Эстетизм в творчестве О.Уайльда

The philosophical foundations of Aestheticism were formulated in the eighteenth century by Immanuel Kant, who spoke for the autonomy of art. Art was to exist for its own sake, for its own essence or beauty. The artist was not to be concerned about morality or utility or even the pleasure that a work might bring to its audience. Aestheticism was supported in Germany by J. W. von Goethe and in England by Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Thomas Carlyle.

 

 

Benjamin Constant first used the phrase l'art pour l'art (French, meaning "art for art," or "art for art's sake") in 1804; Victor Cousin popularized the words that became a catch-phrase for Aestheticism in the 1890s. French writers such as Théophile Gautier and Charles-Pierre Baudelaire contributed significantly to the movement.

 

Oscar Wilde did not invent Aestheticism, but he was a dramatic leader in promoting the movement near the end of the nineteenth century. Wilde was especially influenced as a college student by the works of the English poet and critic Algernon Charles Swinburne and the American writer Edgar Allan Poe. The English essayist Walter Pater, an advocate of "art for art's sake," helped to form Wilde's humanistic aesthetics in which he was more concerned with the individual, the self, than with popular movements like Industrialism or Capitalism. Art was not meant to instruct and should not concern itself with social, moral, or political guidance.

 

Like Baudelaire, Wilde advocated freedom from moral restraint and the limitations of society. This point of view contradicted Victorian convention in which the arts were supposed to be spiritually uplifting and instructive. Wilde went a step further and stated that the artist's life was even more important than any work that he produced; his life was to be his most important body of work.

 

The most important of Wilde's critical works, published in May 1891, is a volume titled Intentions. It consists of four essays: "The Decay of Lying," "Pen, Pencil and Poison," "The Critic as Artist," and "The Truth of Masks." These and the contemporary essay "The Soul of Man Under Socialism" affirm Wilde's support of Aestheticism and supply the philosophical context for his novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray.

 

"The Decay of Lying" was first published in January 1889. Wilde called it a "trumpet against the gate of dullness" in a letter to Kate Terry Lewis. The dialogue, which Wilde felt was his best, takes place in the library of a country house in Nottinghamshire. The participants are Cyril and Vivian, which were the names of Wilde's sons (the latter spelled "Vyvyan"). Almost immediately, Vivian advocates one of the tenets of Wilde's Aestheticism: Art is superior to Nature. Nature has good intentions but can't carry them out. Nature is crude, monotonous, and lacking in design when compared to Art.

 

According to Vivian, man needs the temperament of the true liar" with his frank, fearless statements, his superb irresponsibility, his healthy, natural disdain of proof of any kind!" Artists with this attitude will not be shackled by sterile facts but will be able to tell beautiful truths that have nothing to do with fact.

 

"Pen, Pencil and Poison" was first published in January 1889. It is a biographical essay on the notorious writer, murderer, and forger Thomas Griffiths Wainewright, who used the pen name "Janus Weathercock."

 

Wilde's approach is that Wainewright's criminal activities reveal the soul of a true artist. The artist must have a "concentration of vision and intensity of purpose" that exclude moral or ethical judgment. True aesthetes belong to the "elect," as Wilde calls them in "The Decay of Lying," and are beyond such concerns. As creative acts, there is no significant difference between art and murder. The artist often will conceal his identity behind a mask, but Wilde maintains that the mask is more revealing than the actual face. Disguises intensify the artist's personality. Life itself is an art, and the true artist presents his life as his finest work. Wilde, who attempted to make this distinction in his own life through his attempts to re-create himself, includes this theme in The Picture of Dorian Gray.

 

The longest of the essays in Intentions, "The Critic as Artist," first appeared in two parts (July and September 1890) with the significant title, "The True Function and Value in Criticism; With Some Remarks on the Importance of Doing Nothing: A Dialogue." It is considered to be a response to Matthew Arnold's essay "The Function of Criticism at the Present Time" (1865). Arnold's position is that the creative faculty is higher than the critical. The central thesis of Wilde's essay is that the critic must reach beyond the creative work that he considers.

 

The setting of the dialogue is a library in a house in London's Piccadilly area overlooking Green Park, and the principal characters are Gilbert and Ernest.

