Charmides, and Other Poems

The lesser-known masterpiece from one of literature's most brilliant stylists. Oscar Wilde's poetry reveals a sensuous imagination steeped in Greek mythology and classical beauty, where every line pulses with musicality and forbidden desire. This collection groups Wilde's substantial longer poems, including the haunting title work "Charmides," which retells a Greek legend of tragic beauty, with a sequence of sonnets that showcase his technical virtuosity. The poetry here differs markedly from his famous comedies: darker, more meditative, suffused with the melancholic wisdom of someone who understood that pleasure and pain are inseparable twins. For readers who know Wilde only as the wit of "The Importance of Being Earnest," these poems offer a window into his deeper self, the artist who believed that beauty is the only thing worth living for, and that art exists to transfigure the world into something bearable.