Oscar Wilde: The Love Affair between Literature and Alfred Oscar Wilde was an Anglo-Irish playwright, novelist, poet, and critic. He is regarded as one of the greatest playwrights of the Victorian Era. In his lifetime he wrote nine plays, one novel, and numerous poems, short stories, and essays. Wilde was a proponent of the Aesthetic movement, which emphasized aesthetic values more than moral or social themes. This doctrine is most clearly summarized in the phrase 'art for art's sake'. Besides
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Oscar Wilde was a passionate admirer of art, an intellectual dandy and a keen advocate of the Aesthetic Movement. Through his essay The Decay of Lying: An Observation, Wilde uses an obviously self-modelled character named Vivian to set out a series of doctrines which detail his personal philosophy on the relationship that exists between art and life, and the rolls that they should play. Chiefly these are: art should only express itself, expressing life and nature makes for bad art, life imitates
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Dorian Gray “In fact, despite his power of rationalization and the continuing influence of Henry. Dorian is increasingly disturbed by doubts about his moral freedom and stung by the pangs of the conscience that will not die” (Liebman 10). Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray is centered upon the effects of liberty of the soul and degradation that results from it. If one chooses to always act on inner desires and passions, ignoring ethical values, one’s life will be destroyed by vain pursuits
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From the Writer “Dorian Gray the Escape Artist” is the culmination of my work in my WR100 seminar, Fantasy at the Fin-de-Siècle. The final assignment was to create a research paper based on an interesting problem or paradox I had found in Oscar Wilde’s book, The Picture of Dorian Gray. For me, one of the book’s most fascinating elements was Dorian’s immature behavior; though he grows older, he never seems to “grow up.” At first, I investigated how my idea related to aestheticism and what Dorian’s
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The model millionaire – Oscar Wilde The model millionaire is a short story written by Oscar Wilde in 1871. The theme of the short story deals with a very materialistic aspect of life in a mercantile world in which the protagonist Hughie Erskine is a complete misfit. Despite of the attractive appearance and charming personality, his lack of money prohibits him from marrying the girl he loves – Laura. Her father demands a total of £10.000 to prove his worth to him and accept him as a son in law. The
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Lecturer: Saint Metrey Student: Yeng Vithavath Class: M2.5 Academic Year: 2014-15 Submission Date: 23/12/2014 Word Count: 575 Submission Date: 23/12/2014 Word Count: 575 The Happy Prince (By Oscar Wilde) The Happy Prince is a story written by author Oscar Wilde and was published in 1888. The story talks about a statue that can talk and then asks a swallow to do tasks for him. It is a simple yet meaningful story; therefore, this essay will first be about the summary of the
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famous and most frequently quoted statements about the moral responsibility of artists can be found in Oscar Wilde ’s preface to his novel The Picture of Dorian Gray. “There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book,” writes Wilde, “Books are well written or badly written. That is all.” His claim is that works of art are legitimate objects of aesthetic judgement, but not of moraljudgement. Wilde added this preface when the novel was reprinted a year after its initial publication in a literary magazine
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Miller April 9, 2013 Professor Thiele Intro to Fiction Sexuality in The Picture of Dorian Gray Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray alludes to homosexuality throughout the entirety of the novel. While homosexual relations between the characters are not directly discussed, the context and conversations between the characters points to homosexual relations between all of the male characters. Oscar Wilde, himself, was part of the Decadents movement at the end of the Victorian period. Decadents are
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characters, Dorian Gray, Lord Henry Wotton and Basil Hallward. Each character shows a kind of approach towards life which is similar in its philosophy to Oscar Wilde’s real life approach. **Oscar Wild says: “Basil Hallward is what I think I am: Lord Henry what the world thinks me: Dorian what I would like to be- in other ages, perhaps. Oscar has crafted Dorian Gray as a symbol of art which can truly be appreciated with no regard to morality and ethics.*** He is characterized by pure soul which
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“Wilde empowers his female characters but also undermines them”. To what extent do you agree with this view? Wilde’s comedy of manners play, The Importance of Being Earnest, holds a satirical outlook on Victorian life. Wilde uses both satire and farce in his play written and set in 1895 to depict a slightly exaggerated version of society as it was, with all its forms of hypocrisy, double standards and repression of women. Wilde chose to invert the usual gender roles in Victorian literature by portraying
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