him on travels in later years. Pater gave Wilde his sense of almost flippant devotion to art, though it was John Ruskin who gave him a purpose for it. Ruskin despaired at the self-validating aestheticism of Pater, arguing that the importance of art lies in its potential for the betterment of society. Ruskin admired beauty, but believed it must be allied with, and applied to, moral good. When Wilde eagerly attended Ruskin's lecture series ''The Aesthetic and Mathematic Schools of Art in Florence'', he learned about aesthetics as simply the non-mathematical elements of painting. Despite being given to neither early rising nor manual labour, Wilde volunteered for Ruskin's project to convert a swampy country lane into a smart road neatly edged with flowers.

Wilde won the 1878 Newdigate Prize for his poem "Ravenna", which reflected on his visit there the year before, and he duly read it at Encaenia. In November 1878, he graduated with a rare double first in his B.A. of Classical Moderations and Literae Humaniores (Greats). Wilde wrote to a friend, "The dons are '' beyond words – the Bad Boy doing so well in the end!"

Apprenticeship of an aesthete: 1880s[link]

Debut in society[link]

After graduation from Oxford, Wilde returned to Dublin, where he met again Florence Balcombe, a childhood sweetheart. She, however, became engaged to Bram Stoker and they married in 1878. Wilde was disappointed but stoic: he wrote to her, remembering "the two sweet years – the sweetest years of all my youth" they had spent together. He also stated his intention to "return to England, probably for good". This he did in 1878, only briefly visiting Ireland twice.

Unsure of his next step, he wrote to various acquaintances enquiring about Classics positions at Oxford or Cambridge. ''The Rise of Historical Criticism'' was his submission for the Chancellor's Essay prize of 1879, which, though no longer a student, he was still eligible to enter. Its subject, "Historical Criticism among the Ancients" seemed ready-made for Wilde – with both his skill in composition and ancient learning – but he struggled to find his voice with the long, flat, scholarly style. Unusually, no prize was awarded that year. With the last of his inheritance from the sale of his father's houses, he set himself up as a bachelor in London. The 1881 British Census listed Wilde as a boarder at 1 Tite Street, Chelsea, where Frank Miles, a society painter, was the head of the household. Wilde would spend the next six years in London and Paris, and in the United States where he travelled to deliver lectures.

He had been publishing lyrics and poems in magazines since his entering Trinity College, especially in ''Kottabos'' and the ''Dublin University Magazine''. In mid-1881, at 27 years old, ''Poems'' collected, revised and expanded his poetic efforts. The book was generally well received, and sold out its first print run of 750 copies, prompting further printings in 1882. It was bound in a rich, enamel, parchment cover (embossed with gilt blossom) and printed on hand-made Dutch paper; Wilde presented many copies to the dignitaries and writers who received him over the next few years. The Oxford Union condemned the book for alleged plagiarism in a tight vote. The librarian, who had requested the book for the library, returned the presentation copy to Wilde with a note of apology. Richard Ellmann argues that Wilde's poem "Hélas!" was a sincere, though flamboyant, attempt to explain the dichotomies he saw in himself:

To drift with every passion till my soulIs a stringed lute on which all winds can play

''Punch'' was less enthusiastic, "The poet is Wilde, but his poetry's tame" was their verdict.

America: 1882[link]

Aestheticism was sufficiently in vogue to be caricatured by Gilbert and Sullivan in ''Patience'' (1881). Richard D'Oyly Carte, an English Impressario, invited Wilde on a lecture tour of North America, simultaneously priming the pump for the U.S. tour of ''Patience'' and selling this most charming aesthete to the American public. Wilde arrived on 3 January 1882 aboard the SS ''Arizona'' and criss-crossed the country on a gruelling schedule, lecturing in a new town every few days. Originally planned to last four months, it was continued for over a year due to the commercial success. Wilde sought to juxtapose the beauty he saw in art onto daily life. This was a practical as well as philosophical project: in Oxford he had surrounded himself with blue china and lilies, now one of his lectures was on interior design. When asked to explain reports that he had paraded down Piccadilly in London carrying a lily, long hair flowing, Wilde replied, "It's not whether I did it or not that's important, but whether people believed I did it".

Wilde and aestheticism were both mercilessly caricatured and criticised in the press, ''Springfield Republican'', for instance, commented on Wilde's behaviour during his visit to Boston to lecture on aestheticism, suggesting that Wilde's conduct was more of a bid for notoriety rather than a devotion to beauty and the aesthetic. T.W. Higginson, a cleric and abolitionist, wrote in "Unmanly Manhood" of his general concern that Wilde, "whose only distinction is that he has written a thin volume of very mediocre verse", would improperly influence the behaviour of men and women. Though his press reception was hostile, Wilde was well received in diverse settings across America; he drank whiskey with miners in Leadville, Colorado and was fêted at the most fashionable salons in every city he visited.

London life and marriage[link]

His earnings, plus expected income from ''The Duchess of Padua'', allowed him to move to Paris between February and mid-May 1883. Whilst there he met Robert Sherard, whom he entertained constantly. "We are dining on the Duchess tonight", Wilde would declare before taking him to a fancy restaurant. In August he briefly returned to New York for the production of ''Vera'', his first play, after it was turned down in London. He reportedly entertained the other passengers with "Ave Imperatrix!, A Poem On England", about the rise and fall of empires. E.C. Stedman, in ''Victorian Poets'' describes this "lyric to England" as "manly verse – a poetic and eloquent invocation". Wilde's presence was again notable, the play was initially well received by the audience, but when the critics returned lukewarm reviews attendance fell sharply and the play closed a week after it had opened. He was left to return to England and lecturing: ''Personal Impressions of America'', ''The Value of Art in Modern Life'', and ''Dress'' were among his topics.

In London, he had been introduced to Constance Lloyd in 1881, daughter of Horace Lloyd, a wealthy Queen's Counsel. She happened to be visiting Dublin in 1884, when Wilde was lecturing at the Gaiety Theatre. He proposed to her, and they married on 29 May 1884 at the Anglican St. James Church in Paddington in London. Constance's annual allowance of £250 was generous for a young woman (it would be equivalent to about £}} in current value), but the Wildes' tastes were relatively luxurious, and they had been preaching to others for so long on the subject of design, that people expected their home to set new standards. No. 16, Tite Street was duly renovated in seven months at considerable expense. The couple had two sons, Cyril (1885) and Vyvyan (1886).

Wilde was the sole literary signatory of George Bernard Shaw's petition for a pardon of the anarchists arrested (and later executed) after the Haymarket massacre in Chicago in 1886.

Robert Ross had read Wilde's poems before they met, and was unrestrained by the Victorian prohibition against homosexuality, even to the extent of estranging himself from his family. A precocious seventeen year old, by Richard Ellmann's account, he was "...so young and yet so knowing, was determined to seduce Wilde". According to Daniel Mendelsohn, Wilde, who had long alluded to Greek love, was "initiated into homosexual sex" by Ross, while his "marriage had begun to unravel after his wife's second pregnancy, which left him physically repelled".

Prose writing: 1886–91[link]

Journalism and editorship: 1886–89[link]

Criticism over artistic matters in the ''Pall Mall Gazette'' provoked a letter in self-defence, and soon Wilde was a contributor to that and other journals during the years 1885–87. He enjoyed reviewing and journalism; the form suited his style. He could organise and share his views on art, literature and life, yet in a format less tedious than lecturing. Buoyed up, his reviews were largely chatty and positive. Wilde, like his parents before him, also supported the cause of Irish Nationalism. When Charles Stewart Parnell was falsely accused of inciting murder Wilde wrote a series of astute columns defending him in the ''Daily Chronicle''. He promptly renamed it ''The Woman's World'' and raised its tone, adding serious articles on parenting, culture, and politics, keeping discussions of fashion and arts. Two pieces of fiction were usually included, one to be read to children, the other for the ladies themselves. Wilde worked hard to solicit good contributions from his wide artistic acquaintance, including those of Lady Wilde and his wife Constance, while his own "Literary and Other Notes" were themselves popular and amusing. The initial vigour and excitement he brought to the job began to fade as administration, commuting and office life became tedious. At the same time as Wilde's interest lagged, the publishers became concerned anew about circulation: sales, at the relatively high price of one shilling, remained low. Increasingly sending instructions by letter, he began a new period of creative work and his own column appeared less regularly. In October 1889, Wilde had finally found his voice in prose and, at the end of the second volume, Wilde left ''The Woman's World''. The magazine outlasted him by one volume.

Shorter fiction[link]

Wilde published ''The Happy Prince and Other Tales'' in 1888, and had been regularly writing fairy stories for magazines. In 1891 published two more collections, ''Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories'', and in September ''The House of Pomegranates'' was dedicated "To Constance Mary Wilde". "The Portrait of Mr. W. H.", which Wilde had begun in 1887, was first published in ''Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine'' in July 1889. It is a short story, which reports a conversation, in which the theory that Shakespeare's sonnets were written out of the poet's love of the boy actor "Willie Hughes", is advanced, retracted, and then propounded again. The only evidence for this is two supposed puns within the sonnets themselves. The anonymous narrator is at first sceptical, then believing, finally flirtatious with the reader: he concludes that "there is really a great deal to be said of the Willie Hughes theory of Shakespeare's sonnets. By the end fact and fiction have melded together. "You must believe in Willie Hughes," Wilde told an acquaintance. "I almost do, myself".

Essays and dialogues

Wilde, having tired of journalism, had been busy setting out his aesthetic ideas more fully in a series of longer prose pieces which were published in the major literary-intellectual journals of the day. In January 1889, ''The Decay of Lying: A Dialogue'' appeared in ''The Nineteenth Century'', and ''Pen, Pencil and Poison'', a satirical biography of Thomas Griffiths Wainewright, in the ''Fortnightly Review'', edited by Wilde's friend Frank Harris. Two of Wilde's four writings on aesthetics are dialogues, though Wilde had evolved professionally from lecturer to writer, he remained with an oral tradition of sorts. Having always excelled as a wit and raconteur, he often composed by assembling phrases, ''bons mots'' and witticisms into a longer, cohesive work.

Wilde was concerned about the effect of moralising on art, he believed in its redemptive, developmental powers: "Art is individualism, and individualism is a disturbing and disintegrating force. There lies its immense value. For what it seeks is to disturb monotony of type, slavery of custom, tyranny of habit, and the reduction of man to the level of a machine." In his only political text, ''The Soul of Man Under Socialism'', he argued political conditions should establish this primacy, and concluded that the government most amenable to artists was none at all. Wilde envisions a society where mechanisation has freed human effort from the burden of necessity, effort which can instead be expended on artistic creation. George Orwell summarised, "In effect, the world will be populated by artists, each striving after perfection in the way that seems best to him."

