美国国家公共电台 NPR Reading Gaol, Where Oscar Wilde Was Imprisoned, Unlocks Its Gates For Art

Reading Gaol¹, Where Oscar Wilde Was Imprisoned², Unlocks Its Gates For Art 

play pause stop mute unmute max volume 00:0005:02repeat repeat off Update Required To play the media you will need to either update your browser³ to a recent version or update your Flash plugin. KELLY MCEVERS, HOST: 

In 1895, Oscar Wilde, one of the most celebrated⁴ writers of his time, was convicted of homosexual activity and sentenced to two years in jail. Now the author of "The Importance Of Being Earnest" and "The Picture Of Dorian Gray" might be pardoned. The British Ministry⁵ of Justice said today it would posthumously⁶ pardon people convicted of sexual acts that are no longer illegal.

ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST: 

Wilde spent his incarceration⁷ at Britain's notorious Reading Jail, a place that closed just three years ago. Now the jail has reopened for an art exhibition inspired by Wilde's experiences at the prison. Vicki Barker reports.

(SOUNDBITE OF DOOR SLAMMING)

VICKI BARKER, BYLINE⁸: Beneath these gothic arches and metal walkways, cells where solitary⁹ prisoners counted down the days are now filled with artworks and installations. In one, artist and film director Steve McQueen has draped a gold-plated mosquito net over a bare metal bunk¹⁰ bed. In another, Wilde and his lover, Lord Alfred Douglas, known as Bosie, are reunited in a diptych by Marlene Dumas.

(SOUNDBITE OF DOOR SLAMMING)

BARKER: On the ground floor, Gawain Davis bends over a display case showing mug shots of some of Wilde's fellow prisoners. Davis spent three months in Reading Jail in the 1980s for cannabis possession.

GAWAIN DAVIS: They look much like the same sort of people I was in here with (laughter) a hundred years later.

BARKER: Like Wilde, Davis spent 23 hours a day in his cell, the only sanitation¹¹ a bucket he had to empty - or slop out - himself.

DAVIS: You were unlocked, let down for breakfast, locked back up again to eat it, unlocked again to slop out, then locked up again.

BARKER: Doesn't seem to have changed much since Oscar Wilde's day.

DAVIS: Oh, I doubt that. I think he found it a bit tougher (laughter). They weren't even allowed to talk in here then - in those days - were they?

BARKER: In 1895, when Wilde arrived, Reading Jail was one great Victorian machine of Christian¹² penance¹³, forcing prisoners to meditate¹⁴ on their crimes in silence while performing physical labor¹⁵ amid the reek¹⁶ of their own waste. The privations broke Wilde. Yet, they also inspired his last work, "The Ballad¹⁷ Of Reading Jail." That was written after his release. In those two years behind bars, letters were all he was permitted to write.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

AI WEI WEI: (Speaking foreign language).

BARKER: And so several cells are filled with the sounds of "Letters of Separation," named after this form of imprisonment¹⁸. In this cell, artist Ai Wei Wei is heard reading aloud a letter to his son about his imprisonment in China.

WEI WEI: (Speaking in foreign language).

BARKER: All the letters honor the one that inspired them - Wilde's "De Profundis" - from the depths - the 50,000-word letter he wrote here to Bosie, his lover and betrayer.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

NEIL BARTLETT: (Reading) Our ill-fated and most lamentable¹⁹ friendship has ended in ruin and public infamy²⁰ for me.

BARKER: That's actor Neil Bartlett reading "De Profundis" in the prison chapel²¹. Every Sunday until the exhibition closes, a different performer will read the entire six-hour text aloud. Among them, actors Ralph Fiennes and Ben Whishaw and punk poet and rocker Patti Smith. The organization behind all of this is called Artangel. It specializes in bringing cutting-edge art into unused and unusual spaces. It's co-director James Linwood says they had no trouble enlisting²² this A-list cast of readers.

JAMES LINGWOOD: When else would you get the chance to kind of come to terms and to pay homage²³ to Oscar Wilde within the very place where he wrote this compelling, extended love letter?

BARKER: Lingwood says he's been struck by how much time visitors are spending at the exhibition. Jenny Welsh, a retired²⁴ chaplain who's worked at other prisons, traveled to 40 miles from her home in London.