 

Along with the central theme of the importance of the critic, Gilbert espouses the significance of the individual. The man makes the times; the times do not make the man. Further, he advocates that "Sin is an essential element of progress." Sin helps assert individuality and avoid the monotony of conformity. Rules of morality are non-creative and, thus, evil.

 

The best criticism must cast off ordinary guidelines, especially those of Realism, and accept the aesthetics of Impressionism — what a reader feels when reading a work of literature rather than what a reader thinks, or reasons, while reading. The critic must transcend literal events and consider the "imaginative passions of the mind." The critic should not seek to explain a work of art but should seek to deepen its mystery.

 

"The Truth of Masks" first appeared in May 1885 under the title "Shakespeare and Stage Costume." The essay originally was a response to an article written by Lord Lytton in December 1884, in which Lytton argues that Shakespeare had little interest in the costumes that his characters wear. Wilde takes the opposite position.

 

More important within the context of Intentions, Wilde himself always put great emphasis on appearance and the masks, or costumes, with which the artist or individual confronts the world.

 

Wilde also raises the question of self-contradiction. In art, he says, there is no such thing as an absolute truth: "A Truth is that whose contradictory is also true." This sentiment recalls Wilde's tremendous respect for the thoughts of Walt Whitman. In "Song of Myself," Whitman writes, "Do I contradict myself? / Very well then I contradict myself, / (I am large, I contain multitudes)."

 

"The Soul of Man Under Socialism" first appeared in February 1891. In it, Wilde expresses his Aesthetics primarily through the emphasis that the essay places on the individual. In an unusual interpretation of socialism, Wilde believed that the individual would be allowed to flourish under the system. He thus warns against tyrannical rulers and concludes that the best form of government for the artist is no government at all.

 

In this essay, it's easy to see that Wilde loved to shock. If Walt Whitman wanted to wake the world with his "barbaric yawp," Wilde preferred aphorisms, paradox, irony, and satire. While Wilde wouldn't want to be accused of sincerity, he was certainly devoted to Aestheticism in his life as well as his art.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Aestheticism and Oscar Wilde

2011-08-04 21:49:43

1. Introduction

The 19th century sees a variety of literary movements in the United Kingdom of Great Britain. As one of those literary movements, aestheticism, the anti-utilitarianism movement, rises suddenly at the end of the 19th century and withers away soon. Due to the intensifying crisis, the fashion of aestheticism began to decline after 1930s. Oscar Wilde，known as the milestone of aestheticism, has been deprived of his reasonable reputation in the literary world. However, the gold will shine. In the recent years, the studies of aestheticism and Oscar Wilde have begun to shine in the literature field.

Jerusha Mccormack believes, “To talk about Wilde’s fiction, is to talk about everything, for Oscar Wilde was his own best work of art.”(Peter Raby, 2001: 96) Jerusha Mccormack’s study focuses on the examination of the oral characters in his fictions.

However, this paper intends to explore Oscar Wilde’s aestheticism on the basis of his fiction The Picture of Dorian Gray. This paper consists of five parts. The first part is the introduction. The second part seeks to give the general introduction to Oscar Wilde and his aestheticism views as well as the era in which he lived. A detailed analysis of the aestheticism in The Picture of Dorian Gray follows in the third part. The fourth part of this paper is devoted to the inspiration the modern people can draw from Oscar Wilde and his aestheticism to deal with machinery civilization. With the study of the aestheticism views of Oscar Wilde, the further meaning of the slogan “Art for art’s sake” both in the literary world and in the society will be reconsidered. The conclusion of this paper constitutes the last part.    

2. Oscar Wilde and Aestheticism 

   This part is to give a brief introduction to aestheticism, Oscar Wilde and his aestheticism views as well as the Victorian era in which he lived.