This point of view did not align him with the Fabians, intellectual socialists who advocated using state apparatus to change social conditions, nor did it endear him to the monied classes whom he had previously entertained. Hesketh Pearson, introducing a collection of Wilde's essays in 1950, remarked how ''The Soul of Man Under Socialism'' had been an inspirational text for Tsarist revolutionaries in Russia but laments that in in the Stalinist era "it is doubtful whether there are any uninspected places in which it could now be hidden". For Pearson the biographer, the essays and dialogues exhibit every aspect of Wilde's genius and character: wit, romancer, talker, lecturer, humanist and scholar and concludes that"no other productions of his have as varied an appeal". 1891 turned out to be Wilde's ''annus mirabilis'', apart from his three collections he also produced his only novel.

''The Picture of Dorian Gray''[link]

The first version of ''The Picture of Dorian Gray'' was published as the lead story in the July 1890 edition of ''Lippincott's Monthly Magazine'', along with five others. The story begins with a man painting a picture of Gray. When Gray, who has a "face like ivory and rose leaves", sees his finished portrait, he breaks down. Distraught that his beauty will fade while the portrait stays beautiful, he inadvertently makes a Faustian bargain in which only the painted image grows old while he stays beautiful and young. For Wilde, the purpose of art would be to guide life if beauty alone were its object. As Gray's portrait allows him to escape the corporeal ravages of his hedonism, Wilde sought to juxtapose the beauty he saw in art onto daily life.

Reviewers immediately criticised the novel's decadence and homosexual allusion, one in the ''The Daily Chronicle'' for example, called it “unclean,” “poisonous,” and “heavy with the mephitic odours of moral and spiritual putrefaction.” Wilde vigorously responded, writing to the Editor of the ''Scots Observer'', he clarified his stance on ethics and aesthetics in art "If a work of art is rich and vital and complete, those who have artistic instincts will see its beauty and those to whom ethics appeal more strongly will see its moral lesson." He nevertheless revised it extensively for book publication in 1891: six new chapters were added, some overt decadence passages and homo-eroticism excised, and a preface consisting of twenty two epigrams, such as "Books are well written, or badly written. That is all. " was included. Contemporary reviewers and modern critics have postulated numerous possible sources of the story, a search Jershua McCormack argues is futile because Wilde "has tapped a root of Western folklore so deep and ubiquitous that the story has escaped its origins and returned to the oral tradition." Wilde claimed the plot was "an idea that is as old as the history of literature but to which I have given a new form". Modern critic Robin McKie considered the novel to be technically mediocre, saying that the conceit of the plot had guaranteed its fame, but the device is never pushed to its full.

Theatrical career: 1892–95[link]

''Salomé''[link]

The 1891 census records the Wildes' residence at 16 Tite Street, where he lived with his wife Constance and sons. Wilde though, not content with being more well-known than ever in London, returned to Paris in October 1891, this time as a respected writer. He was received at the ''salons littéraires'', including the famous ''mardis'' of Stéphane Mallarmé, a renowned symbolist poet of the time. Wilde's two plays during the 1880s, ''Vera; or, The Nihilists'' and ''The Duchess of Padua'', had not met with much success. He had continued his interest in the theatre and now, after finding his voice in prose, his thoughts turned again to the dramatic form as the biblical iconography of Salome filled his head. One evening, after discussing depictions of Salome throughout history, he returned to his hotel to notice a blank copybook lying on the desk, and it occurred to him to write down what he had been saying. He wrote a new play, ''Salomé'', rapidly and in French.

A tragedy, it tells the story of Salome, the stepdaughter of the tetrarch Herod Antipas, who, to her stepfather's dismay but mother's delight, requests the head of Jokanaan (John the Baptist) on a silver platter as a reward for dancing the Dance of the Seven Veils. When Wilde returned to London just before Christmas the ''Paris Echo'', a newspaper, referred to him as "le great event" of the season. Rehearsals of the play, including Sarah Bernhardt, began but the play was refused a licence by the Lord Chamberlain, since it depicted biblical characters. ''Salome'' was published jointly in Paris and London in 1893, but was not performed until 1896 in Paris, during Wilde's later incarceration.

Comedies of society[link]

Wilde, who had first set out to irritate Victorian society with his dress and talking points, then outrage it with ''Dorian Gray'', his novel of vice hidden beneath art, finally found a way to critique society on its own terms. ''Lady Windermere's Fan'' was first performed on 20 February 1892 at St James Theatre, packed with the cream of society. On the surface a witty comedy, there is subtle subversion underneath: "it concludes with collusive concealment rather than collective disclosure". The audience, like Lady Windermere, are forced to soften harsh social codes in favour of a more nuanced view. The play was enormously popular, touring the country for months, but largely thrashed by conservative critics. It was followed by ''A Woman of No Importance'' in 1893, another Victorian comedy: revolving around the spectre of illegitimate births, mistaken identities and late revelations. Wilde was commissioned to write two more plays and ''An Ideal Husband'', written in 1894, followed in January 1895.

Peter Raby said these essentially English plays were well-pitched, "Wilde, with one eye on the dramatic genius of Ibsen, and the other on the commercial competition in London's West End, targeted his audience with adroit precision".

Queensberry family[link]

In mid-1891 Lionel Johnson introduced Wilde to Alfred Douglas, an undergraduate at Oxford at the time. Known to his family and friends as "Bosie", he was a handsome and spoilt young man. An intimate friendship sprang up between Wilde and Douglas and by 1893 Wilde was infatuated with Douglas and they consorted together regularly in a tempestuous affair. If Wilde was relatively indiscreet, even flamboyant, in the way he acted, Douglas was reckless in public. Wilde, who was earning up to £100 a week from his plays (his salary at ''The Woman's World'' had been £6), indulged Douglas's every whim: material, artistic or sexual.

Douglas soon dragged Wilde into the Victorian underground of gay prostitution and Wilde was introduced to a series of young, working class, male prostitutes from 1892 onwards by Alfred Taylor. These infrequent rendez-vous usually took the same form: Wilde would meet the boy, offer him gifts, dine him privately and then take him to a hotel room. Unlike Wilde's idealised, pederastic relations with John Gray, Ross, and Douglas, all of whom remained part of his aesthetic circle, these consorts were uneducated and knew nothing of literature. Soon his public and private lives had become sharply divided; in ''De Profundis'' he wrote to Douglas that "It was like feasting with panthers; the danger was half the excitement… I did not know that when they were to strike at me it was to be at another's piping and at another's pay."

Douglas and some Oxford friends founded an Oxford journal, ''The Chameleon'', to which Wilde "sent a page of paradoxes originally destined for the ''Saturday Review''". "Phrases and Philosophies for the Use of the Young" was to come under attack six months later at Wilde's trial, where he was forced to defend the magazine to which he had sent his work. In any case, it became unique: ''The Chameleon'' was not published again.

Lord Alfred's father, the Marquess of Queensberry, was known for his outspoken atheism, brutish manner and creation of the modern rules of boxing. Queensberry, who feuded regularly with his son, confronted Wilde and Lord Alfred about the nature of their relationship several times, but Wilde was able to mollify him. In June 1894, he called on Wilde at 16 Tite Street, without an appointment, and clarified his stance: "I do not say that you are it, but you look it, and pose at it, which is just as bad. And if I catch you and my son again in any public restaurant I will thrash you" to which Wilde responded: "I don't know what the Queensberry rules are, but the Oscar Wilde rule is to shoot on sight". His account in ''De Profundis'' was less triumphant: "It was when, in my library at Tite Street, waving his small hands in the air in epileptic fury, your father… stood uttering every foul word his foul mind could think of, and screaming the loathsome threats he afterwords with such cunning carried out". Queensberry only described the scene once, saying Wilde had "shown him the white feather", meaning he had acted in a cowardly way. Though trying to remain calm, Wilde saw that he was becoming ensnared in a brutal family quarrel. He did not wish to bear Queensberry's insults, but he knew to confront him could lead to disaster were his liaisons disclosed publicly.

''The Importance of Being Earnest''[link]

Wilde's final play again returns to the theme of switched identities: the play's two protagonists engage in "bunburying" (the maintenance of alternate personas in the town and country) which allows them to escape Victorian social mores. ''Earnest'' is even lighter in tone than Wilde's earlier comedies. While their characters often rose to serious themes in moments of crisis, ''Earnest'' lacks the by-now stock Wildean characters: there is no "woman with a past", the protagonists are neither villainous nor cunning, simply idle cultivés, and the idealistic young women are not that innocent. Although mostly set in drawing rooms and almost completely lacking in action or violence, ''Earnest'' lacks the self-conscious decadence found in ''The Picture of Dorian Gray'' and ''Salome''.

The play, now considered Wilde's masterpiece, was rapidly written in Wilde's artistic maturity in late 1894. It was first performed on 14 February 1895, at St James's Theatre in London, Wilde's second collaboration with George Alexander, the actor-manager. Both author and producer assiduously revised, prepared and rehearsed every line, scene and setting in the months before the premiere, creating a carefully constructed representation of late-Victorian society, yet simultaneously mocking it. During rehearsal Alexander requested that Wilde shorten the play from four acts to three, which the author did. Premieres at St. James's seemed like "brilliant parties", and the opening of ''The Importance of Being Earnest'' was no exception. Allan Aynesworth (who played Algy) recalled to Hesketh Pearson, "In my fifty-three years of acting, I never remember a greater triumph than [that] first night." ''Earnest's'' immediate reception as Wilde's best work to-date finally crystallised his fame into a solid artistic reputation. ''The Importance of Being Earnest'' remains his most popular play.

Wilde's professional success was mirrored by an escalation in his feud with Queensberry. Queensberry had planned to publicly insult Wilde by throwing a bouquet of rotting vegetables onto the stage; Wilde was tipped off and had Queensberry barred from entering the theatre. Fifteen weeks later Wilde would be in prison.

Trials[link]

''Wilde v Queensberry''[link]

On 18 February 1895, the Marquess left his calling card at Wilde's club, the Albemarle, inscribed: "For Oscar Wilde, posing somdomite". Wilde, egged on by Douglas and against the advice of his friends, initiated a private prosecution against Queensberry, who was arrested on a charge of criminal libel, a charge carrying a possible sentence of up to two years in prison (Libel Act of 1843): as sodomy was then a crime, Queensberry's note amounted to a public accusation that Wilde had committed a felony.

Under the Libel Act 1843, Queensberry could avoid conviction for libel only by demonstrating that his accusation was in fact true, and furthermore that there was some "public benefit" to having made the accusation openly. Queensberry's lawyers thus hired private detectives to find evidence of Wilde's homosexual liaisons to prove the fact of the accusation. They decided on a strategy of portraying Wilde as a depraved older man who habitually enticed naive youths into a life of vicious homosexuality in order to demonstrate that there was some public interest in making the accusation openly, ostensibly to warn off other youths who might otherwise have become entrapped by Wilde.

