Wilde's Intentions: The Artist in His CriticismWhat were Wilde's intentions? They had always been suspect, from the time of Poems, when the charge was plagiarism, to his trials, when the charge was sodomy. In Intentions (1891), and in two related essays, "The Portrait of Mr W. H." and "The Soul of Man Under Socialism," Wilde's epigrammatic dazzle and paradoxical subversions both reveal and mask his designs upon fin-de-siécle society. In the first extended study of Wilde's criticism, Lawrence Danson examines these essays/dialogues/fictions and assesses their achievement. He sets Wilde's criticism in context, showing how the son of an Irish patriot sought to create a new ideal of English culture by elevating "lies" above history, leveling the distinction between artist and critic, and ending the sway of "nature"u over liberated human desire. |
Contents
Pen Pencil and Poison 13888 | 7 |
Intentions | 21 |
The Decay of Lying | 36 |
The Truth of Masks | 60 |
The Portrait of Mr W H | 102 |
The Critic as Artist | 127 |
The Soul of Man Under Socialism | 148 |
Notes | 168 |
Index 191 | 3 |
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Common terms and phrases
aesthetic aestheticism Arnold beautiful Beerbohm Blackwood's called Carson Charles Ricketts Chatterton claim create Critic as Artist culture Cyril D'Albert dandy Decay of Lying desire dialogue Dorian Gray edition effeminacy Ellmann English essay essay's fact Gautier's Gilbert Godwin Greek homosexual idea ideal illusion imitation individual John Addington Symonds Lady Lady Windermere's Fan language Letters literary London Mahaffy means modern moral narrative narrator nature Nineteenth Century novel Oscar Wilde Oxford Pall Mall Gazette paradox passion Pater Pencil personality phrase Picture of Dorian Platonic play poem Poison political Portrait pose published Queensberry readers realism revised romance satire says sexual Shakespeare Shakespeare and Stage Socialism society sodomite sonnets Soul St James's Gazette Stage Costume story suggests Symonds theatre thing tion Trials Truth of Masks Victorian Vivian Wainewright Whistler Wilde's Wilde's intentions Wildean Willie Hughes words writes young Zola Zola's