Wilde Visions of Paterian Aesthetics

Paper Summary:

In this work, Oscar Wilde's plays are partially taken into deep consideration as an analysis of his playwright identity. In the process of the discovery of his decadent resentment of the late nineteenth century orders, the influential figures of the new movement are also indicated. Oscar Wilde and Walter Pater have important parallels among their Epistemologies, ethics and aesthetics. The writer uses extensive examples primarily regarding to Pater's first book, Marius The Epicurean: His Sensations and Ideas (1885) and Wilde's plays of 1894, An Ideal Husband, and The Importance of Being Earnest, to display their aesthetic ideology to demonstrate the precise link between the two, for it has never been convincingly interjected. The main question underlying this paper is of how Wilde perceives art. While exploring his conception of art, dandy-ism is comprehensibly touched in order to reveal his aesthetic identity. However, this paper discusses his aesthetic ideology in the context of individualism through the referencing of some of his works, particularly his aforementioned plays. The question at the basis of this preoccupation is of how Wilde displays the expressing of individuality and idiosyncrasies through art and in particular the value of art.

From the Paper:

"The use of Puns is another concept that pars to both the aesthetic identity of Walter Pater as well as the aesthetic identity of Oscar Wilde. In this play "The Importance of Being Earnest", the pun, which is generally believed to be the lowest structure of oral humor, is hardly ever just a humor on words. The duality of the title in itself is proof of that. One example of such a notion lies in the earnest/Ernest humor that is utilized to hit the very truth of all the Victorian ideas and rules regarding propriety and responsibility. Gwendolen wants to be betrothed to a man named Ernest, without giving a thought to whether the man bearing such a name bears its qualities too or not. She, nevertheless, immediately exonerates Jack's dishonesty in personifying a man who is originally neither "earnest" nor "Ernest," and who, because of forces stronger than his own power, consequently develops both "earnest" and "Ernest." Jack is a perfect paradox and a compound emblem of Victorian duplicity."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Alexander, Beverly. Oscar Wilde's Plays on the New York Stage: 1883-1950. Columbia University, 1951.
• Bendz Ernest P. The Influence of Pater and Matthew Arnold in the Prose-Writings of Oscar Wilde. University of Gothenburg, 1914.
• Benson Arthur C. Walter Pater. London, Macmillan, 1906.
• Dollimore, Jonathan. Sexual Dissidence: Augustine to Wilde, Freud to Foucault. Oxford: Clarendon, 1991.
• Eagleton, Terry. Saint Oscar and Other Plays. Oxford: Blackwell, 1997.

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