The libel trial became a ''cause célèbre'' as salacious details of Wilde's private life with Taylor and Douglas began to appear in the press. A team of private detectives had directed Queensberry's lawyers, led by Edward Carson QC, to the world of the Victorian underground. Wilde's association with blackmailers and male prostitutes, cross-dressers and homosexual brothels was recorded, and various persons involved were interviewed, some being coerced to appear as witnesses since they too were accomplices of the crimes to which Wilde was accused. The trial opened on 3 April 1895 amongst scenes of near hysteria both in the press and the public galleries. The extent of the evidence massed against Wilde forced him to declare meekly, "I am the prosecutor in this case". Wilde's lawyer, Sir Edward George Clarke, opened the case by pre-emptively asking Wilde about two suggestive letters Wilde had written to Douglas, which the defence had in its possession. He characterised the first as a "prose sonnet" and admitted that the "poetical language" might seem strange to the court but claimed its intent was innocent. Wilde stated that the letters had been obtained by blackmailers who had attempted to extort money from him, but he had refused, suggesting they should take the £60 (equal to £}} today) offered, "unusual for a prose piece of that length". He claimed to regard the letters as works of art rather than something to be ashamed of.

Carson cross-examined Wilde on how he perceived the moral content of his works. Wilde replied with characteristic wit and flippancy, claiming that works of art are not capable of being moral or immoral but only well or poorly made, and that only "brutes and illiterates," whose views on art "are incalculably stupid", would make such judgements about art. Carson, a leading barrister, diverged from the normal practice of asking closed questions. Carson pressed Wilde on each topic from every angle, squeezing out nuances of meaning from Wilde's answers, removing them from their aesthetic context and portraying Wilde as evasive and decadent. While Wilde won the most laughs from the court, Carson scored the most legal points. To undermine Wilde's credibility, and to justify Queensberry's description of Wilde as a "posing…somdomite", Carson drew from the witness an admission of his capacity for "posing", by demonstrating that he had lied about his age on oath. Playing on this, he returned to the topic throughout his cross-examination.

Carson then moved to the factual evidence and questioned Wilde about his acquaintances with younger, lower-class men. Wilde admitted being on a first-name basis and lavishing gifts upon them, but insisted that nothing untoward had occurred and that the men were merely good friends of his. Carson repeatedly pointed out the unusual nature of these relationships and insinuated that the men were prostitutes. Wilde replied that he did not believe in social barriers, and simply enjoyed the society of young men. Then Carson asked Wilde directly whether he had ever kissed a certain servant boy, Wilde responded, "Oh, dear no. He was a particularly plain boy – unfortunately ugly – I pitied him for it." Carson pressed him on the answer, repeatedly asking why the boy's ugliness was relevant. Wilde hesitated, then for the first time became flustered: "You sting me and insult me and try to unnerve me; and at times one says things flippantly when one ought to speak more seriously." Under the Libel Act 1843, Queensberry's acquittal rendered Wilde legally liable for the considerable expenses Queensberry had incurred in his defence, which left Wilde bankrupt.

''Regina v. Wilde''[link]

After Wilde left the court, a warrant for his arrest was applied for on charges of sodomy and gross indecency. Robbie Ross found Wilde at the Cadogan Hotel, Knightsbridge with Reginald Turner; both men advised Wilde to go at once to Dover and try to get a boat to France; his mother advised him to stay and fight like a man. Wilde, lapsing into inaction, could only say, "The train has gone. It's too late." Wilde was arrested for "gross indecency" under Section 11 of the Criminal Law Amendment Act 1885, a term meaning homosexual acts not amounting to buggery (an offence under a separate statute). At Wilde's instruction, Ross and Wilde's butler forced their way into the bedroom and library of 16 Tite Street, packing some personal effects, manuscripts, and letters. Wilde was then imprisoned on remand at Holloway where he received daily visits from Douglas.

Events moved quickly and his prosecution opened on 26 April 1895. Wilde pleaded not guilty. He had already begged Douglas to leave London for Paris, but Douglas complained bitterly, even wanting to give evidence; however he was pressed to go and soon fled to the Hotel du Monde. Fearing persecution, Ross and many other gentlemen also left the United Kingdom during this time. Under cross examination Wilde was at first hesitant, then spoke eloquently:

This response was, however, counter-productive in a legal sense as it only served to reinforce the charges of homosexual behaviour. The trial ended with the jury unable to reach a verdict. Wilde's counsel, Sir Edward Clarke, was finally able to agree bail. The Reverend Stewart Headlam put up most of the £5,000 bail, having disagreed with Wilde's treatment by the press and the courts. Wilde was freed from Holloway and, shunning attention, went into hiding at the house of Ernest and Ada Leverson, two of his firm friends. Edward Carson approached Frank Lockwood QC, the Solicitor General and asked "Can we not let up on the fellow now?" Lockwood answered that he would like to do so, but feared that the case had become too politicised to be dropped.

The final trial was presided over by Mr Justice Wills. On 25 May 1895 Wilde and Alfred Taylor were convicted of gross indecency and sentenced to two years' hard labour. The judge described the sentence, the maximum allowed, as "totally inadequate for a case such as this," and that the case was "the worst case I have ever tried". Wilde's response "And I? May I say nothing, my Lord?" was drowned out in cries of "Shame" in the courtroom.

Imprisonment[link]

Wilde was imprisoned first in Pentonville and then Wandsworth Prison in London. Inmates followed a regimen of "hard labour, hard fare and a hard bed", which wore very harshly on Wilde, accustomed as he was to many creature comforts. His health declined sharply, and in November he collapsed during chapel from illness and hunger. His right ear drum was ruptured in the fall, an injury that would later contribute to his death. He spent two months in the infirmary.

Richard B. Haldane, the Liberal MP and reformer, visited him and had him transferred in November to HM's Prison, Reading, west of London. The transfer itself was the lowest point of his incarceration, as a crowd jeered and spat at him on the platform. Now known as prisoner C. 3.3 he was not, at first, even allowed paper and pen but Haldane eventually succeeded in allowing access to books and writing materials. Wilde requested, among others: the Bible in French, Italian and German grammars, some Ancient Greek texts, Dante's ''Divine Comedy'', ''En Route'', Joris-Karl Huysmans's new French novel about Christian redemption; and essays by St Augustine, Cardinal Newman and Walter Pater.

Between January and March 1897 Wilde wrote a 50,000-word letter to Douglas, which he was not allowed to send, but was permitted to take with him upon release. In reflective mode, Wilde coldly examines his career to date, how he had been a colourful agent provocateur in Victorian society, his art, like his paradoxes, seeking to subvert as well as sparkle. His own estimation of himself was of one who "stood in symbolic relations to the art and culture of my age". It was from these heights that his life with Douglas began, and Wilde examines that particularly closely, repudiating him for what Wilde finally sees as his arrogance and vanity: he had not forgotten Douglas's remark, when he was ill, "When you are not on your pedestal you are not interesting." Wilde blamed himself, though, for the ethical degradation of character that he allowed Douglas to bring about on him and took responsibility for his own fall, "I am here for having tried to put your father in prison." On his release, he gave the manuscript to Ross, who may or may not have carried out Wilde's instructions to send a copy to Douglas (who later denied having received it). ''De Profundis'' was partially published in 1905, its complete and correct publication first occurred in 1962 in ''The Letters of Oscar Wilde''.

Decline: 1897–1900[link]

Exile[link]

Wilde was released on 19 May 1897, and though his health had suffered greatly, he had a feeling of spiritual renewal. He immediately wrote to the Society of Jesus requesting a six-month Catholic retreat; when the request was denied, Wilde wept. "I intend to be received before long", Wilde told a journalist who asked about his religious intentions. He left England the next day for the continent, to spend his last three years in penniless exile. He took the name "Sebastian Melmoth", after Saint Sebastian, and the titular character of ''Melmoth the Wanderer''; a Gothic novel by Charles Maturin, Wilde's great-uncle. Wilde wrote two long letters to the editor of the ''Daily Chronicle'', describing the brutal conditions of English prisons and advocating penal reform. His discussion of the dismissal of Warder Martin, for giving biscuits to an anaemic child prisoner, repeated the themes of the corruption and degeneration of punishment that he had earlier outlined in ''The Soul of Man Under Socialism''.

Wilde spent mid-1897 with Robert Ross in Berneval-le-Grand, where he wrote ''The Ballad of Reading Gaol''. The poem narrates the execution of a man who murdered his wife for her infidelity; it moves from an objective story-telling to symbolic identification with the prisoners as a whole. No attempt is made to assess the justice of the laws which convicted them, but rather the poem highlights the brutalisation of the punishment that all convicts share. Wilde juxtaposes the executed man and himself with the line "Yet each man kills the thing he loves". Wilde too was separated from his wife and sons. He adopted the proletarian ballad form, and the author was credited as "C.3.3." He suggested it be published in ''Reynold's Magazine'', "because it circulates widely among the criminal classes – to which I now belong – for once I will be read by my peers – a new experience for me". It was a commercial success, going through seven editions in less than two years, only after which "[Oscar Wilde]" was added to the title page, though many in literary circles had known Wilde to be the author. It brought him a little money.

Although Douglas had been the cause of his misfortunes, he and Wilde were reunited in August 1897 at Rouen. This meeting was disapproved of by the friends and families of both men. Constance Wilde was already refusing to meet Wilde or allow him to see their sons, though she kept him supplied with money. During the latter part of 1897, Wilde and Douglas lived together near Naples for a few months until they were separated by their respective families under the threat of a cutting-off of funds.

Wilde's final address was at the dingy Hôtel d'Alsace (now known as L'Hôtel), in Paris; "This poverty really breaks one's heart: it is so ''sale'', so utterly depressing, so hopeless. Pray do what you can" he wrote to his publisher. He corrected and published ''An Ideal Husband'' and ''The Importance of Being Earnest'', the proofs of which Ellmann argues show a man "very much in command of himself and of the play" but he refused to write anything else "I can write, but have lost the joy of writing". He spent much time wandering the Boulevards alone, and spent what little money he had on alcohol. A series of embarrassing encounters with English visitors, or Frenchmen he had known in better days, further damaged his spirit. Soon Wilde was sufficiently confined to his hotel to remark, on one of his final trips outside, "My wallpaper and I are fighting a duel to the death. One of us has got to go." On 12 October 1900 he sent a telegram to Ross: "Terribly weak. Please come." His moods fluctuated; Max Beerbohm relates how their mutual friend Reginald 'Reggie' Turner had found Wilde very depressed after a nightmare. "I dreamt that I had died, and was supping with the dead!" "I am sure", Turner replied, "that you must have been the life and soul of the party." Turner was one of the very few of the old circle who remained with Wilde right to the end, and was at his bedside when he died.

