The many facets of Oscar Wilde's literary legacy

 

Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde (16 October 1854 – 30 November 1900) was an Irish writer and poet. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of London's most popular playwrights in the early 1890s. Today he is remembered for his epigrams, plays and the circumstances of his imprisonment, followed by his early death.

He first became known in Oxford for his involvement in the rising philosophy of aestheticism (led by two of his tutors, Walter Pater and John Ruskin) [28]. After university, Wilde moved to London into fashionable cultural and social circles. As a spokesman for aestheticism, he tried his hand at various literary activities: Wilde published his book called “Poems” in 1881, which proved him to be a poet of graceful diction, lectured in the United States of America and Canada on the new "English Renaissance in Art", and then returned to London where he worked prolifically as a journalist [37]. Known for his biting wit, flamboyant dress, and glittering conversation, Wilde had become one of the most well-known personalities of his day.

Wilde's creativity became the source of innovation for the whole English literature of that period [41]. He invented the art of modern criticism, just as he reinvented the art both of the parable and of the prose poem for a modern audience; as a letter-writer he is unequaled in his century, and no one can read ''De Profundis,'' a letter he wrote in his prison cell, without being almost as moved by it as he was; with ''Salome'' he created symbolic drama in English; ''The Picture of Dorian Gray'' has been described as the only French novel ever written in English; and of course he brought comedy back to the London stage.

At the turn of the 1890s, he refined his ideas about the supremacy of art in a series of dialogues and essays, and incorporated themes of decadence, duplicity, and beauty into his only novel, “ The Picture of Dorian Gray” (1890).

The opportunity to construct aesthetic details precisely, and combine them with larger social themes, drew Wilde to write drama [45]. He wrote Salome (1891) in French in Paris but it was refused a licence. Unperturbed, Wilde produced four society comedies in the early 1890s, namely " Lady Windermere's Fan", "A Woman of No Importance", "An Ideal Husband", and "The Importance of Being Earnest", which made him one of the most successful playwrights of late Victorian London.

In general, Wilde was. O. Wilde's plays were written in a light satirical vein, cultured and refined, and in good taste. His characters served as the mouths to enunciate the author's exquisite remarks on society.

At the height of his fame and success, whilst his masterpiece, “ The Importance of Being Earnest”, was still on stage in London, Wilde was accused of “unnatural practices” and thrown into jail for his homosexual affairs [21]. Upon his release he left immediately for France, never to return to Ireland or Britain. There he wrote his last work, “ The Ballad of Reading Gaol”, a long poem commemorating the harsh rhythms of prison life. He died destitute in Paris at the age of forty-six.

Despite the fact that O. Wilde has probably been written about more than most nineteenth-century writers, his place and reputation continue to be uncertain. Many critics who have looked for the essence of Wilde's work, have been troubled by his inconsistency, paradoxes and posing, which some critics have attributed to "a lack of seriousness" or even to his homosexuality [12].

And so he wrote drama for society, philosophy for his equals, epigrams for everyone. Above all he was a self-proclaimed ''lord of language'' – a master of style [26], and in every sense a modern master since many of his lessons have yet to be learned.

2.1.1. Biographical portrayal of Oscar Wilde

 

Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) was one of the most famous writers of the nineteenth century. He is known primarily as a playwright, however, he also wrote poetry, fairy tales, essays and criticism.

Social background

Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was born in Dublin on October 16, 1854. Oscar was named in honour of his godfather, King Oscar I of Sweden.

Wilde's parents were quite prominent in Ireland's social life. His father, William Ralph Wills, was a internationally recognized surgeon who had received the appointment of Surgeon Oculist in Ordinary to the Queen. Wilde's mother, Francesca Elgee Wilde, was known in literary and political circles as "Speranza", a name she adopted to give hope to Irish nationalists and activists in the woman's rights movement.

Overall, the writer was raised in an atmosphere of upper-middle-class comfort, culture, and social scandal [33].

Education

Oscar was home schooled until the age of 9, being taught French and German by two governesses.

Wilde received an education appropriate to his station in life. When he was 10, he was sent to Portora Royal School (founded by King Charle s II) in Enniskillen, Ulster. In October 1971, he entered Trinity College in Dublin, where he distinguished himself by winning various prizes and medals, particularly for his learning in the classics. He later attended Magdalen College, Oxford.

At Oxford, Wilde developed the manner of poseur and was widely recognised by his fellow students as a brilliant talker. He had bright intellect and won many awards and honors throughout his life. In 1878 he won the Newdigate Prize for English verse for a poem "Ravenna".