2.1. A brief introduction to aestheticism

Though Oscar Wilde is the incarnation of the aestheticism schools, we can’t afford to ignore the other artists of the aesthetes. It is imperative that we should give a general introduction to aestheticism in the following paragraphs.Aesthetics is a branch of philosophy that studies the principles of beauty especially in art. Aestheticism is the collection of all the fruits of aesthetics.“The word ‘aesthetic’  was first found in Aesthetica, appearing as a Latin word, which is the name of two books written by Alexander Baumgarten, 1714---1762.”(Williams, 2005: 31) Baumgarten believes beauty can be defined as aesthetic, but when it is related to art, the most important part of Baumgarten’s translation of beauty is that beauty is not abstract but can be felt by people through their senses. This translation is the same as the Greek word “aisthesis”, the original meaning of which is the power of uniting mentally the impressions conveyed by the five physical senses.

And in the middle of the 19th century, aesthetic is understood as “the beautiful”, which is generally related to art. In 1880, the word “aesthete” was used in a wide range, but contained a derogatory sense. Both the principle and the practice of the aesthetic movement led by Walter Pater were criticized at that time. But the British decadent writers were deeply influenced by Walter Pater. The artists and writers of the aesthetic movement held the view that sensuous pleasure should be provided by arts, not moral or sentimental messages. As a consequence, they did not accept John Ruskin and Matthew Arnold’s utilitarian conception of art as something moral or useful. Instead, they believed that art did not have any didactic purpose; it needed only be beautiful. The aesthetes developed the cult of beauty, which they considered the basic factor in art. In Britain, Oscar Wilde is famous as one of the best representatives of the aesthetes. He believes that art represents nothing but itself, and that art has its own life just as thoughts do.

2.2. A brief introduction to Oscar Wilde

2.2.1 Oscar Wilde’s life 

On 16 October1854, Oscar Wilde was born at 21 Westland Road, Dublin, as the second son of Sir William Wilde and Jane Francesca Elgee, Lady Wilde, who wrote under the name “Speranza”.  In 1874, Wilde entered Magdalen College, Oxford, with a scholarship. There, he adapted himself from the ancient Irish oral culture to a British literature one. To the native British, he was the Irishman, but to the Irish, he made himself a writer, who was one of the middle class in the British society. Besides, Oscar Wilde was known as an aesthetic dandy for his fashionable dressing code, decoration style with blue and white china, feathers, and oriental jade treasures.

With the genius of life, Wilde chose another way to live , and as an aesthete, he devoted all his talent to his work. As one of the Oxford aesthetes, he made his lecture tour to America, with his lecture “The English Renaissance of Art” which was first delivered in 1882. He was given thunderous applause by the American people. Then, he was engaged with Constance Lloyd the next year. In 1885, his first son Cyril was born and the next year, his younger son, Vyvyan. Oscar Wilde changed his role from a dandy to a father.  In the following years, he finished most of his fictions including The Happy Prince and Other Tales and The Picture of Dorian Gray. In 1891, his meeting Lord Alfred Douglas changed his role from a husband to a homosexual lover. The next nine years of his life saw his ups and down. His plays were popularly put on the stage but for his romance with Douglas, he was convicted of indecency. During his imprisonment, his mother’s death, renunciation of his wife and children engulfed him. In 1990, he died in the Hôtel d’Alsace in Paris.

Oscar Wilde played various roles as a poet, journalist, critic and theorist, and writer. His creative writing started from poems and short stories. But The Picture of Dorian Gray, a novel written for Lippincott’s Magazine in 1890, really earned name for him. The extended version of The Picture of Dorian Gray was published in 1891. The Picture of Dorian Gray indicates his aesthetic ideas but at the same time, this book was used as evidence of his “immorality” that put him in the prison.

2.2.2 The Victorian era

Oscar Wilde died one year earlier than Queen Victoria. During the 63 years’ reign of Queen Victoria, the Great British witnessed her gold period both in economy and in culture. It was an era of industry when steamboats and railways ensured colonialism, making the UK an empire on which the sun never set. The Victorians trusted the industrial revolution and the progress of science. Marxism and Darwinism were born. Though the industry was flourishing, the poor were still poor. Ironically, the upper class or the middle class led a delicate life and they were dainty about their food. The boom of economy contrasted with the Victorian morality. The social critics showed their extreme passion to the morals: espousing sexual repression, low tolerance of crime, and a strong social ethics. Despite the cultivation of the social ethics, corruption, prostitution and child labor still prevailed. It was a time of contradictions. Consequently, at the end of the Victorian era, being weary of morals preach, the aesthetes launched the aesthetic movement. Oscar Wilde emerged with his cynic accent and eyeball- catching behavior.