Death[link]

By 25 November Wilde had developed cerebral meningitis. Robbie Ross arrived on 29 November and sent for a priest, and Wilde was conditionally baptised into the Catholic Church by Fr Cuthbert Dunne, a Passionist priest from Dublin (the sacrament being conditional because of the doctrine that one may only be baptised once – Wilde having a recollection of Catholic baptism as child, a fact later attested to by the minister of the sacrament, Fr Lawrence Fox). Fr Dunne recorded the baptism:

As the ''voiture'' rolled through the dark streets that wintry night, the sad story of Oscar Wilde was in part repeated to me....Robert Ross knelt by the bedside, assisting me as best he could while I administered conditional baptism, and afterwards answering the responses while I gave Extreme Unction to the prostrate man and recited the prayers for the dying. As the man was in a semi-comatose condition, I did not venture to administer the Holy Viaticum; still I must add that he could be roused and was roused from this state in my presence. When roused, he gave signs of being inwardly conscious… Indeed I was fully satisfied that he understood me when told that I was about to receive him into the Catholic Church and gave him the Last Sacraments… And when I repeated close to his ear the Holy Names, the Acts of Contrition, Faith, Hope and Charity, with acts of humble resignation to the Will of God, he tried all through to say the words after me.

Wilde died of cerebral meningitis on 30 November 1900. Different opinions are given as to the cause of the meningitis: Richard Ellmann claimed it was syphilitic; Merlin Holland, Wilde's grandson, thought this to be a misconception, noting that Wilde's meningitis followed a surgical intervention, perhaps a mastoidectomy; Wilde's physicians, Dr. Paul Cleiss and A'Court Tucker, reported that the condition stemmed from an old suppuration of the right ear (''une ancienne suppuration de l'oreille droite d'ailleurs en traitement depuis plusieurs années'') and did not allude to syphilis.

Wilde was initially buried in the Cimetière de Bagneux outside Paris; in 1909 his remains were disinterred to Père Lachaise Cemetery, inside the city. His tomb was designed by Sir Jacob Epstein, commissioned by Robert Ross, who asked for a small compartment to be made for his own ashes which were duly transferred in 1950. The modernist angel depicted as a relief on the tomb was originally complete with male genitalia which have since been vandalised; their current whereabouts are unknown. In 2000, Leon Johnson, a multimedia artist, installed a silver prosthesis to replace them.

The epitaph is a verse from ''The Ballad of Reading Gaol'':

And alien tears will fill for him Pity's long-broken urn, For his mourners will be outcast men, And outcasts always mourn.

Biographies[link]

Wilde's life continues to fascinate and he has been the subject of numerous biographies since his death. The earliest were memoirs by those known to him: often they are personal or impressionistic accounts which can be good character sketches, but factually unreliable. Frank Harris, his friend and editor, wrote a biography, ''Oscar Wilde: His Life and Confessions'' (1916), though prone to exaggeration and sometimes factually inaccurate, it offers a good literary portrait of Wilde. Lord Alfred Douglas wrote two books about his relationship with Wilde: ''Oscar Wilde and Myself'' (1914), largely ghost-written by T.W.H. Crosland, vindictively reacted to Douglas's discovery that ''De Profundis'' was addressed to him and defensively tried to distance him from Wilde's scandalous reputation. Both authors later regretted their work. Later, in ''Oscar Wilde: A Summing Up'' (1939) and his ''Autobiography'' he was more sympathetic to Wilde. Of Wilde's other close friends, Robert Sherard, Robert Ross, his literary executor; and Charles Ricketts variously published biographies, reminiscences or correspondence. The first more or less objective biography of Wilde came about when Hesketh Pearson wrote ''Oscar Wilde: His Life and Wit'' (1946). In 1954 Vyvyan Holland published his memoir ''Son of Oscar Wilde'', which recounts the difficulties Wilde's wife and children faced after his imprisonment. It was revised and updated by Merlin Holland in 1989.

Wilde's life was still waiting for independent, true scholarship when Richard Ellmann began researching his 1987 biography ''Oscar Wilde'', for which he posthumously won a National (USA) Book Critics Circle Award in 1988 and a Pulitzer Prize in 1989. The book was the basis for the 1997 film ''Wilde'', directed by Brian Gilbert and starring Stephen Fry as the title character.

Neil McKenna's 2003 biography, ''The Secret Life of Oscar Wilde,'' offers an exploration of Wilde's sexuality. Often speculative in nature, it was widely criticised for its lack of scholarly rigour and pure conjecture. Thomas Wright's ''Oscar's Books'' (2008) explores Wilde's reading from his childhood in Dublin to his death in Paris. After tracking down many books that once belonged to Wilde's Tite Street library (dispersed at the time of his trials), Wright was the first to examine Wilde's marginalia.

Wilde's charm also had a lasting effect on the Parisian literati, who have produced a number of original biographies and monographs on him. André Gide, on whom Wilde had such a strange effect, wrote, ''In Memoriam, Oscar Wilde''; Wilde also features in his journals. Thomas Louis, who had earlier translated books on Wilde into French, produced his own ''L’esprit d’Oscar Wilde'' in 1920. Modern books include Philippe Jullian's ''Oscar Wilde'', and ''L'affaire Oscar Wilde ou Du danger de laisser la justice mettre le nez dans nos draps'' (''The Oscar Wilde Affair, or, On the Danger of Allowing Justice to put its Nose in our Sheets'') by Odon Vallet, a French religious historian.

Selected works[link]

''Poems'' (1881)

''The Happy Prince and Other Stories'' (1888, fairy stories)

''Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories'' (1891, stories)

''House of Pomegranates'' (1891, fairy stories)

''Intentions'' (1891, essays and dialogues on aesthetics)

''The Picture of Dorian Gray'' (first published in ''Lippincott's Monthly Magazine'' July 1890, in book form in 1891; novel)

''The Soul of Man under Socialism'' (1891, political essay)

''Lady Windermere's Fan'' (1892, play)

''A Woman of No Importance'' (1893, play)

''An Ideal Husband'' (performed 1895, published 1898; play)

''The Importance of Being Earnest'' (performed 1895, published 1898; play)

''De Profundis'' (written 1897, published variously 1905, 1908, 1949, 1962; epistle)

''The Ballad of Reading Gaol'' (1898, poem)

Notes[link]

Footnotes[link]

Citations[link]

References[link]

Further reading[link]

Detailed reference work on Wilde, the majority of entries discuss his works; his biography, times, and contemporary literary movements are also covered. One of the first biographies of Wilde, by Frank Harris a personal friend. Whilst the accuracy of detail and reported speech remain dubious, scholars have reconsidered the work to provide a good portrait of Wilde as a man. A freely licensed copy is available online from the University of Adelaide Reconstructed transcripts from Wilde's three trials, with a foreword by Sir John Mortimer QC and an introduction by Merlin Holland.

External links[link]

; Historical societies

The Oscar Wilde Society (UK)

Oscar Wilde Society (U.S.) Contains a reconstructed itinerary of Wilde's lecture tour in the United States

Société Oscar Wilde en France Publishes a journal on THE OSCHOLARS website – a massive and ever growing site on Wilde and his contemporaries at www.oscholars.com

; Historical notes

Record of Wilde's indictment and conviction – official Old Bailey website.

Details including court transcriptions of the trials of Wilde

; Radio programmes ; Online texts by Wilde

Wilde texts from University College Cork, electronic texts, including a selection of his journalism

''The Oscar Wilde Collection'' – text of Wilde's poetry, plays and fiction

Online books by Oscar Wilde

; Images

Historical Image of Ruskin Street; Oscar Wilde was encouraged to carry out road improvements in this Oxfordshire village by the art critic John Ruskin

Category:1854 births Category:1900 deaths Category:19th-century Irish people Category:19th-century theatre Category:Alumni of Magdalen College, Oxford Category:Alumni of Trinity College, Dublin Category:Anglo-Irish artists Category:Anglo-Irish people Category:Aphorists Category:Bisexual writers Category:Burials at Père Lachaise Cemetery Category:Converts to Roman Catholicism from Anglicanism Category:Gay writers Category:Irish anarchists Category:Irish dramatists and playwrights Category:Irish expatriates in France Category:Irish fantasy writers Category:Irish horror writers Category:Irish journalists Category:Irish novelists Category:Irish pacifists Category:Irish people of Italian descent Category:Irish poets Category:Irish socialists Category:People educated at Portora Royal School Category:People associated with Trinity College, Dublin Category:People from Dublin (city) Category:People prosecuted under anti-homosexuality laws Category:Symbolist dramatists and playwrights Category:Victorian novelists Category:Victorian pederasty Category:Victorian poets Category:Freemasons

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name	Eden Hazard
fullname	Eden Hazard
height
birth date	January 07, 1991
birth place	La Louvière, Belgium
currentclub	Lille
clubnumber	10
position	Attacking midfielder Winger
youthyears1	1995–2003
youthyears2	2003–2005
youthyears3	2005–2007
youthclubs1	Royal Stade Brainois
youthclubs2	Tubize
youthclubs3	Lille
clubs1	Lille
years1	2007–
caps1	147
goals1	36
nationalyears1	2006
nationalyears2	2006
nationalyears3	2006–2008
nationalyears4	2007–2009
nationalyears5	2008–
nationalteam1	Belgium U15
nationalteam2	Belgium U16
nationalteam3	Belgium U17
nationalteam4	Belgium U19
nationalteam5	Belgium
nationalcaps1	5
nationalgoals1	1
nationalcaps2	4
nationalgoals2	2
nationalcaps3	17
nationalgoals3	2
nationalcaps4	11
nationalgoals4	6
nationalcaps5	27
nationalgoals5	2
ntupdate	19:20, 25 May 2012 (UTC)
pcupdate	11:38, 31 May 2012 (UTC) }}

Eden Hazard (born 7 January 1991) is a Belgian international footballer who currently plays for French club Lille in Ligue 1 and the Belgium national team. He primarily plays as an attacking midfielder and a winger. Hazard is known for his creativity, speed, and technical ability and is described as a "fearless, explosive attacking midfielder who can change the game with a turn of pace or a dribble". He has also been described as "a defender's nightmare" and has earned critical acclaim for his playing style, which has led to the media, coaches, and players drawing comparisons to FIFA World Player of the Year winners Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo.

Hazard is the son of former Belgian footballers and began his football career in Belgium playing for local clubs Royal Stade Brainois and Tubize. In 2005, he moved to France joining first division club Lille. Hazard spent two years in the club's academy and, at the age of 16, made his professional debut in November 2007. In his first full season as a starter, he won the National Union of Professional Footballers (UNFP) Young Player of the Year award becoming the first non-French player to win the award. In the 2009–10 season, Hazard captured the award again becoming the first player to win the award twice. He was also named to the league's Team of the Year. Since making his debut in 2007, Hazard has become an integral part of the club under manager Rudi Garcia racking up over 190 appearances. In the 2010–11 season, he was a part of the Lille team that won the league and cup double and, as a result of his performances, was named the UNFP Ligue 1 Player of the Year becoming the youngest player to win the award. Hazard was also given the Bravo Award by Italian magazine Guerin Sportivo for his performances during the 2010–11 season.

Hazard is a Belgium international, having represented his nation at under-17 and under-19 level. Prior to starring for the senior team, he played on the under-17 team that qualified for the 2007 UEFA European Under-17 Football Championship and 2007 FIFA U-17 World Cup. Hazard made his senior international debut in November 2008, at the age of 17 years and 316 days, in a friendly match against Luxembourg. Nearly three years after his debut, Hazard scored his first international goal against Kazakhstan in October 2011.

