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Oscar Wilde as I see him

Sorokina Elena, 11A

Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming. This is a fault.
Those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are the cultivated. For these there is hope.
They are the elect to whom the beautiful things mean only beauty.
Oscar Wilde
The second half of the 19th century in England gave rise to a rapid growth of social contradictions. It was the time of spiritual degradation and disillusionment. In that tune appeared a new literary trend — Decadence, that means «depression».
The representatives of this trend continued the realistic traditions of «the brilliant school of novelists of England». They gave a deep psychological; analyses of the characters in their works, a detailed description of their inner world meanwhile the writers of this trend by way of protest against severe reality tried to lead their reader far away from life into the realm of beauty, they idealized the patriarchal way of life and criticized capitalism. Their motto was «Art for Art’s sake».
The brightest representative of English Decadence was Oscar Wilde. He was a writer of a great talent, a fastidious aesthete and ingenious man. He was also very extravagant: he wrote shoes with silver clasps, short silk trousers, flowered waistcoat, beret on the buttonhole. All these made his image very scandalous.
In 1882 he made a tour over America, reading lectures about art. It’s success was great, because everybody wanted to see «aesthete» looking forward to sensation. One of the most educated people in Europe in the field of history and theory of art, young Wilde preferred to state his sacred thoughts in the form of pun and jokes, accompany them with all kinds of tricks and crankiness. However Wilde not only took the pose of an aesthete, he realty was one.
He asserted that the only purpose of art is to give people aesthetic enjoyment: «Beauty for Beauty’s sake» was his motto. But works of Oscar Wilde often refute his sayings.
The secret of Wilde’s charm is in the brilliant form of the expression of his ideas. His unexpected comparisons and sparkling paradoxes help us to understand the inner world of their author.
Fairy tales of Oscar Wilde opened for a reader a new man. These tales are built on contrast — contrast between inner beauty or cruelty and fine appearance or ugliness of its characters. Happy Prince and swallow, who sacrificed the beauty and life for the sake of human happiness, he opposed to the rich, blind to the beauty and kindness, narrow-minded with their small selfish interests.
«Picture of Dorian Gray» is one of the most important and grave works of Oscar Wilde.
Dorian Gray is a very beautiful and charming young man, not far for nothing he was called «Prince Charming» But his soul is not so beautiful as his fine appearance — he is cruel and ruthless. Dorian Gray sacrificed his soul in the name of eternal youth and beauty. His love to Sybil Vane proved that he is not able on the common human sense, he fell in love not with the girl but with art. Dorian Gray loved in her an actress but he never loved Sybil Vane, ordinary girl that she was And he pitilessly pushed her away, breaking her loving heart as soon as from glorious actress she turned into a common woman, and she didn’t stir even his curiosity.
Oscar Wilde showed that Dorian Gray soiled his image, that beauty without humanism is futile.
And I think the main idea which Oscar Wilde wanted to give is: the real beauty is the beauty of your heart. With the help of his compositions he tried to reform man and there is something romantic about him, that’s why we can add his name to the list of genie such as A. Pope, W. Shakespeare, J. Byron and W. Blake. To my mind Wilde is more romantic and realist than decadent. Thanks to the novels, paradoxes, tales and plays of this genius (began to understand what real beauty is, Oscar Wilde overturned my world and opened my eyes and think) belong to the cultivated — thanks to him for me there is hope.
Let me finish at this because as Oscar Wilde said: «Those who try to exhaust their subject exhaust their listeners».