1. Wilde and Aestheticism

2. Characteristics of Aestheticism Reaction against Realism, Didacticism, and Morality that characterised earlier and even concurrent cultural fashions The monotony and vulgarity of bourgeois life Belief in Art for Art’s SakeArt for Art’s Sake Unconventional lifestyle Appreciation of Beauty at the expense of utility and social value Pursuit of Pleasure & Worship of the Senses (Hedonism) Evocative Use of the language of senses Excessive attention to the self Typical representative: dandydandy Anti-Natural: belief in the ornate, extreme artifice, performance, and exotic Walter Pater :“to burn always like a hard gemlike flame”, filling each passing moment with intense experience, feeling all kinds of sensations

3. “Art for art’s sake” in Wilde “All art is quite useless” (Preface to DG) Rejection of Victorian didacticism and realism Wrote only to please himself Moral imperative Soul can be cured only by the senses only by “Art as the cult of beauty” The artist: an alien in materialistic world Superior being social outcast

4. Wilde’s dandy Aristocrat (vs. Bohemién) Pursuit of pleasure Indulgence in the beautiful ( language, clothes, food, boys… ) Elegance: symbol of spiritual superiority Uses wit to shock (and criticize) Individualist: absolute freedom

6. Oscar or Harry? 1.I have nothing to declare except my genius. 2.Nothing can cure the soul but the senses, just as nothing can cure the sense but the soul. 3.I have put my talent into my works. I have put my genius into my life. 4.The first duty in life is to be as artificial as possible. What the second duty is no one has yet discovered. 5.Being natural is simply a pose, and the most irritating pose I know. 6.A little sincerity is a dangerous thing, and a great deal of it is absolutely fatal. 7.The only duty we owe to history is to rewrite it. 8.To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance. 9.Men marry because they are tired; women, because they are curious; both are disappointed. 10.My wallpaper and I are fighting a duel to the death. One or the other of us has to go. 11.Modern morality consists in accepting the standards of the age. I consider that for any man of culture to accept the standards of his age is a form of the grossest immorality.

7. Oscar or Harry? 1.I have nothing to declare except my genius. W 2.Nothing can cure the soul but the senses, just as nothing can cure the sense but the soul. H 3.I have put my talent into my works. I have put my genius into my life. W 4.The first duty in life is to be as artificial as possible. What the second duty is no one has yet discovered. W 5.Being natural is simply a pose, and the most irritating pose I know. H 6.A little sincerity is a dangerous thing, and a great deal of it is absolutely fatal. W 7.The only duty we owe to history is to rewrite it. W 8.To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance. W 9.Men marry because they are tired; women, because they are curious; both are disappointed. H 10.My wallpaper and I are fighting a duel to the death. One or the other of us has to go. W 11.Modern morality consists in accepting the standards of the age. I consider that for any man of culture to accept the standards of his age is a form of the grossest immorality. H

8. Credits www.sfu.ca/~ccolliga/Eng330--Wilde&Aestheticism.ppt Spiazzi-Tavella, Now & Then, Zanichelli