Personal life [link]

Hazard was born in the city of La Louvière, but was raised in Braine-le-Comte, a small town in the Wallonia region. He grew up in a family where football was dominant. His mother, Carine and father, Thierry (not to be confused with the French singer and songwriter of the same name) were both footballers in Belgium. His father spent most of his career playing at semi-professional level with R.A.A. Louviéroise in the Belgian Second Division. He played mainly as a defensive midfielder. His mother played as a striker in the Belgian Women's First Division and stopped playing when she was three months pregnant with Eden. After playing football, both parents became sports professors. Thierry retired from his position in 2009 in order to devote more time to his children.

Hazard is the oldest of four children. He has three brothers, all of whom play football. Thorgan currently plays for Lille's biggest rivals RC Lens. Hazard's other younger brothers are Kylian, 16, and Ethan, seven. In August 2011, Kylian joined the youth academy of Lille after a deal had been agreed to allow him to join the club when he turned 16, while Ethan remains in Belgium playing in the youth academy of Eden's former club A.F.C. Tubize. Hazard and his three brothers were raised in a comfortable environment with their parents ensuring they had whatever they needed to excel. The family lived "no more than three meters" from a football training ground and the brothers often ventured onto a training pitch through a small hole in order to hone and develop their skills. Hazard is currently in a relationship with girlfriend Natasha. On 19 December 2010, Belgian and French media announced that she had given birth to a baby boy.

Club career [link]

Early career [link]

Hazard began his football career playing for hometown club Royal Stade Brainois at the age of four. During his time at the club, one of his youth coaches described him as a "gifted" player who "knew everything. I had nothing to teach him". Hazard spent eight years at the club before moving to Tubize. While at Tubize, he was spotted by a Lille scout while playing in a local tournament with the club. The scout's subsequent report on the player prompted club officials to meet with Hazard's father and offer the young player an ''aspirant'' (youth) contract. Hazard's parents accepted the offer with hopes that the training facilities in France would be better. Hazard's father later admitted that the decision to let Eden and, later Thorgan, join clubs in the North of France was the best solution stating "They remained so close to home and, at the same time, they integrated at structures where they could grow, because in Belgium, unfortunately, it's a little empty for the training of youth".

Lille [link]

Hazard joined Lille in 2005 and spent two years developing in the club's local sports school, due to its youth academy in Luchin not being in operation at that time. On 28 May 2007, he signed his first professional contract agreeing to a three year deal with Lille. At the start of the 2007–08 season, at the age of 16, Hazard was promoted to the club's reserve team in the Championnat de France amateur, the fourth level of French football, though he still played with Lille's under-18 team in its league and the Coupe Gambardella. Hazard made his amateur debut on 1 September 2007 in a league match against Racing Club de France appearing as a second half substitute in a 3–1 defeat. He made his first start a week later in the team's 1–0 defeat to Lesquin.

After spending the majority of October and the early part of November playing with the club's under-18 team, on 14 November, due to several players being on international duty, Hazard was called up to the senior team by manager Claude Puel to participate in a friendly match against Belgian club Bruges on 16 November. He appeared as a substitute in the match and, as a result of his performance, was included in the 18-man squad to face Nancy in a league match on 24 November. Hazard, subsequently, made his professional debut in the match coming on as a substitute in the 78th minute. Hazard returned to the club's reserve team and spent December playing with the squad. Following the winter break, Hazard returned to the first team in January and made substitute appearances in three league matches against Metz, Sochaux, and Paris Saint-Germain. Following the match against Paris Saint-Germain, he was demoted back to amateur level where he played concurrently with the reserve team in the fourth division and the under-18 team in the Coupe Gambardella. On 17 May 2008, he scored his first amateur goal in a 3–2 victory over Vitré. Hazard finished his amateur career with 11 appearances and one goal, helping the reserve team finished in fifth place, which was first among professional clubs' reserve teams playing in the group.

2008–09 season [link]

For the 2008–09 season, Hazard was given the number 26 shirt after playing with the number 33 shirt in his debut season. He was also promoted to the senior team permanently by new manager Rudi Garcia. Early on, he made substitute appearances regularly making his season debut as a substitute on 14 September 2008 against Sochaux in a 1–1 draw. One of his substitute appearances proved beneficial against Auxerre on 20 September. With Lille trailing 2–1 in the waning minutes of the match, Hazard, after Lille took a corner kick, quickly scooped up a short clearance from Auxerre and took a right-footed shot just outside the box. It beat the keeper and drew the score 2–2 in the 88th minute. With Lille's confidence high, the club won the match 3–2 in injury time following a goal from Tulio de Melo. Hazard's first career goal resulted in him becoming the youngest goalscorer in the club's history. Four days after scoring his first professional goal, Hazard made his first professional start in a 4–2 defeat on penalties to Montpellier in the Coupe de la Ligue. After featuring as a substitute in the team's next five league matches, on 15 November, Hazard made his first professional league start against Saint-Étienne. He capped the appearance by scoring the opening goal in the club's 3–0 victory. His assured performances with the club resulted in Lille offering him a three year contract extension, which he agreed to on 18 November 2008, tying him to the club until 2012.

After featuring as a substitute in December, Hazard returned to the starting lineup in January. On 23 January, he scored the second goal in a 3–0 win over amateur club Dunkerque in Round of 32 of the Coupe de France. Two weeks later, he scored the match-winning goal in a league match against Sochaux and, on 22 February, assisted on the winner against Monaco. In the Round of 16 of the Coupe de France, Hazard netted a goal in a 3–2 win over the competition's defending champions Lyon. On 26 April, he scored the opening goal against Marseille, though Lille lost the match 2–1. In the final ten league matches of the campaign, Hazard started eight and contributed to the team finishing in fifth place, which resulted in Lille qualifying for the newly-created UEFA Europa League. After the season, he was named the National Union of Professional Footballers (UNFP) Young Player of the Year, becoming the first international player to achieve the honor.

2009–10 season [link]

}}

Following the 2008–09 season, constant media speculation occurred in numerous countries regarding Hazard's availability on the transfer market. Despite Lille chairman Michel Seydoux declaring the player off limits and Hazard stating that he wanted to remain at the club for at least another season, several clubs declared interest in the player. These included English clubs Arsenal and Manchester United, Italian club Internazionale, and Spanish clubs Barcelona and Real Madrid. French football legend Zinedine Zidane personally recommended the player to the latter club.

Hazard began the 2009–10 season on a positive note scoring in Lille's first competitive match of the season. The goal, contributing to the team's 2–0 victory, came against Serbian club FK Sevojno in the first leg of the club's third qualifying round match in the UEFA Europa League. On 27 August, he scored his second career European goal in the club's second leg tie in the playoff round against Belgian club Genk. It was Lille's final goal in the club's 4–2 victory. The 6–3 aggregate scoreline assured the club progression to the Europa League group stage. On 22 October, he scored a goal in Lille's important 3–0 victory over Italian club Genoa in the 84th minute after entering as a substitute 10 minutes prior. Upon receiving the ball on the left wing, Hazard proceeded to dash through the midfield dribbling past six Genoa defenders before finishing at the 18-yard box. A month later, Hazard was instrumental in Lille's 5–1 thrashing of Czech club Slavia Prague as he was partly responsible for the opening goal — slicing through the defense and delivering a cross near post, which awkwardly went off Slavia player Marek Suchý resulting in an own goal.

On 20 December, he scored his first league goal of the season in the club's 3–0 win over Le Mans. Hazard also provided both the assists on the other two goals. On 30 January, Hazard scored the only goal in Lille's win over Derby du Nord rivals Lens. The victory helped the club achieve stability in the league by keeping them in the UEFA Champions League places. It also ended a disaster of a week which saw Lille suffer elimination from both of France's cup competitions. Five days later, Hazard and Lille reached an agreement on a contract extension, which will keep the player at the club until 2014. On 11 March, Hazard scored the only goal in Lille's victory over English club Liverpool in the first leg of the club's UEFA Europa League tie converting a free kick in the 83rd minute. Three weeks later, Hazard provided two assists in the club's 4–1 win over fellow title contenders Montpellier. The two passes brought his league tally to seven, tied for second in the league. For his impressive displays in the month of March, Hazard was given the UNFP Player of the Month award.

On 29 April, Hazard was nominated for the UNFP Ligue 1 Player of the Year award. He was also nominated, for the second consecutive season, for the Young Player of the Year award. On 9 May, Hazard was awarded the UNFP Young Player of the Year trophy for the second consecutive season. He became the first player since its inception in 1994 to win the award twice. Hazard lost out on the Player of the Year award, which was awarded to Lyon striker Lisandro López.

2010–11 season [link]

Hazard began the 2010–11 campaign as a starter featuring in Lille's first six league matches of the season, as well as matches in the UEFA Europa League. On 29 August 2010, he scored his first goal of the season in a 1–1 draw with Nice. In late September, Hazard began to struggle with inconsistency and was benched by Garcia in an effort to "allow him (Hazard) to breathe and learn that his performances were insufficient". Hazard, subsequently, appeared as a substitute in the team's 2–1 defeat to Portuguese club Sporting in the Europa League and as a substitute in the next three league matches against Toulouse, Montpellier, and Lyon. Hazard later admitted that his first bout of inconsistency affected him stating "The first two months were a bit tough. I wouldn’t say that I began doubting my abilities, but I definitely went through a really patchy spell".

On 7 October, Belgium national team manager Georges Leekens, citing Hazard's recent spell on the bench at Lille, said that the player needed to work harder, both physically and mentally, to regain his past year's form. The team's assistant coach, Marc Wilmots, also stated that Hazard often displayed a lazy mentality while training with the national team. Garcia responded to Leekens comments the following day stating that he thought they were "excessive" and that "Eden is only 19 years old" and can still "make more progress in all areas." Following Belgium's match against Kazakhstan, in which Hazard failed to start or even appear on the substitute's bench, Leekens responded to Garcia's comments declaring that he would stand by his previous comments and that players must think about the team and not themselves. Hazard, himself, later reflected on Leekens and Garcia comments in February 2011 stating "I learned a lot during those few weeks, mentally speaking. And since then things have got better. The national side has had a fair bit to do with that – I get a lot out of being a part of it".

Following the international break, Hazard recaptured his scoring form netting the final goal in Lille's 4–1 victory over Caen in the Coupe de la Ligue on 27 October. Ten days later, he scored his second league goal of the season in a 3–1 win against the league table leaders Brest. On 21 November, Hazard assisted on both Lille's goals in a 2–1 win over Monaco. The victory continued the club's domestic unbeaten streak, which led to Lille topping the league table following an emphatic 6–3 victory against Lorient on 5 December. At the turn of the calendar year, Hazard scored in the team's first match against amateur club Forbach in the Coupe de France. Lille won the match 3–1. In the team's following match, he assisted on goals scored by Moussa Sow and Gervinho in a 2–0 league victory over Nice. On 19 January, Hazard scored the second goal in a 3–0 victory over Nancy. On 4 March, Lille officials confirmed that Hazard had added an extra year to his contract. The new deal ties him to the club until 2015. In his first match after the news, Hazard scored the opening goal in Lille's 2–1 away win over title rivals Marseille. The goal was scored on a left-footed shot from almost out and was clocked at .

