Oscar Wilde: The Life and Ideas of a Notorious Aesthete, Appunti di Inglese

Scarica Oscar Wilde: The Life and Ideas of a Notorious Aesthete e più Appunti in PDF di Inglese solo su Docsity! oscar wilde Oscar Wilde was the most important exponent of English aestheticism. He was born in 1854 in a family which belong to upper-middle class environment: his father was a surgeon and his mother an intellectual. They were also deeply involved in political and religious discussions: they were social committed. As a result, he grew up in a fruitful environment, and he was well-educated. He attended Trinity College in Dublin and then he moved to Oxford where he took a first degree in Classics. He was very smart and clever, and this is one of the reason why he distinguished from other young men since years of university. He distinguished himself also for his extravagant behaviour, in particular for 2 attitude: 1. His peculiar way of speaking, his intonation, his pronunciation and inflections 2. His way of dressing: he loved bright colours and precious clothes, such as jewels and hats In university he was lectured by Walter Pater and John Ruskin, and adopted Gautier’s and Pater’s theories of “art pour l’art”, in particular in his life. Thus, he began to transform his life into a work of art. In 1878 he moved to London, and became a celebrity. In 1881 Wilde published his first work, a collection of poems entitled “Poems”. He published this collection at his own expense. Then, he moved to USA in order to give a series of lecture about pre-Raphaelite brotherhood and aestheticism. This lectures were a great success and he became popular also in USA. In 1883 he came back to Europe, got married with Constance Lloyd and they had 2 children. Oscar Wilde was a very good father, a loving one, but a very bad husband, because he was homosexual. At this point in his career he was most noted as a great talker: his presence became a social event and his remarks appeared in the most fashionable London magazine. In 1880 published a collection of short stories dedicated to his children: The Canterville Ghost, Lord Arthur Savile’s crime, The happy Prince and Other Tales. In 1890 he published the first edition of Picture of Dorian Gray, the only novel ever written by Wilde. In 1891 he published the second edition, which was enlarged of 6 more chapter and was preceded by a famous preface considered the manifesto of English aestheticism. However, he had difficulties in publishing it because Victorian society banded him for immorality. So, he published it at his own expense. The last decade of his life (the last decade of XIX century) was dedicated to theatre. He composed 4 comedies: • Lady Windermere’s Fan (1892) • A woman of no importance (1893) • The importance of being earnest (1895) • An ideal husband (1895) All the four comedies are defined as “Pièce de société”, in French, and “Society Plays” in English. In a society play society, in particular the high and the high-middle class, with its cliques and stereotypes, is sharply criticized by the means of satire. He also composed a tragedy, Salomé (1893), written in French. For this tragedy he was again accused of immorality and banned from theatres. In 1891 he met the young and beautiful Lord Alfred Douglas, whose nickname was Bosie, and with whom Wilde had a homosexual affair. The boy’s father, the Marquess of Queensbury, forced a public trial and Wilde was convicted of homosexual practises and sentenced to two-years of hard labour. This was a terrible period for him, in which he suffered a lot. While in prison he wrote De Profundis, a long letter to Bosie published posthumously in 1905, in which he gave voice to all his frustration and sadness. When he was released he was a broken man; his wife refused to see him, and he went into exile in France where he lived his last years in poverty. The ballad of reading Gaol (1898), originally published under his prison identity, was his last work, written while he was in prison. He died of meningitis in Paris in 1900, where he had moved after being released. THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY There were 2 editions of this novel: the first one in 1890 and the second one in 1891. The second one, with 6 more chapter (3-5-15-16-17-18), was preceded by a preface written by him considered the manifesto of English aestheticism. The preface is made up of aphorisms, short sentences really meaningful. It is focused on 3 main ideas: 1. Vision of art: it is expressed by the concept of “Art for art’s sake”. It was to him a moral imperative and not merely an aesthetic one. He believed that only “art as the cult of beauty” could prevent the murder of the soul. Wilde perceived the artist as an alien in a materialistic word, he wrote only to please himself and was not concerned in communicating his theories to his fellow-beings. For this reason every experiences is good for the artist: both vices and virtues. His pursuit of beauty and fulfilment was the tragic act of a superior being inevitably turned into an outcast. Art should be useless, disinterested: for this reason the theory of “art for art’s sake”. He concludes the preface with the aphorism “All art is quite useless”, to remark this idea. 2. Vision of the artist: Wilde adopted the aesthetic ideal, living in the double role of rebel and dandy. The Wildean dandy is an aristocrats whose elegance is a symbol of the superiority of his spirit; he uses his wit to shock and is an individualist who demands absolute freedom. Since life was meant for pleasure, and pleasure was an indulgence in the beautiful, Wilde’s interest in beauty -clothes, words or boys- had no moral stance. He affirmed in the preface of his novel: “ There is no such thing as a moral or immoral book. Books are well written or badly written. That is all”. In this way he rejected the didacticism that had characterised the Victorian novel in the first half of the century. The first line of the preface is: “The artist is the creator of beautiful things”. It means that the artist aims to pursue beauty through art. 3. Idea about literary criticism: in particular he define the figure of literary critic (v. 3-12). The purpose of Victorian literary criticism was to investigate the morality and the reality of a book, to judge wherever is moral or not and realistic or not. Good books are moral and real. Oscar Wilde opposed to this idea: a critic has only to investigate the craft of a book. He should pay attention only to the form and the techniques of the artist in creating the work. In fact, form and techniques are essential to create beauty. An example of a perfect form is music. Moreover, a literary critic should not pay attention to the reactions, the taste and the ideas of the public to the work of art considered (public opinion). He should pay attention only to his impressions. Thus, criticism was a form of autobiography because it should start from critic’s own opinion and impressions. Criticism should be impressionistic, anti-realistic and individualistic. Eventually, the work of the critic should be a work of art itself, because should pursue beauty in his own work. Form the novel point of view is possible to give 5 different interpretations: A. Can be seen as a late offspring of the Gothic novel, because of the presence of supernatural, fear and mystery B. Can be seen as a modern re-interpretation of Faustian myth, because Dorian Gray can be considered an overreacher which wants to overcome the limits of his nature. However, he is doomed to fail, ad Dorian, who sells his soul to vanity. C. Can be seen from a Freudian point of view, as a story about split personality. Gray represents ego/ rationality of the psyche parts, while the picture represents Es/unconscious/irrationality, the part which escape human control. The split personality can be seen also from a social point of view: Gray is the hypocrisies of Victorian society, which gives importance only to appearance, while the picture represents the bad conscience. D. Can be seen as a manifesto of English aestheticism, as a celebration of hedonism and the principle of “Art for art’s sake”. Moreover, it shows how a life can be constructed like a work of art, freed from the constraints of common morality. E. Can be seen as a morality play, characterised by all the part of a morality parable: the villain, the bad behaviour, the good characters. However, this interpretation misinterprets the novel’s true essence, because Wilde disagrees with the fact that art has to bring morality. Actually Gray is punished in the end but not because he is evil or immoral. The problem is that he hasn’t been able to find a compromise between a soul and a body. What Wilde wants to show is that the conflict between the