Oscar Wilde’s Aestheticism
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.18533/journal.v7i2.1331Keywords:
Dandyism, Aestheticism, RevoltAbstract
Abstract-Dandyism is a very important and significant social phenomenon in 19th century Europe. This paper focuses on Oscar Wilde and Wilde’s numerous works. Aestheticism was used as a tool by the dandy in his rebellious performances in London, manifesting the contradiction between the spiritual and the material, the aristocracy and the bourgeoisie, and art and nature. The social backgrounds and life experiences of Wilde influenced his transformation into dandies during the time of the Victorian period. With his strong sense of fashion and style, and their elegant ironic use of language, the dandies focused on the importance of artificial forms - himself included — in daily life and work. The dandies’ concern was pleasure seeking through consuming the visual and actual. To this end Wilde developed unique aesthetic theories regarding evil; he looked for the beautiful in the ugly and repulsive. At the same time, Oscar Wilde criticized the hypocrisy of bourgeois morality and values, showing the genuinely ugly and evil reality beneath bourgeois industrial society, and focusing on revolt and resistance against the bourgeois world.
Index Terms-Dandyism, Aestheticism, Revolt
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
- Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).