Was "The Ballad of Reading Gaol" by Oscar Wilde his best work, and what became of his lover?

Question

Homosexuality was called "sodomy" under old British law, and the author of "The Importance Of Being Earnest" served a sentence in the terrible jail (or "gaol") at Reading, upon being convicted of illegal acts during a liaison with an attractive young man.

The popular playwright and poet was deeply moved upon witnessing a man being executed for slaying the woman he loved, as he was himself a fellow convict in a case centering around love. Straights, of course, were then as now unlikely to reciprocate with compassion for the plight of a gay man.

"For all men kill the thing they love...by all let this be heard!...Some men do it with a smile,...Some with a flattering word. The coward does it with a kiss, ...The brave man with a sword." Earnest and immortal words by the author of the satirical play, "The Importance of Being Earnest".

Answer 1

Sorry, I can't agree. Although, "the Ballad of Reading Gaol," is undoubtedly Wilde's best poetry, and a moving work considering its theme and the place of it composition. Like so much of his work, plays, poetry, stories, it is marked by a banal sentimentality, the reusing of lines he had previously written, and degree of artifice in form and language. I would say that "The Importance of Being Earnest" is Wilde's best work. here he is aware of his own artifice, his recycling of lines and the tyranny of form and uses all of this to offer a critique of society, literature, and love itself that is a witty and as valid today as it was 100 years ago.
Lord Alfred Douglas, Wilde's main lover, met him again and they went to live in Naples (despite all that Wilde had written against him in De Profundis.) Shortly afterward they quarreled, and did not meet again. Douglas came to Wilde's funeral as "chief mourner" and this led to a "fight" with Robert Ross, Wilde's first lover and literary executor that would lead to further trails. Douglas "repented" his past and married in 1902 and converted to Catholicism. He became extremely "right" in his politics and this led to another series of trials and ultimately 6 months in jail. He died in 1945. For more information on his life, try here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_Alfred_Douglas