JENNY WELSH: Going into cells was very similar to the cells that prisoners I knew lived in. And seeing things that were just speaking quite powerfully of the isolation²⁵ experience of being in prison - that was very powerful for me. Her husband, Philip, a retired clergyman, says the highlight for him was the renewed sense of connection with Wilde himself.

PHILLIP WELSH: It was standing²⁶ in his cell and looking out of the same window and seeing the same patch of sky that he wrote about - the tent of blue the prisoners call the sky - in "The Ballad Of Reading Jail" - all at a inhuman²⁷ height, so that you could only see the sky. I hadn't really realized that before.

BARKER: Oscar Wilde's cell, number C33, is the only one without an original artwork. In one corner, visitors have left some flowers, but in a sense, this entire exhibition is a floral offering to an artist seen as a martyr²⁸ for loving and living in the wrong time, the wrong place. For NPR News, I'm Vicki Barker in Reading Jail.

1 gaol   

n.(jail)监狱；(不加冠词)监禁；vt.使…坐牢

参考例句：

• He was released from the gaol.他被释放出狱。
• The man spent several years in gaol for robbery.这男人因犯抢劫罪而坐了几年牢。

2 imprisoned   

下狱，监禁( imprison的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• He was imprisoned for two concurrent terms of 30 months and 18 months. 他被判处30个月和18个月的监禁，合并执行。
• They were imprisoned for possession of drugs. 他们因拥有毒品而被监禁。

3 browser   

n.浏览者

参考例句：

• View edits in a web browser.在浏览器中看编辑的效果。
• I think my browser has a list of shareware links.我想在浏览器中会有一系列的共享软件链接。

4 celebrated   

adj.有名的，声誉卓著的

参考例句：

• He was soon one of the most celebrated young painters in England.不久他就成了英格兰最负盛名的年轻画家之一。
• The celebrated violinist was mobbed by the audience.观众团团围住了这位著名的小提琴演奏家。

5 ministry   

n.(政府的)部；牧师

参考例句：

• They sent a deputation to the ministry to complain.他们派了一个代表团到部里投诉。
• We probed the Air Ministry statements.我们调查了空军部的记录。

6 posthumously   

adv.于死后，于身后；于著作者死后出版地

参考例句：

• He was confirmed posthumously as a member of the Chinese Communist Party. 他被追认为中国共产党党员。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Her last book was published posthumously in 1948. 她最后的一本书在她死后于1948 年出版了。 来自《简明英汉词典》

7 incarceration   

n.监禁，禁闭；钳闭

参考例句：

• He hadn't changed much in his nearly three years of incarceration. 在将近三年的监狱生活中，他变化不大。 来自辞典例句
• Please, please set it free before it bursts from its long incarceration! 请你，请你将这颗心释放出来吧！否则它会因长期的禁闭而爆裂。 来自辞典例句

8 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

9 solitary   

adj.孤独的，独立的，荒凉的；n.隐士

参考例句：

• I am rather fond of a solitary stroll in the country.我颇喜欢在乡间独自徜徉。
• The castle rises in solitary splendour on the fringe of the desert.这座城堡巍然耸立在沙漠的边际，显得十分壮美。

10 bunk   

n.(车、船等倚壁而设的)铺位；废话

参考例句：

• He left his bunk and went up on deck again.他离开自己的铺位再次走到甲板上。
• Most economists think his theories are sheer bunk.大多数经济学家认为他的理论纯属胡说。

11 sanitation   

n.公共卫生，环境卫生，卫生设备

参考例句：

• The location is exceptionally poor,viewed from the sanitation point.从卫生角度来看，这个地段非常糟糕。
• Many illnesses are the result,f inadequate sanitation.许多疾病都来源于不健全的卫生设施。

12 Christian   

adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒

参考例句：

• They always addressed each other by their Christian name.他们总是以教名互相称呼。
• His mother is a sincere Christian.他母亲是个虔诚的基督教徒。

13 penance   

n.（赎罪的）惩罪

参考例句：

• They had confessed their sins and done their penance.他们已经告罪并做了补赎。
• She knelt at her mother's feet in penance.她忏悔地跪在母亲脚下。

