Oscar Wilde

Oscar Wilde was an unconventional man. Known in literary circles for his satires of Victorian society, he is just as well known for his personal life and homosexuality. He was a man who just did not fit in. As noted in podcast # 13, he was an outsider in high society. His Irish ancestry, lack of a title, and the fact that he had to work for a living separated him from the idle rich with whom he wished to associate himself. Wilde’s writings reflect this sense of being a stranger, evidencing ideas quite contrary to those held by Victorian society and past literary movements.

As noted in podcast #13, Oscar Wilde’s depiction of nature is quite opposite that of the earlier Romantics. He does not worship nature, or even draw inspiration from it. In “The Decay of Lying”, he comments, “What Art really reveals to us is Nature’s lack of design, her curious crudities, her extraordinary monotony, her absolutely unfinished condition” (832). This flies directly in the face of such Romantic classics as William Wordsworth’s “Lines Written in Early Spring” or Percy Bysshe Shelley’s “Ode to the West Wind” , which take nature as their subjects, exploring its beauty and power. If anything, the Romantics saw man as dwarfed and put in his proper place by nature; Wilde had no such respect for nature. Oscar Wilde puts forth the idea that art shapes nature, and not the other way around. This is contrary to the Romantics who used art as a canvas for nature; Wilde used nature as a canvas for art. He notes, “Nature is no great mother who has borne us. She is our creation. It is in our brain that she quickens to life” (840).

Wilde also differs from earlier writers in his views on the purpose of art. Wilde feels that historians and art critics who look to the past to find “representative” works of art have no business applying such labels. Art, he feels, is not to inspire or to show things as they really are. He states, “Art never expresses anything but itself” (842). To make something out of a piece of artwork is to apply a false meaning to it. Rather, he notes, “Art finds her own perfection within, and not outside of, herself” (839). Wilde, in typical Aesthetic fashion, valued beauty. He felt that the true object of art “…is not simple truth but complex beauty” (836). However, Wilde did not qualify his notion of beauty. Beauty, the superficial quality, could be based on a thousand untruths, but as long as it was beautiful Wilde thought it was worthy of adoration. He notes, “…Lying, the telling of beautiful untrue things, is the proper aim of Art” (846).

Wilde’s superficial emphasis might have stemmed from his own life experiences. He did not value truth and lying in the same way as the highly moral Victorian society, perhaps because he felt obliged to tell so many lies in his lifetime. He was constantly putting on airs, trying to fit into a high society that did not accept him. He was also living a double life, putting on a face of heterosexuality while being in a homosexual relationship. His wore a mask throughout most of his life. His outward side was the only one that society even came close to accepting; his plays were canceled after his homosexuality came out in the libel trial.

Wilde also puts forth the Aesthetic view that the impression is more important than the subject. The subject, in Wilde’s view, was highly dependent on the point of view. The impression was more reliable than the object, no matter how stationary. He explains, “Things are because we see them, and what we see, and how we see it, depends on the Arts that have influenced us” (840). In other words, man defines reality. It is a rather subjective view, for what each man sees will differ depending upon what he has read, where he grew up, his personal trials and triumphs, etc.

Indeed, if everything exists because we make it so, and everyone has different opinions, no one person can be more or less correct. What one person sees may be different from what another person sees, but no one can negate either point of view. Perhaps this philosophy underscores Wilde’s lax views about the difference between truth and lying. Wilde seems to feel that there is no truth at all, or at least that we do not believe things because they are true. He writes, “it is style that makes us believe in a thing-nothing but style” (843). Content does not matter. It is the superficial appearance that inspires confidence, not veracity.

For all his attempts to blend in, Oscar Wilde was a rebel. He tried to fit in, but did not, and so challenged the society that failed to accept him. His view of nature was cocky. His ideas about art defied conventional definitions. His view of the world put the human at the center of the universe, and questioned commonly held ideas about the reliability of perception.