The Victorian era witnessed the summit of the capitalism of the British Empire, and during that time, industry developed at high speed, making commercial activities develop quickly. The rise of Darwinism spread “the jungle law”, which was adopted quickly by the Victorians living in a competitive society. As a result, they sought to pursue their happiness by all means. As the consequence of the rapid development of the economy, competitions in Victorians’ seeking for happiness run into a wrong way, which entailed the urgent need for  the reconstruction of morals. It was strict in the choice of words in both social speech and literary criticism. Utilitarianism, seeking the greatest happiness for the individuals, was accepted by most people, especially the ruling class. The original intention of utilitarianism was to obtain the greatest happiness by the pursuit of utility, while in the progress of the development, utilitarianism itself made its way directly to destination, which decreased the sense of freedom, happiness and development of man. Running after the material gains under the drive of utilitarianism would limit the progress of human awareness in spirit.

The aesthetes were quite sure about what would happen to art if the utilitarianism was widely accepted and practiced. They launched the aesthetic movement in order to save art.  They refused to bring utilitarianism into art by advocating their slogan “art for art sake”. The picture of Dorian Gray indicates their ideas that life is the imitation of art, and that if art is dead, so is the man. It is the retort and query about the Victorian social values. With no suspense, the aesthetic ideas were criticized at that time. But they were believed by the aesthetes to be the only trustworthy way to stop the decline of art and save the Victorians from the extreme utilitarianism.

2.3 Oscar Wilde’s aestheticism

Oscar Wilde made great contribution to the world literature by inheriting and developing aesthetic views in his literary creation. Among his works, his aesthetic views spark like the diamonds scattering on the grass.

His aesthetic views involve not only the literary theory but also the literary creation. For example, in practice, Oscar Wilde never ceases to work for the beauty of his literary art. He advocates the massive use of symbols and the correspondence between words, colors and music. In theory, Oscar Wilde reconsiders the relation between art and life. Inheriting Gautiers’ view “art for art’s sake”, he advocates that life is the imitation of art, which can be seen in the preface of his book The picture of Dorian Gray as “All art is quite useless”. 

Based on his masterpiece The picture of Dorian Gray, the following part seeks to give an in-depth research into Oscar Wilde’s aestheticism.

3. Aestheticism in Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray

This part is to study Oscar Wilde’s aestheticism mirrored in his The Picture of Dorian Gray and to discuss the original intention of Oscar Wilde’s aestheticism.

3.1. Brief account of the story --- The Picture of Dorian Gray

The Picture of Dorian Gray, the only long fiction of Oscar Wilde, indicates a clear stand of the aesthetes by depicting a story of the idea of art, sensual pleasure, sin and soul, degrading morals, society and civilization.

The plot of the novel is as follows: a lad named Dorian Gray gets a portrait of himself from his friend, Basil, who is a painter. He exchanges his soul for being eternally young with the picture. The picture records Dorian’s sins with its decaying ，when he becomes an artifact without soul. Being seduced by Lord Henry, the incarnation of evil, Dorian Gray gives in to temptation and his life decays. He does a series of evil things.  He kills Bail for keeping his secret. Alan Campbell commits suicides because of his commitment of disposing Basil’s body. To decrease his sense of guilt, Dorian Gray begins to collect things to anaesthetize him in the pleasure of sense. Living as an artifact, he falls in love with Sybil Vane, an actress of the theatre. But detesting her for not being artificial, he drives her to suicide. His eternal beauty is realized at the sacrifice of the beauty of the picture. The decades of sinful life leaves remarks on the picture and ruins the beauty of it.  He feels guilty when Sybil’s brother finds him and swears to kill him. His forever young looking keeps him from being killed by Sybil’s brother, but at the end of the story, he can no longer endure his sinful memory. He slays the decaying portrait, the record of his guilt, to erase his sins, but at his slaying, he kills himself and the picture returns to its original beauty. He is dead as a withered old man lying on the floor in front of the shiny picture.   

