Directions for Viewing and Reading: Please view the A&E Biography documentary on Oscar Wilde, titled, Wit's End. Next, read the selections that follow: 1) Selected Works, 2) Aestheticism, 3) The Decay of Lying: An Observation by Oscar Wilde, 4) Phrases and Philosophies for the use of the Young, and 5) A Few Maxims for the Instruction of the Over-Educated. NOTE: As you read, take notes in your reflective journal. Title it: Oscar Wilde Introductory Material.
Directions for Blog Response: Compose a comprehensive blogs response touching on all the elements you have read and viewed on Oscar Wilde. Use directive evidence from the texts below in your response. Engage with the text.
Selected Works of Oscar Wilde
Prose
- The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890)
- The Happy Prince and Other Tales (1888)
- “The Canterville Ghost”
- “The Sphinx Without a Secret”
- “The Model Millionare”
- “The Selfish Giant”
Plays
- Lady Windermere's Fan (1892)
- Salome (1893)
- A Woman of No Importance (1893)
- An Ideal Husband (1895)
- The Importance of Being Earnest (1895)
Poems, Criticism, and Essays
- "The Ballad of Reading Gaol" (1898)
- "The Decay of Lying" (1889)
- "De Profundis" (1897)
- "The Soul of Man under Socialism"
- "The Harlot's House"
- "The Beauties of Bookbinding"
Wit's End - A&E Biography of Oscar Wilde
Aestheticism
Definition: The aesthetic movement was a late nineteenth century movement that championed pure beauty and ‘art for art’s sake’ emphasizing the visual and sensual qualities of art and design over practical, moral or narrative considerations.
Background: Aestheticism (also the Aesthetic Movement) is an intellectual and art movement supporting the emphasis of aesthetic values more than social-political themes for literature, fine art, music and other arts. This meant that Art from this particular movement focused more on being beautiful rather than having a deeper meaning: Art for Art's sake. It was particularly prominent in Europe during the 19th century, supported by notable figures such as Oscar Wilde, but contemporary critics are also associated with the movement, such as Harold Bloom, who has recently argued against projecting social and political ideology onto literary works, which he believes has been a growing problem in humanities departments over the last century.
Literature: The British decadent writers were much influenced by the Oxford professor Walter Pater and his essays published during 1867–68, in which he stated that life had to be lived intensely, with an ideal of beauty.
The artists and writers of Aesthetic style tended to profess that the Arts should provide refined sensuous pleasure, rather than convey moral or sentimental messages. As a consequence, they did not accept John Ruskin, Matthew Arnold, and George MacDonald's conception of art as something moral or useful. Instead, they believed that Art did not have any didactic purpose; it need only be beautiful. The Aesthetes developed a cult of beauty, which they considered the basic factor of art. Life should copy Art, they asserted. They considered nature as crude and lacking in design when compared to art. The main characteristics of the style were: suggestion rather than statement, sensuality, great use of symbols, and correspondence between words, colors, and music. Music was used to establish mood.
Predecessors of the Aesthetics included John Keats and Percy Bysshe Shelley, and some of the Pre-Raphaelites. In Britain the best representatives were Oscar Wilde and Algernon Charles Swinburne, both influenced by the French Symbolists, and James McNeill Whistler and Dante.
The Decay of Lying: An Observation by Oscar Wilde
Wilde presents the essay in a Socratic dialogue, with the characters of Vivian and Cyril having a conversation throughout. The conversation, although playful and whimsical, promotes Wilde's view of Romanticism over Realism. Vivian tells Cyril of an article he has been writing called, The Decay of Lying: A Protest. In the article Vivian defends Aestheticism and Art for Art's sake. As summarized by Vivian, it contains four doctrines:
1) Art never expresses anything but itself.
2) All bad art comes from returning to Life and Nature, and elevating them into ideals.
3) Life imitates Art far more than Art imitates Life.
4) Lying, the telling of beautiful untrue things, is the proper aim of Art.
Phrases and Philosophies for the use of the Young by Oscar Wilde
The first duty in life is to be as artificial as possible. What the second duty is no one has as yet discovered.
Wickedness is a myth invented by good people to account for the curious attractiveness of others.
If the poor only had profiles, there would be no difficulty in solving the problem of poverty.
Those who see any difference between soul and body have neither.
A really well-made buttonhole is the only link between Art and Nature.
