AESTHETICISM AND DECADENCE

The Aesthetic movement began in France with Théophile Gautier at the end of the 19th century. It was a reaction against the materialism and the strict moral code of the bourgeoisie during the Victorian Age. Read here.

The Aesthetic and Decadent approaches to life and art ...

Aestheticism and Decadence shocked the Victorian establishment ...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, OSCAR WILDE!

Oscar Wilde was born in Dublin on 16 October 1854. He became involved in the Aesthetic Movement while studying at Magdalen College in Oxford,  and went on to become one of the century’s most brilliant poets, playwrights and essayists. 

He transgressed the oppressive boundaries of Victorian society and lived a full life, even after his reputation was ruined when his sexual orientation came to light. Read here.

THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST

Today I recommend watching The Importance of Being Earnest here, the 2002  British-American romantic comedy-drama film based on Oscar Wilde's classic comedy of manners play of the same name.

This play is funny all the time, actually there is nothing earnest about it, at least on the surface! It is a satire of the Victorian era, when a complicated code of behaviour governed everything from communication to sexuality. Regarded by many as Oscar Wilde’s masterpiece, it offers a brilliant commentary on class, money, marriage and morals.

Click here to read the whole play.

Here and here you can find a detailed analysis of the play (plot, characters, themes).

OSCAR WILDE - 5^C LINGUISTICO

Here  you can find my previous post on Oscar Wilde. 

Click here to download a helpful PDF presentation. 

"It was his beauty that had ruined him, his beauty and the youth that he had prayed for. But for those two things, his life might have been free from stain. His beauty had been to him but a mask, his youth but a mockery. What was youth at best? A green, an unripe time, a time of shallow moods, and sickly thoughts. Why had he worn its livery? Youth had spoiled him."

THE AESTHETIC MOVEMENT

Here you can download a Powerpoint Presentation and a mind map of the Aesthetic Movement. 

I hope you will find them both helpful!

OSCAR WILDE

Oscar Wilde was a declared  aesthete (= someone who loves and appreciates works of art and beautiful things) who professed  his views  both in his  works and way of life. His extravagant look and public behaviour aimed at defying the self-satisfied respectability and cheap taste of the Victorian middle and upper classes, their prudery (=moralism) regarding morals, sex, art and their obsession  with status and  money. His views were strongly influenced by  the art critic William Pater, who asserted  the priority of  art and beauty  in individual  and  social life  and the independence of art from  any   moral, political or utilitarian  purpose, that is  the aesthetic doctrine of "art for art's sake"  (i.e., art has no aim but its own  perfection).                                              

Such devotion to the aesthetic-decadent creed was counterbalanced by  the  moral concern,  present  in  all his works,  exposing  contemporary evils.  In fact,  his comedies are only apparently superficial, as they make fun of Victorian moralism (=strictness and austerity especially in matters of religion or conduct), hypocrisy and prejudices in a light, witty  style. Oscar Wilde possessed a deep sense of humanity and  he developed great concern for the outcast, who were secluded from the safe and optimistic world of rich Victorians; the terrible experience of imprisonment - he was  arrested for “gross indecency with men,” a charge for which he was convicted and sentenced to two years in prison - made his sympathy more intense, as emerges from the long poem The Ballad of Reading Gaol (1898), which contains some very touching lines.  Between January and March 1897, close to the end of his imprisonment, he wrote De  Profundis, a long letter addressed to his lover, Lord Alfred Douglas, published posthumously in 1905. Oscar Wilde spent the last three years of his life in exile. He died at the age of 45 and was buried in Paris.

A contradictory  personality  and versatile (=skillful) artist, Oscar Wilde never enjoyed much favour among contemporary  critics. Only in the course of the 20th  century  he came to be considered  an outstanding  man of letters for the sharp analysis of his time, the skillful (= masterly)  use of the most  different  genres and his brilliant style.