On 2 April, Hazard capped his 100th league appearance with Lille by scoring the second goal in a 3–1 win over Caen. The goal tied his career-high for goals in a season and also moved Lille eight points clear at the top of the league table. For his performances in the month of March, Hazard was named the UNFP Player of the Month for the second time in his career. On 19 April, after appearing as a first half substitute, he scored the opening goal in Lille's 2–0 Coupe de France semi-final victory over Nice. The victory inserted the club into the 2011 Coupe de France Final; the club's first appearance in the competition's final since 1955. On 7 May, Hazard converted a game-winning free-kick goal in the team's 1–0 win over Nancy. Three days later, he was nominated for the UNFP Ligue 1 Player of the Year award for the second consecutive season. In the Coupe de France final, Hazard played 89 minutes as Lille defeated Paris Saint-Germain 1–0 at the Stade de France. A week later, Lille clinched the Ligue 1 title by drawing 2–2 away to Paris Saint-Germain, achieving the club's first league championship since the 1953–54 season and the club's first double since the 1945–46 season. The domestic cup and league title were the first two honours in Hazard's career. On the day after Lille won the league, Hazard was named the UNFP Ligue 1 Player of the Year becoming the youngest player ever to win the award. He was also rewarded with a place in the organization's Team of the Year for the second consecutive season.

2011–12 season [link]

Ahead of the 2011–12 season, Hazard switched to the number 10 shirt. In Lille's first competitive match of the season against Marseille in the 2011 Trophée des Champions, Hazard scored the team's second goal, which put Lille up 2–0. Marseille would later come back to win the match 5–4. On 20 August, in the team's third league match of the season, Hazard assisted on Lille's opening goal, scored by Benoît Pedretti, in a 2–1 win over Caen. A month later on 10 September, he scored two goals in a 3–1 away victory against Saint-Étienne. Fours days after, Hazard made his UEFA Champions League debut in a 2–2 group stage draw with Russian club CSKA Moscow. In the team's next league match following his Champions League debut, he converted a penalty in a 2–2 draw with Sochaux. Three days after, Hazard scored the equalizing goal in a 1–1 draw against Bordeaux. Against Turkish outfit Trabzonspor on 27 September, he assisted on Lille's only goal, scored by Moussa Sow, in a 1–1 draw. After going over two months without scoring a league goal, on 3 December, Hazard came on as a substitute and scored the match-winning goal in a win over Ajaccio converting a penalty—described as a "Antonín Panenka-style chipped penalty". Two days later, Hazard was among several players nominated for the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) Team of the Year for the 2011 calendar year.

In Lille's final match before the winter break, Hazard tied his career-high for league goals in a season by scoring the team's third goal in a 4–4 draw with Nice. After scoring the goal, Hazard celebrated by paying tribute to Molami Bokoto, a former Lille youth academy player who had died a day prior. In Lille's first match following the 2011–12 winter break, Hazard scored his ninth goal of the campaign in a 6–0 away win over amateur club Chantilly in the Coupe de France. In the following month, Lille were defeated 2–0 by league rivals Marseille and eliminated from both national cup competitions. On 28 January, Hazard scored the team's opening goal converting a penalty in a 3–0 win over Saint-Étienne. Two weeks later, he converted a free kick goal against Bordeaux. Lille had been trailing 4–1 prior to the goal and eventually recovered to draw the match at 4–4, however, Bordeaux scored in injury time to secure a thrilling 5–4 win. After going scoreless in the team's next three league matches, on 3 March, Hazard scored both team goals in a 2–2 draw with Auxerre. His second goal, a penalty conversion, brought his total goal tally on the season to 13, which is a personal best.

Following Lille's 2–1 league defeat to Lyon on 10 March, Hazard embarked on a streak in which he charted a statistical output in the team's next three league matches. On 18 March, he scored a goal and assisted on two others in a 4–0 win over local rivals Valenciennes. On the next match day against Evian, Hazard converted a penalty and assisted on a goal by Dimitri Payet in a 3–0 win. He repeated his previous feat against Evian the following week on April Fools' Day 2012 in a 2–1 win over Toulouse. In the first half, Hazard converted a first-half penalty and later assisted on another Payet goal to cap the victory. On 15 April, Hazard marked his 100 consecutive Ligue 1 appearance, which is the longest current run in the French top flight, by scoring a goal and assisting on another in a 4–1 win over Ajaccio. A week later, Hazard scored another goal, this time in a 2–0 win over Dijon. On 29 April, in a vital league fixture against Paris Saint-Germain, he converted his ninth penalty of the season to draw the match at 1–1 canceling out a goal from Javier Pastore. Hazard later contributed to Lille's game-winning goal after delivering a ''rabona''-style cross into the box, which was laid onto the path of striker Nolan Roux who, subsequently, converted the goal to give Lille a 2–1 win.

On 28 April, for the third consecutive season, Hazard was nominated for the UNFP Player of the Year award. Two weeks later, he was awarded the prestigious honour ahead of the likes of Olivier Giroud and Younès Belhanda. After capturing the award, Hazard became the second player in the awards' history after former Paris Saint-Germain striker Pauleta to achieve the honour in consecutive seasons. He was also included in the Team of the Year for the third straight season. On 20 May, Hazard appeared in his final match as a Lille player, coincidentally, against Nancy, the club he made his professional debut against. In the match, Hazard recorded his first professional hat-trick in a 4–1 win.

International career [link]

Youth [link]

Hazard has played for various Belgian national youth teams, such as the under-17 and under-19 teams. With the under-17 team, Hazard was a regular in the team making 17 appearances and scoring four goals. He played with the team in the Toto Cup, a yearly international youth tournament held in Austria and, also, played in the 2007 UEFA European Under-17 Football Championship, which Belgium hosted. In the tournament, Hazard scored his only goal in the team's opening match against the Netherlands converting a penalty in a 2–2 draw. Throughout the tournament, Hazard impressed media and coaches, which led to many in Belgium comparing him to Belgian football legend Enzo Scifo. Belgium suffered elimination in the semi-finals of the competition, losing to Spain 7–6 on penalties. Belgium were minutes away from a victory, courtesy of an own goal from David Rochela, which Hazard was particularly instrumental in, however Barcelona striker Bojan Krkić equalized for his nation to send the match into extra time. Due to finishing in third place at the tournament, Belgium qualified for the 2007 FIFA U-17 World Cup, held in South Korea. Hazard was selected to participate and played in all three group stage matches, where Belgium were eliminated.

After playing at the FIFA U-17 World Cup in August and September 2007, Hazard began earning call-ups to the under-19 team the following month in October. His first appearance came in a 2008 UEFA European Under-19 Football Championship qualification match against Romania coming on as a substitute in a 4–0 victory. He subsequently played in the next two group stage matches against Iceland and England. Belgium lost both matches. The negative results eliminated the country from the tournament. Due to being an underage player the previous year, Hazard was eligible for the under-19 team for the 2008–09 season. Due to his increase participation with Lille's first team, Hazard was only allowed participation in 2009 UEFA European Under-19 Football Championship qualification matches by his club and, as a result, missed the 2008 edition of the Milk Cup, which was held during Lille's preseason. On 7 October 2008, he scored his first under-19 goal in the team's 5–0 victory over Estonia. Three days later, he scored a double in a 2–2 draw with Croatia. In the Elite Round, Hazard led the team in goals scoring three. In the opening match against the Republic of Ireland, he scored the lone goal. In the next match, Hazard was influential in the team's 5–0 thrashing of Sweden scoring a goal and assisting on two others. In the team's final match, they faced Switzerland. Belgium needed an outright victory to progress to the 2009 UEFA European Under-19 Football Championship, but were eliminated from qualifying after drawing 1–1 with the Swiss, despite Hazard opening the scoring for Belgium in the 21st minute.

Senior [link]

Although Hazard is still eligible to represent Belgium on youth level, on 18 November 2008, he was called up to the Belgium senior team, for the first time, by manager René Vandereycken for the team's match against Luxembourg. Prior to making his national team debut with Belgium, Hazard was courted by French Football Federation officials who sought the player to play for the France national team as he had became eligible for French citizenship. Hazard did not respond to the courtship and later stated "Because of my presence in France for seven years, I feel 99% Belgian and 1% French, but the idea of French ​​citizenship has never crossed my mind".

Hazard made his highly anticipated debut for Belgium in the match against Luxembourg coming on as a substitute in the 67th minute for Wesley Sonck. On his debut, Hazard became the eighth youngest player in Belgian football history at 17 years and 316 days to play for the national team. On 12 August 2009, after three consecutive substitute appearances with the team, he made his first start under coach Franky Vercauteren in the team's 3–1 friendly loss to the Czech Republic. Following the resignation of Vercauteren, he was replaced with manager Dick Advocaat. Under Advocaat, Hazard became a starter in the team and, on 14 November 2009, played a full match for the first time in his international career. In the match, which was played against Hungary, Hazard assisted on two goals in a 3–0 win.

Advocaat was replaced as manager in May 2010 with Georges Leekens. After featuring as a starter in Leekens first three matches in charge, Hazard began appearing as a substitute for Belgium during the 2010–11 season. Leekens justified his benching of Hazard citing the players' domestic performance, which had been underwhelming at the time, while also admitting that Hazard displayed a lack of desire in training with the national team and often neglected his defensive duties during international matches. After appearing as a substitute in two straight matches, Hazard returned to the starting lineup for the team's November 2010 friendly match against Russia. In the match, which Belgium won 2–0, Hazard assisted on the team's opening goal scored by Romelu Lukaku. After featuring as a starter in the team's 1–1 draw with Finland in February 2011, Hazard was relegated back to the substitute's bench for the team's important March 2011 UEFA Euro 2012 qualifying matches as Leekens preferred Nacer Chadli and Moussa Dembélé on the wings. In the team's 29 March qualifier against Azerbaijan, he appeared as a second-half substitute and assisted on the team's final goal in a 4–1 win. Following the matches, French media began questioning why Hazard was struggling to be appreciated in his home country, while, at the same time, was being praised in France. Marc Wilmots, assistant coach of the national team, responded to the media reports stating "Some people only see Eden's qualities" and "the French press are sometimes blinded by his moments of magic".