Personal life

When Oscar was a young boy he often got ridiculed by his flamboyant and girly personality. He struggled all his life with his sexuality. He dealt with his hardships in many ways, a few of them being drinking and sexual relations, but most importantly, he wrote.

Wilde also had some financial problems. His income was meager and always short of his extravagant spending.

On May 29, 1884 he married Constance Lloyd, the beautiful young daughter of a Dublin barrister, whose small fortune helped to rectify his financial difficulties [41]. They had two children — Cyril and Vyvyan.

In 1891, Wilde was introduced to Lord Alfred Douglas, then a student at Oxford and a handsome and spoiled young man. The two quickly struck an intimate friendship and soon became lovers as well as literary collaborators.

Social life

Oscar Wilde spent most of his social life in London among high society characters. Even before he left the University in 1878 Wilde had become known as one of the most affected of the prefessors of the aesthetic movement. He quickly became a prominent personality in literary and socal circles. In 1880's Wilde established himself as a writer, poet, and lecturer [26].

In 1882, due to the growing popularity of Gilbert and Sullivan’s satirical opera, Patience, Wilde was invited to visit the United States on a lecture tour of the “decorative arts,” which was very successful.

In 1887 Wilde became editor of The Woman’s World, a progressive magazine, and held that position for two years.

The period of Wilde's true achievement began when he published "The Happy Prince and other tales" in 1888. He garnered acclaim at first for his collections of stories and novels, and then for his great successes in theater [32].

Wilde's only novel "The Picture of Dorian Gray" (1890), attracted much attention, and his sayings past from mouth to mouth as those of one of the professed wits of the age.

To his benefit, Oscars controversial wit and over-the-top personality was portrayed in many of his famous playwrights. Soon enough his life was in the lime light, he traveled from city to city and had a wide range of friends.

However, some facts of Wilde's personal life, namely, his highly publicized homosexual affair, have caused him to fall in social disgrace. In 1895 Wilde sued Marquees of Queensberry for criminal libel after the Marquees called him a sodomite. Wilde was tried at Old Bailey Court, and rigorous cross-examination revealed his homosexuality. He was arrested and convicted of committing “gross indecency.”

Wilde emerged from prison two years after, physically depleted, emotionally exhausted and flat broke. Wilde wrote very little during his last years; the only notable work was a poem he completed in 1898 about his experiences in prison, "The Ballad of Reading Gaol." In October 1900, Wilde died of meningitis at the age of 46. His tomb, sculpted by Sir Jacob Epstein, is in PereLachaise Cemetery, Paris.

The main ideas

Wilde was the most popular spokesman in the late XIX century advocating the doctrine of aestheticism, which insisted that art should be primarily concerned with "art for art's sake", not with politics, religion, science, or bourgeois morality. These ideas were mainly inspired by English critics Algernon Charles Swinburne and Walter Pater [37].

Being a romanticist, Wildean humanistic aesthetics was more concerned with the individual, the self, than societal problems. Wilde thought that the only moral value was the ideal of beauty in nature and in person. However, he claimed that beauty was not the reflection of realistic life, but contrary, it was just the product of artist's imagination. That is why he confirmed that art was existing independent of the life and was developing according to its own laws.

Wilde's ethics and aesthetics were an expression of the profound crisis of bourgeois art in general, and of bourgeois' aesthetics that signify the end of Victorian era. In his plays Wilde mocked Victorian society with its narrow-mindedness and swaggering morals. In The Importance of Being Earnest the author shows what desperately useless lives his characters are leading. Wilde rebels most earnestly against London's upper crust's limitedness and impregnable complacency.

Although O. Wilde strongly opposes hypocrisy, his opposition bears no effective resistance, and he seeks no way out of the spiritual deadlock experienced by his generation. For, ironically, O. Wilde, a bourgeois intelligent himself, was too closely connected with the society he made fun of; that is why the accusatory ring of his plays weakens from comedy to comedy, the strongest ring being expressed in An Ideal Husband [10].

In conclusion, we may say that the inference drawn by O. Wilde about utter incompatibility of real art and the bourgeois way of life is perfectly consistent, however, his idea about the incompatibility of art and realism is erroneous and somewhat misguided.

Many literary critics studied O. Wilde's legacy, among others, Nick Frankel, Gary H. Paterson, Peter Ackroyd, Karen Alkalay-Gut, Stephen Rowley, and William Terpening.