EPISODE · Mar 14, 2026 · 32 MIN
The Ballad of Reading Gaol
from The Wilde Library · host Oscar Wilde
In which a melancholy observer in prison contemplates a doomed man who has slain the thing he loved, and discovers - amid grey walls, drifting clouds, and the theatre of justice - that love and destruction are often intimate acquaintances. The spectacle of punishment becomes a meditation, exquisitely bitter and faintly ironic, on guilt, society, and the uncomfortable truth that every heart, in its own refined manner, is capable of murdering what it most adores.
What this episode covers
In which a melancholy observer in prison contemplates a doomed man who has slain the thing he loved, and discovers - amid grey walls, drifting clouds, and the theatre of justice - that love and destruction are often intimate acquaintances. The spectacle of punishment becomes a meditation, exquisitely bitter and faintly ironic, on guilt, society, and the uncomfortable truth that every heart, in its own refined manner, is capable of murdering what it most adores.
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The Ballad of Reading Gaol
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