In Belgium's next competitive match against Turkey on 3 June 2011, Hazard started the match, but was substituted out after 60 minutes. Disappointed with his performance and substitution, the midfielder retired to the locker room and was later spotted on television outside the stadium with his family eating a hamburger while the match was still ongoing. Following the episode, which has become known as ''Burgergate'' in Belgium, Hazard apologized for the defection, while Leekens attributed Hazard's response to the substitution as "a young player making a mistake". On 4 August, Leekens announced that Hazard would be disciplined for his actions during the Turkey match and, as a result, would miss the team's 10 August friendly match against Slovenia, as well as the team's Euro qualifying return match against Azerbaijan on 2 September and friendly against the United States four days later. On 9 August, Hazard's management group issued a press release to the Belgian media. The release detailed Hazard's actions during the Turkey match, criticized the player's three-match suspension, as well as questioned Leekens constant criticism of Hazard. On 25 August, it was announced that Leekens had lifted Hazard's suspension and the midfielder was subsequently named in the team to play the September fixtures. Leekens decided to lift the suspension after having a meeting with Hazard that was organized by the player's agent.

On 7 October 2011, nearly three years after his debut, Hazard scored his first international goal against Kazakhstan in a 4–1 victory. The victory inserted Belgium into second place position in its group in qualifying for UEFA Euro 2012 with the team needing a victory over Germany on 11 October to secure a place in the qualifying playoffs. In the match against Germany, Hazard played the entire match as Belgium failed to earn a place in the European Championship losing 3–1 in Düsseldorf.

Style of play [link]

Hazard primarily plays as either an attacking midfielder or a winger and has been credited as being "possibly the outstanding talent in Europe right now". Under Lille manager Rudi Garcia, Hazard often plays in the latter role in the team's 4–3–3 formation and regularly switches flanks due to his ability to effectively use both feet. Following the departures of fellow play-makers Yohan Cabaye and Gervinho in 2011, during the 2011–12 season, Garcia began playing Hazard as a central attacking midfielder, while also allowing the player to roam back onto the wing if necessary. Two of Hazard's most common exemplary traits is his pace and technical ability, which has been described as both "astonishing" and "mesmerizing", respectively. Club captain Rio Mavuba described Hazard as "a great player, with an immense talent. He’s actually not that big, but he’s so fast. He’s also very difficult to dispossess and his finishing is top notch". Hazard's pace coupled with his finishing and inability to be dispossessed easily led to his former coach Claude Puel dubbing him "little Messi", in reference to the Barcelona star. Puel's sentiments were later echoed by former Marseille manager and media personality Rolland Courbis who commented "At times it looks to me like Lionel Messi on the right-hand side". Hazard's "flair and tricky" style of play has been described as being similar to Real Madrid star Cristiano Ronaldo; a comparison later repeated by former French international Christophe Dugarry. His vision, described as being the trait he has improved on the most, has allowed him to develop into an effective passer, which compensates for his relatively low goal-scoring output.

In Belgium, Hazard's talent and similar ascension up the country's football hierarchy has led to comparisons to former Belgian international Enzo Scifo. Both players share the same birthplace and Scifo himself spent time with Hazard while he was in Tubize admitting "Eden, you know, I've coached in Tubize. During the week, I took care of the young people at least once, and he, in those days, I immediately saw he had a secure future". However, despite the positive opinions, Hazard has endured criticism from some. His former national team coach and mentor Dick Advocaat agreed with the majority in that Hazard possessed everything required to be a world-class player; however Advocaat admitted that the attacker lacked charisma stating "I told him to have more charisma. He is a talent, but he can not be seen like that forever". In 2010, current national team manager Georges Leekens questioned Hazard's work-rate. Lille youth academy director Jean-Michel Vandamme countered both managers criticism by arguing that Hazard simply possesses an intellectual honesty that is out of the ordinary and unexpected of today's footballer declaring "He is a real competitor, not a cheat, nor a moaner, because you don’t hear him complaining when he gets fouled". Hazard's calm and cool demeanor on the field has been cited as one of his best attributes. So far in his career as a professional, in which he has accumulated over 180 appearances, Hazard has collected only 13 yellow cards.

Career statistics [link]

Club [link]

''(Correct as of 20 May 2012)''

0 4 5 7 20

Club	Season	League	Cup	!colspan="3"	Other	Total
!Apps	!Goals	!Assists	!Apps	!Goals	!Assists	!Apps	!Goals	!Assists	!Apps	!Goals	!Assists	!Apps	!Goals	!Assists
rowspan="6"	Lille		4	|	0	0	0	0	—						4	0	0
2008–09 Ligue 1	2008–09	30	|	1	5	2	2	—						35	6	3
2009–10 Ligue 1	2009–10	37	|	8	3	1	0	12	4	1	—			52	10	9
2010–11 Ligue 1	2010–11	38	|	10	7	5	0	7	0	0	—			52	12	10
2011–12 Ligue 1	2011–12	38	|	15	4	1	0	6	0	1	1	1	0	48	22	16
Total	!147!!36!!34!!20!!9!!2!!25!!4!!2!!1!!1!!0!!192!!50!!38
Career total	!147!!36!!34!!20!!9!!2!!25!!4!!2!!1!!1!!0!!192!!50!!38

International [link]

:''(Correct as of 25 May 2012)'' 8 8 7

National team!!Season!!Apps!!Goals !! Assists
rowspan="4"	Belgium	2008–09	4	0
2009–10	|	0	3
2010–11	|	0	3
2011–12	|	2	1
colspan=2	Total!!27!!2	8

International goals [link]

King Baudouin Stadium, Brussels, Belgium 25 May 2012

# !! Date !! Venue !! Opponent !! Score !! Result !! Competition
1	7 October 2011	|		2–0	4–1	UEFA Euro 2012 qualifying
2	|	King Baudouin Stadium, Brussels, Belgium		2–1	2–2	Exhibition match>Friendly

Honours [link]

Club [link]

;Lille

Ligue 1 (1): 2010–11

Coupe de France (1): 2010–11

Individual [link]

UNFP Ligue 1 Player of the Year (2): 2010–11, 2011–12

UNFP Ligue 1 Young Player of the Year (2): 2008–09, 2009–10

UNFP Ligue 1 Team of the Year (3): 2009–10, 2010–11, 2011–12

UNFP Player of the Month (3): March 2010, March 2011, March 2012 Bravo Award (1): 2011

Notes [link]

References [link]

External links [link]

Official site

Belgian FA Profile

ESPN Profile

Belgium Stats at Belgian FA

Category:1991 births Category:Living people Category:People from La Louvière Category:Belgian footballers Category:Belgium international footballers Category:Belgian expatriate footballers Category:Lille OSC players Category:Ligue 1 players Category:Expatriate footballers in France Category:Walloon sportspeople

ar:إدين هازارد bg:Еден Азар ca:Eden Hazard da:Eden Hazard de:Eden Hazard et:Eden Hazard el:Εντέν Αζάρ es:Eden Hazard fr:Eden Hazard ko:에덴 아자르 id:Eden Hazard it:Eden Hazard he:אדן הזארד lv:Edens Hazards hu:Eden Hazard mk:Еден Хазард nl:Eden Hazard ja:エデン・アザール no:Eden Hazard pl:Eden Hazard pt:Eden Hazard ru:Азар, Эден fi:Eden Hazard sv:Eden Hazard tr:Eden Hazard uk:Еден Азар vi:Eden Hazard zh:伊登·夏薩特

playername	Nolan Roux
fullname	Nolan Roux
height
dateofbirth	March 01, 1988
cityofbirth	Compiègne
countryofbirth	France
currentclub	Lille
clubnumber	23
position	Striker
youthyears1	1999–2002
youthclubs1	Caen
youthyears2	2002–2004
youthclubs2	Beauvais
youthyears3	2004–2008
youthclubs3	Lens
years1	2008–2009
clubs1	Lens
caps1	1
goals1	0
years2	2009–2012
clubs2	Brest
caps2	80
goals2	25
years3	2012–
clubs3	Lille
caps3	13
goals3	5
nationalyears1	2010
nationalteam1	France U21
nationalcaps1	1
nationalgoals1	2
ntupdate	12 February 2012
pcupdate	30 April 2012 }}

Nolan Roux (born 1 March 1988 in Compiègne) is a French footballer who currently plays for French club Lille in Ligue 1. He primarily plays in the striker role and is the son of former professional football player Bruno Roux, who was previously the manager of amateur club AFC Compiègne. The younger Roux is a French youth international having made his debut with the under-21 team on 2 March 2010.

He scored 15 goals in 34 games in Ligue 2 during the 2009-2010 season, but managed only 6 goals from 28 games in Ligue 1 during the 2010-2011 season.

On January 21, 2012 Nolan Roux has joined champions Lille from Brest on a four-and-a-half year deal. The forward put pen to paper on Friday evening and said he didn't hesitate for a second before deciding to link up with Les Dogues.

References [link]

External links[link]

Career summary by playerhistory.com

Category:1988 births Category:Living people Category:French footballers Category:RC Lens players Category:Stade Brestois 29 players Category:Lille OSC players Category:Ligue 1 players Category:Ligue 2 players

be-x-old:Налян Ру de:Nolan Roux fr:Nolan Roux it:Nolan Roux ja:ノラン・ルー pl:Nolan Roux pt:Nolan Roux ru:Ру, Нолан sv:Nolan Roux tr:Nolan Roux

playername	Dimitri Payet
fullname	Florent Dimitri Payet
dateofbirth	March 29, 1987
cityofbirth	Saint-Pierre
countryofbirth	Réunion, France
height
position	Winger
currentclub	Lille
clubnumber	7
youthyears1	1995–1998
youthclubs1	Saint-Philippe
youthyears2	1998–1999
youthclubs2	Saint-Pierroise
youthyears3	1999–2003
youthclubs3	Le Havre
youthyears4	2003–2005
youthclubs4	AS Excelsior
years1	2005–2007
clubs1	Nantes
caps1	33
goals1	5
years2	2007–2011
clubs2	Saint-Étienne
caps2	129
goals2	19
years3	2011–
clubs3	Lille
caps3	28
goals3	5
nationalyears1	2007–2008
nationalteam1	France U21
nationalcaps1	11
nationalgoals1	4
nationalyears2	2010–
nationalteam2	France
nationalcaps2	3
nationalgoals2	0
pcupdate	18 April 2012
ntupdate	4 February 2011 }}

Florent Dimitri Payet (born 29 March 1987 in Saint-Pierre, Réunion) is a French football player of Réunionnais heritage who currently plays for French club Lille in Ligue 1. He primarily plays as an attacking midfielder and a winger and is described as a player who is "quick" and "blessed with terrific technique and dribbling skills".

Payet was born on the island of Réunion and began his career on the island playing for local clubs Saint-Philippe and Saint-Pierroise. In 1999, he moved to metropolitan France joining Le Havre. Payet spent four years at the club before returning to Réunion where he spent two years playing for AS Excelsior in the Réunion Premier League. In 2005, he joined Nantes and, after a successful 2006–07 season, joined Saint-Étienne on a four-year contract. With Saint-Étienne, Payet played in European competition for the first time after featuring in the 2008–09 edition of the UEFA Cup. In the 2010–11 season, he won the UNFP Player of the Month award for September after scoring three goals and helping Saint-Étienne reach first place in the league table. Following the season, in June 2011, Payet joined the defending champions Lille signing a four-year contract.