Religions die when they are proved to be true. Science is the record of dead religions.
The well-bred contradict other people. The wise contradict themselves.
Nothing that actually occurs is of the smallest importance.
Dullness is the coming of age of seriousness.
In all unimportant matters, style, not sincerity, is the essential. In all important matters, style, not sincerity, is the essential.
If one tells the truth, one is sure, sooner or later, to be found out.
Pleasure is the only thing one should live for. Nothing ages like happiness.
It is only by not paying one's bills that one can hope to live in the memory of the commercial classes.
No crime is vulgar, but all vulgarity is crime. Vulgarity is the conduct of others.
Only the shallow know themselves.
Time is a waste of money.
One should always be a little improbable.
There is a fatality about all good resolutions. They are invariably made too soon.
The only way to atone for being occasionally a little over-dressed is by being always absolutely over-educated.
To be premature is to be perfect.
Any preoccupation with ideas of what is right and wrong in conduct shows an arrested intellectual development.
Ambition is the last refuge of the failure.
A truth ceases to be true when more than one person believes in it.
In examinations the foolish ask questions that the wise cannot answer.
Greek dress was in its essence inartistic. Nothing should reveal the body but the body.
One should either be a work of art, or wear a work of art.
It is only the superficial qualities that last. Man's deeper nature is soon found out.
Industry is the root of all ugliness.
The ages live in history through their anachronisms.
It is only the gods who taste of death. Apollo has passed away, but Hyacinth, whom men say he slew, lives on. Nero and Narcissus are always with us.
The old believe everything: the middle-aged suspect everything: the young know everything.
The condition of perfection is idleness: the aim of perfection is youth.
Only the great masters of style ever succeed in being obscure.
There is something tragic about the enormous number of young men there are in England at the present moment who start life with perfect profiles, and end by adopting some useful profession.
To love oneself is the beginning of a life-long romance.
A Few Maxims for the Instruction of the Over-Educated by Oscar Wilde
Education is an admirable thing. But it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.
Public opinion exists only where there are no ideas.
The English are always degrading truths into facts. When a truth becomes a fact it loses all its intellectual value.
It is a very sad thing that nowadays there is so little useless information.
The only link between Literature and Drama left to us in England at the present moment is the bill of the play.
In old days books were written by men of letters and read by the public. Nowadays books are written by the public and read by nobody.
Most women are so artificial that they have no sense of Art. Most men are so natural that they have no sense of Beauty.
Friendship is far more tragic than love. It lasts longer.
What is abnormal in Life stands in normal relations to Art. It is the only thing in Life that stands in normal relations to Art.
A subject that is beautiful in itself gives no suggestion to the artist. It lacks imperfection.
The only thing that the artist cannot see is the obvious. The only thing that the public can see is the obvious. The result is the Criticism of the Journalist.
Art is the only serious thing in the world. And the artist is the only person who is never serious.
To be really mediæval one should have no body. To be really modern one should have no soul. To be really Greek one should have no clothes.
Dandyism is the assertion of the absolute modernity of Beauty.
The only thing that can console one for being poor is extravagance. The only thing that can console one for being rich is economy.
What is abnormal in Life stands in normal relations to Art. It is the only thing in Life that stands in normal relations to Art.
A subject that is beautiful in itself gives no suggestion to the artist. It lacks imperfection.
The only thing that the artist cannot see is the obvious. The only thing that the public can see is the obvious. The result is the Criticism of the Journalist.
Art is the only serious thing in the world. And the artist is the only person who is never serious.
To be really mediæval one should have no body. To be really modern one should have no soul. To be really Greek one should have no clothes.
Dandyism is the assertion of the absolute modernity of Beauty.
The only thing that can console one for being poor is extravagance. The only thing that can console one for being rich is economy.
One should never listen. To listen is a sign of indifference to one's hearers.
Even the disciple has his uses. He stands behind one's throne, and at the moment of one's triumph whispers in one's ear that, after all, one is immortal.
The criminal classes are so close to us that even the policemen can see them. They are so far away from us that only the poet can understand them.
Those whom the gods love grow young.
Even the disciple has his uses. He stands behind one's throne, and at the moment of one's triumph whispers in one's ear that, after all, one is immortal.
The criminal classes are so close to us that even the policemen can see them. They are so far away from us that only the poet can understand them.
Those whom the gods love grow young.