14 meditate   

v.想，考虑，（尤指宗教上的）沉思，冥想

参考例句：

• It is important to meditate on the meaning of life.思考人生的意义很重要。
• I was meditating,and reached a higher state of consciousness.我在冥想，并进入了一个更高的意识境界。

15 labor   

n.劳动，努力，工作，劳工；分娩；vi.劳动，努力，苦干；vt.详细分析；麻烦

参考例句：

• We are never late in satisfying him for his labor.我们从不延误付给他劳动报酬。
• He was completely spent after two weeks of hard labor.艰苦劳动两周后，他已经疲惫不堪了。

16 reek   

v.发出臭气；n.恶臭

参考例句：

• Where there's reek,there's heat.哪里有恶臭，哪里必发热。
• That reek is from the fox.那股恶臭是狐狸发出的。

17 ballad   

n.歌谣，民谣，流行爱情歌曲

参考例句：

• This poem has the distinctive flavour of a ballad.这首诗有民歌风味。
• This is a romantic ballad that is pure corn.这是一首极为伤感的浪漫小曲。

18 imprisonment   

n.关押，监禁，坐牢

参考例句：

• His sentence was commuted from death to life imprisonment.他的判决由死刑减为无期徒刑。
• He was sentenced to one year's imprisonment for committing bigamy.他因为犯重婚罪被判入狱一年。

19 lamentable   

adj.令人惋惜的，悔恨的

参考例句：

• This lamentable state of affairs lasted until 1947.这一令人遗憾的事态一直持续至1947年。
• His practice of inebriation was lamentable.他的酗酒常闹得别人束手无策。

20 infamy   

n.声名狼藉，出丑，恶行

参考例句：

• They may grant you power,honour,and riches but afflict you with servitude,infamy,and poverty.他们可以给你权力、荣誉和财富，但却用奴役、耻辱和贫穷来折磨你。
• Traitors are held in infamy.叛徒为人所不齿。

21 chapel   

n.小教堂，殡仪馆

参考例句：

• The nimble hero,skipped into a chapel that stood near.敏捷的英雄跳进近旁的一座小教堂里。
• She was on the peak that Sunday afternoon when she played in chapel.那个星期天的下午，她在小教堂的演出，可以说是登峰造极。

22 enlisting   

v.（使）入伍， （使）参军( enlist的现在分词 )；获得（帮助或支持）

参考例句：

• He thought about enlisting-about the Spanish legion-about a profession. 他想去打仗，想参加西班牙军团，想找个职业。 来自辞典例句
• They are not enlisting men over thirty-five. 他们不召超过35岁的人入伍。 来自辞典例句

23 homage   

n.尊敬，敬意，崇敬

参考例句：

• We pay homage to the genius of Shakespeare.我们对莎士比亚的天才表示敬仰。
• The soldiers swore to pay their homage to the Queen.士兵们宣誓效忠于女王陛下。

24 retired   

adj.隐退的，退休的，退役的

参考例句：

• The old man retired to the country for rest.这位老人下乡休息去了。
• Many retired people take up gardening as a hobby.许多退休的人都以从事园艺为嗜好。

25 isolation   

n.隔离，孤立，分解，分离

参考例句：

• The millionaire lived in complete isolation from the outside world.这位富翁过着与世隔绝的生活。
• He retired and lived in relative isolation.他退休后，生活比较孤寂。

26 standing   

n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的

参考例句：

• After the earthquake only a few houses were left standing.地震过后只有几幢房屋还立着。
• They're standing out against any change in the law.他们坚决反对对法律做任何修改。

27 inhuman   

adj.残忍的，不人道的，无人性的

参考例句：

• We must unite the workers in fighting against inhuman conditions.我们必须使工人们团结起来反对那些难以忍受的工作条件。
• It was inhuman to refuse him permission to see his wife.不容许他去看自己的妻子是太不近人情了。

28 martyr   

n.烈士，殉难者；vt.杀害，折磨，牺牲

参考例句：

• The martyr laid down his life for the cause of national independence.这位烈士是为了民族独立的事业而献身的。
• The newspaper carried the martyr's photo framed in black.报上登载了框有黑边的烈士遗像。