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Oscar Wilde by Hong Rui (ES02162)


Oscar Wilde & the Victorian Era


Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde (16 October 1854 – 30 November 1900) was an Irish poet and playwright. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of London's most popular playwrights in the early 1890s. He is best remembered for his epigrams and plays, his novel The Picture of Dorian Gray, as well as the circumstances of his imprisonment and early death.[1]

To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance. This is a quote from “An Ideal Husband” which is written by Oscar Wilde. From this quote, it’s easily to find that Oscar Wilde preserved some characteristics of romantic literature which is focus on individualism. It’s also can be regarded as the life experiences of love. Love for Wilde is like red rose, beautiful but harmful .everyone tried to get it, some of them even spent their life to get it, just like “the nightingale and the rose” described love. For the nightingale，she just want the man become happier so that she paid her life to get the red rose, but for the man, all he want is to please the girl, therefore, he is eager for the rose day and night, he thought once he got the rose, the girl would go with him. Unfortunately, the girl wants more than rose, she is greedy, she wants jewellery. That’s kinda ironic as for me. Wilde shows his sympathy towards guys who really willing to pursue love, on the contrary, he despised women who only worship money and fame. In that case, it’s also shows some Victorian characteristics. The Victorian ideal to focus on the appearance of someone, as opposed to the feelings and substance of someone. Relationships were centered on material value and worth.

What attracts me most, is his ways of speak. He always shows humorous attitude towards men and women, proposal, marriage. ”the importance of being earnest”, one of his famous plays. I’ve got some words quite funny to share with you here”. It is very romantic to be in love, but there is nothing romantic about a definite proposal”, ”the truth is rarely pure and never simple”. All this quotations shows his unique attitude towards life, he is an extremely confident person in life. He regard life as art, writing just a little part of life, that’s why a lot of people argued that the characters of his plays or novels are flat and pale, all he got is a smooth tongue to produce quotations.
Anyway, Oscar Wilde is one of the representative of Victorian Era, he shows hypocrisy of society, money, realistic portrait of society...what’s more, his humorous worth dedicate my life to learn.

Sources：
[1]   :https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oscar_Wilde



by Hong Rui (ES02162)

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