Payet is a French international. Through 2006–2008, he played on the France under-21 team making over ten appearances. In 2010, he was called up to the senior team by manager Laurent Blanc for the first time. Payet made his international debut on 9 October 2010 in a UEFA Euro 2012 qualifying match against Romania appearing as a substitute.

Club career [link]

Early career [link]

Payet was born on the island of Réunion in Saint-Pierre in the Indian Ocean and began his career at local club ''AS Saint-Philippe''. While at the club as a youth, he was described by coaches as "a kid who stood out from his comrades" and, after three years of development training, moved to one of the best clubs on the island, JS Saint-Pierroise. After only a year at Saint-Pierroise, Payet was signed by professional club Le Havre in metropolitan France, whom Saint-Pierroise shared a mutual partnership with. Le Havre also recruited former Saint-Pierroise players Florent Sinama Pongolle and Guillaume Hoarau during this period.

While at Le Havre, Payet endured a tumultuous four years. While training at the club, he was accused of having a difficult character and displaying a lack of motivation. The accusations ultimately led to his departure in 2003 as Payet returned to Réunion to sign with AS Excelsior. He spent only a year and a half at Excelsior playing in the Réunion Premier League before being signed in January 2005 by Nantes who sought to give the player another opportunity to prove himself on the mainland. Payet signed a two-year amateur deal with the club, however, Nantes were given the option of terminating the contract after six months.

Nantes [link]

Upon his arrival to Nantes, Payet was inserted onto the club's reserve team in the Championnat de France amateur, the fourth level of football in France. In the 2005–06 season, Payet quickly established himself as one of the best players on the reserve team. He impressed with the team in 22 matches scoring six goals and was described by the club's reserve team coach Stéphane Moreau as a "talented player despite his natural indifference". His influential play with the team resulted in the player being called up to the senior team in December 2005 by manager Serge Le Dizet. Payet made his professional debut on 19 December in a league match against Bordeaux appearing as a substitute in a 0–0 draw. After the winter break, Payet remained with the senior team and scored his first professional goal in a 4–1 win over Metz. The midfielder appeared as a substitute in the match and had not been on the field for no more than two minutes before netting the goal. After appearing in a league match against Toulouse on 4 February, Payet was relegated back to the reserve team for the rest of the season.

Ahead of the 2006–07 season, Payet signed a three-year professional contract with Nantes. He was officially promoted to the senior team and assigned the number 31 shirt by Le Dizet. After appearing as a substitute in the first two matches of the season, Payet made his first professional start on 9 September 2006 in a league match against Lille. In the match, he scored the equalizing goal in a 1–1 draw. Two weeks later, Payet started again and scored the opening goal in a 2–1 win against Marseille. Payet, subsequently, appeared as a starter for the rest of the campaign. He scored his only other goal during the season in a 1–1 draw with Sedan. One dark spot during the campaign was a straight red card in an embarrassing 5–2 loss to Valenciennes. Despite the successful individual season by Payet, Nantes ultimately finished the campaign in 19th place, which meant the club would play in Ligue 2 for the first time since 1963.

Saint-Étienne [link]

Following Nantes' relegation, Payet's desire to remain in the first division led the player to issuing a transfer request. The player was, subsequently, linked with Sochaux and Saint-Étienne. Payet ultimately decided to sign with ''Les Verts'' stating the move to the club was a "straightforward logical answer" and that Saint-Étienne "can offer me the opportunity to play, which is a priority". Payet ultimately succeeded in getting the move after agreeing to a four-year contract with the club ahead of the 2007–08 season. Nantes was compensated €4 million for the player.

In his first season at Saint-Étienne, Payet struggled to assert himself into the team. He made his club debut on 4 August 2007 in a 1–1 draw with Monaco. Despite being a starter for the majority of the campaign, Payet scored no goals and also failed to provide any assists. In a reversal of fortune, despite Payet's sub-par season, Saint-Étienne finished in 5th place which meant qualification to the UEFA Cup. In the 2008–09 season, Payet return to the form that resulted in Saint-Étienne signing the player. Prior to the start of the season, he was given the honour of captaining Saint-Étienne in a friendly match against the Réunion national team in the player's return to the island. Payet appeared in 30 league matches scoring four goals and supplying six assists in the season. He scored his first league goal for the club on 29 September 2008 in a 1–1 draw with Bordeaux netting the opener. In December 2008, he scored the game-winning goal against his former club Le Havre.

Payet featured in European competition for the first time after playing in the 2008–09 edition of the UEFA Cup. He made his debut in the competition on 18 September in the first leg of the team's first round tie against Israeli club Hapoel Tel Aviv. On his debut, he scored the opening goal in a 2–1 win. In the group stage, Payet scored a goal in a 3–1 win over Danish club Copenhagen. In the knockout rounds, Payet was instrumental to the team's 5–2 aggregate victory over Greek club Olympiakos. In the first leg, he assisted on a goal in a 3–1 win, while in the second leg, he netted the opener in 2–1 positive result. Saint-Étienne were eliminated from the competition in the next round by German club Werder Bremen losing 3–2 on aggregate. Payet appeared as a substitute in both legs. Due to focusing its efforts on performing well in four competitions, Saint-Étienne finished one spot short of relegation in the league. On 22 July 2009, Payet signed a two-year contract extension with the club until 2013.

In the 2009–10 season, Payet remained consistent appearing in 35 league matches scoring two goals and providing six assists. He also performed well in the cup competitions, particularly in the Coupe de France. On 24 January 2010, he scored a double in 4–1 victory over Lorient. Two weeks later, he scored the winner against Vannes. Saint-Étienne ultimately reached the quarter-finals losing the Lens. On 18 May 2010, Payet was involved in a physical altercation with teammate and captain Blaise Matuidi during the team's 1–0 defeat to Toulouse. Midway through the first half, Payet received criticism from teammate Yohan Benalouane for displaying a lack of aggression. He was then confronted by Matuidi who echoed Benalouane's sentiments. Payet and Matuidi suddenly went face-to-face with the former player delivering a blow to Matuidi's head before the two were separated by referee Bruno Coue and teammates. As a result of the incident, Payet was substituted out after 31 minutes and sanctioned by club president Roland Romeyer. Payet apologized for the incident shortly after. On 6 October 2010, following both Payet and Matuidi's call up to the national team, Payet described the incident as "an argument that had no place" and that "the incident was explained and the two were on new ground". Matuidi described the altercation as a "lack of maturity" on both players part.

After the summer, Payet put the past behind him and opened the 2010–11 season by scoring seven goals in the first two months of domestic play. On 7 August 2010, he scored in the team's opening 3–1 defeat to Paris Saint-Germain. On 29 August 2010, Payet scored his first professional hat-trick in a 3–1 victory over Lens. After the international break, he scored a double against Montpellier. On 25 September, Payet delivered a perfect free-kick goal in the team's Derby du Rhône match against Lyon. The free-kick, described by local media as "superb and untouchable", was the only goal in the team's upset victory. The win placed Saint-Étienne in 1st place for the week. For his performances, Payet was awarded the UNFP Player of the Month award for September. Due to his performances domestically and international, Payet drew interest from several clubs, notably English clubs Chelsea and Liverpool. In January 2011, he was linked with a move to Paris Saint-Germain as the Parisian club looked to immediately replace the departed Stéphane Sessègnon. Payet sought for the move, but Saint-Étienne refused. Ahead of the closure of the transfer window, a frustrated Payet failed to show up to training in an effort to force the transfer. After returning to the team days later, Payet was demoted to the club's reserve team ahead of the team's league match against Montpellier on 5 February 2011.

Lille [link]

On 28 June 2011, Saint-Étienne manager Christophe Galtier confirmed that Payet was on the verge of signing with the defending league champions Lille after the player himself informed him the previous day. Hours later, the moved was confirmed by both Saint-Étienne and Lille. Payet agreed to a four-year contract, while the transfer fee was priced at €9 million with future incentives to be included later.

International career [link]

Payet is a former French under-21 international. he made his debut for the team in February 2007 in a friendly match against Switzerland. In the match, Payet assisted on a goal scored by Jérémy Menez. In the team's ensuing match against Denmark, he scored a double in a 3–1 win. He was called up for the senior national team for the first time by Laurent Blanc for the Euro 2012 qualifying matches against Romania and Luxembourg. He made his debut against Romania on 9 October 2010, being substituted on for Karim Benzema at the 86th minute and assisted Yoann Gourcuff's goal to make it 2–0. Three days later, he came on for the last 30 minutes against Luxembourg and again assisted Gourcuff for a goal.

Club statistics [link]

Club [link]

''(As of 18 April 2012)''

1 4 0 4 2 13 5

Club	Season	League	Cup	!colspan="3"	Total
!Apps	!Goals	!Assists	!Apps	!Goals	!Assists	!Apps	!Goals	!Assists	!Apps	!Goals	!Assists
rowspan="2" valign="center"	Nantes		3	|	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	3	1	0
2006–07 Ligue 1	2006–07	30	|	0	1	0	0	0	0	0	31	4	0
Total	!33!!5!!0!!1!!0!!0!!0!!0!!0!!34!!5!!0
rowspan="4" valign="center"	Saint-Étienne		31	|	2	0	0	0	0	0	0	31	0	2
2008–09 Ligue 1	2008–09	30	|	6	2	0	0	10	3	1	42	7	7
2009–10 Ligue 1	2009–10	35	|	6	6	3	0	0	0	0	41	5	6
2010–11 Ligue 1	2010–11	33	|	3	1	0	0	0	0	0	34	13	3
Total	!129!!19!!17!!9!!3!!0!!10!!3!!1!!143!!24!!18
rowspan="1" valign="center"	Lille		28	|	3	5	0	0	4	0	0	37	5	3
Total	!28!!5!!3!!5!!0!!0!!4!!0!!0!!37!!5!!3
Career total	!190!!28!!20!!15!!3!!0!!14!!3!!1!!214!!33!!21

International [link]

:''(Correct as of 5 February 2011)''

National team!!Season!!Apps!!Goals !! Assists
rowspan=1 valign="center"	France	2010–11	3	0
colspan=2	Total!!3!!0	2

Notes [link]

References [link]

External links [link]

Category:French footballers Category:France international footballers Category:France under-21 international footballers Category:Living people Category:Ligue 1 players Category:FC Nantes players Category:AS Saint-Étienne players Category:Réunionnais footballers Category:1987 births Category:JS Saint-Pierroise players Category:Lille OSC players

ar:ديميتري باييت da:Dimitri Payet de:Dimitri Payet es:Dimitri Payet fr:Dimitri Payet it:Dimitri Payet mn:Димитри Пайе ja:ディミトリ・ペイェ pl:Dimitri Payet pt:Dimitri Payet ru:Пайе, Димитри sv:Dimitri Payet