3. 2. Analysis of the aestheticism 

Oscar Wilde’s aestheticism can be seen in the preface, themes, plots, conflicts, the symbolic meaning of the characters, the symbolic meaning of the picture and the languages of The Picture of Dorian Gray, which is the focus of the following paragraphs.

3.2.1 His ideas in the preface

The preface of The Picture of Dorian Gray is short, but actually it is the declaration of his aesthetic views and the weapon against the criticism to his book.

The artist is the creator of beautiful things. To reveal art and conceal the artist is art’s aim. Thought and language are to the artist instruments for an art. Vice and virtue are to the artist materials for an art. There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. All art is quite useless. (Oscar Wilde, 1992 :Preface)

3.2.2Themes of The Picture of Dorian Gray

Oscar Wilde finishes his story with the word “was”, the past form of “be” to memorize the death of Dorian Gray. His death unveils the themes of this book that art transcends life that life imitates art that only art bears the eternal beauty and that art and artists have no obligation other than to strive for beauty.

The themes about art and life are realized in part by the conflicts in the novel. The love affair is one of such conflicts between art and life.

Dorian Gray falls in love with an actress, Sybil Vane, a young and beautiful actress who acts in the Shakespeare’s plays. Considering her as goddess of art, Dorian runs after her and claims to marry her in the future. But after they get engaged, Sybil loses her shine on the stage. When Sybil tells him that she hates the stage, Dorian is out of rage and claims that he loves her no more, which drives Sybil to suicide. Dorian loves Sybil Vane in the art world rather than the girl in the real life. .

His reaction to Sybil’s death explains everything:  

It is one of the great romantic tragedies of the age. How different Sibyl was! She lived her finest tragedy. She was always a heroine. The last night she played-- the night you saw her--she acted badly because she had known the reality of love. When she knew its unreality, she died, as Juliet might have died. She passed again into the sphere of art. There is something of the martyr about her. Her death has all the pathetic uselessness of martyrdom, all its wasted beauty.  (Oscar Wilde, 1992 :55)

From the love tragedy, it can be seen that art is superior to life. If art is reduced to life, it is destined to die.

The themes about art and life can also be seen in the symbolization of the novel which is the concern of the next section.

3.2.3Symbolization in The Picture of Dorian Gray

Symbolization in the novel well illustrates Oscar Wilde’s aestheticism.

The study of the changing symbolic meanings of the picture is a vivid way tomaterialize the themes of aestheticism.

This fiction develops according to the relation between the portrait and Dorian Gray. The portrait undergoes a “beautiful-ugly-beautiful”  course. At first, it symbolizes art, that’s why it is beautiful at the beginning stage of the novel. But when Dorian exchanges his soul for being eternally young with the picture, the picture becomes the symbol of life as well as the symbol of Dorian Gray’s soul, which is the exterior incarnation of the inner heart of Dorian Gray. Dorian’s decaying soul break the beauty of the portrait, which means that if art is reduced to mechanical reflection of life, it will departs from beauty. However, at the end of story, Dorian Gray slays the decaying and ugly portrait, the record of his guilt, but at his slaying, he kills himself and the picture returns to its original beauty. The ending of the picture shows that life is subordinated to art. Art can retain permanent beauty while life is temporary and ugly.

 

The characters in the novel also have some symbolic meaning. For example, both Dorian Gray and Basil have their respective symbolic meanings, which serve their different part in the establishment of the themes of aestheticism

 

Dorian Gray, as a typical character of the aesthetic works, is attractive but dangerous. He is half devil and half angel.  In fact, he is a symbol of the combination of art and life.

At the beginning of the story, he is an innocent and beautiful young man, knowing nothing about the evil life. He loves beauty and pursues beauty. He wants to stay young and loves a girl who is the symbol of art. During this stage, he symbolizes art, whose nature is beauty.

I turned half-way round and saw Dorian Gray for the first time. When our eyes met, I felt that I was growing pale. A curious sensation of terror came over me. I knew that I had come face to face with some one whose mere personality was so fascinating that, if I allowed it to do so, it would absorb my whole nature, my whole soul, my very art itself. I did not want any external influence in my life. (Oscar Wilde, 1992: 4)