This book is the first collection of essays to discuss Oscar Wilde’s love and vast knowledge of philosophy. Over the past few decades, Oscar Wilde scholars have become increasingly aware of Wilde’s love and intimate knowledge of philosophy. Wilde’s “Oxford Notebooks” and his soon-to-be-published “Notebook on Philosophy” all point to Wilde not just as an aesthete, but also as a serious philosophical thinker. The aim of this collection is not to make the statement that Wilde was a philosopher, or that his works were philosophical tracts. Rather, it provides a space to explore any and all linkages between Wilde’s works and philosophical thought. Addressing a broad spectrum of philosophical matter, from classical philology to Daoism, ethics to aestheticism, this collection enriches the literature on Wilde and philosophy alike.

Though best known for his drama and fiction, Oscar Wilde was also a pioneering critic. He introduced the idea that criticism was an act of creation, not just appraisal. Wilde transformed the genre by extending its ambit beyond art to include society itself, all while injecting it with his trademark wit and style.

Offers advice on writing essays about the works of Oscar Wilde and lists sample topics.

Oscar Wilde is more than a name, more than an author. From precocious Oxford undergraduate to cause celebre of the West End of the 1890s, to infamous criminal, the proper name Wilde has become an event in the history of literature and culture. Taking Wilde seriously as a philosopher in his own right, Whiteley's groundbreaking book places his texts into their philosophical context in order to show how Wilde broke from his peers, and in particular from idealism, and challenges recent neo-historicist readings of Wilde which seem content to limit his irruptive power. Using the paradoxical concept of the simulacrum to resituate Wilde's work in relation to both his precursors and his contemporaries, Whiteley's study reads Wilde through Deleuze and postmodern philosophical commentary on the simulacrum. In a series of striking juxtapositions, Whiteley challenges us to rethink both Oscar Wilde's aesthetics and his philosophy, to take seriously both the man and the mask. His philosophy of masks is revealed to figure a truth of a different kind - the simulacra through which Wilde begins to develop and formulate a mature philosophy that constitutes an ethics of joy.

Oscar Wilde was a consumer modernist. His modernist aesthetics drove him into the heart of the mass culture industries of 1890s London, particularly the journalism and popular theatre industries. Wilde was extremely active in these industries: as a journalist at the Pall Mall Gazette; as magazine editor of the Women’s World; as commentator on dress and design through both of these; and finally as a fabulously popular playwright. Because of his desire to impact a mass audience, the primary elements of Wilde’s consumer aesthetic were superficial ornament and ephemeral public image – both of which he linked to the theatrical. This concern with the surface and with the ephemeral was, ironically, a foundational element of what became twentieth-century modernism – thus we can call Wilde’s aesthetic a consumer modernism, a root and branch of modernism that was largely erased.

Selected works of Oscar Wilde from the series "Best of the Best" is the book that everyone should read to understand themselves and each other. The authors and works for this book series were selected, as a result of numerous studies, analysis of the texts over the past 100 years and the demand for readers. It must be read in order to understand the world around us, its history, to recognize the heroes, to understand the winged expressions and jokes that come from these literary works. Reading these books will mean the discovery of a world of self-development and self-expression for each person. These books have been around for decades, and sometimes centuries, for the time they recreate, the values they teach, the point of view, or simply the beauty of words. This volume of the Best of the Best series includes famous works THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY AN IDEAL HUSBAND THE CANTERVILLE GHOST THE HAPPY PRINCE. THE NIGHTINGALE AND THE ROSE. THE SELFISH GIANT. THE DEVOTED FRIEND. THE REMARKABLE ROCKET. THE YOUNG KING THE BIRTHDAY OF THE INFANTA THE SOUL OF MAN THE FISHERMAN AND HIS SOUL THE STAR-CHILD LADY WINDERMERE’S FAN DE PROFUNDIS A WOMAN OF NO IMPORTANCE POEMS POEMS IN PROSE LORD ARTHUR SAVILE’S CRIME THE PORTRAIT OF Mr. W. H. AND OTHER STORIES INTENTIONS ESSAYS AND LECTURES

Professor Kohl's aim is to gain fresh insight into his literary and critical œuvre of Oscar Wilde. He analyses each of his works on the basis of a textually oriented interpretation, taking equal account of the biographical and intellectual contexts through the use of contradictions that Wilde show as individualism and convention.

Reproduction of the original: Oscar Wilde by Leonard Creswell Ingleby

An examination of the most significant literary criticism on Wilde at the turn of the century. In 1891, Oscar Wilde defined 'the highest criticism' as 'the record of one's own soul, and insisted that only by 'intensifying his own personality' could the critic interpret the personality and work of others. This book exploreswhat Wilde meant by that statement, arguing that it provides the best standard for judging literary criticism about Wilde a century after his death. Melissa Knox examines a range of Wilde criticism in English -- including the work of Lawrence Danson, Michael Patrick Gillespie, Ed Cohen, and Julia Prewitt Brown. Applying Wilde's standards to his critics, Knox discovers that the best of them take to heart Wilde's idea of the aim of criticism -- 'to see theobject as in itself it really is not.' By this, Wilde appreciates Walter Pater's profound observation that everyone sees through a 'thick wall of personality' and that, therefore, objectivity as conceived by Matthew Arnold does not exist. Admiring Pater, Wilde became a prophet for Freud, his exact contemporary. Their intellectual sympathies, made obvious in Knox's exegesis, help to make the case for Wilde as a modern, not a Victorian. Melissa Knox's book Oscar Wilde: A Long and Lovely Suicide was published in 1994. She teaches at the University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany.

DigiCat presents to you this meticulously edited Oscar Wilde collection: Plays: Vera The Duchess of Padua Lady Windermere's Fan A Woman of No Importance Salomé Salome (English Version) An Ideal Husband The Importance of Being Earnest La Sainte Courtisane A Florentine Tragedy For Love of the King Novel: The Picture of Dorian Gray (The Original Version) The Picture of Dorian Gray (The Revised 20 Chapter Version) Short Stories: The Portrait of Mr. W. H. The Happy Prince and Other Tales: The Happy Prince The Nightingale and the Rose The Devoted Friend The Selfish Giant The Remarkable Rocket A House of Pomegranates: The Young King The Birthday of the Infanta The Fisherman and His Soul The Star-Child Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories: Lord Arthur Savile's Crime The Canterville Ghost The Sphinx Without a Secret The Model Millionaire Poetry: Ravenna Hélas! Eleutheria Sonnet to Liberty Ave Imperatrix Louis Napoleon. Quantum Mutata Libertatis Sacra Fames Theoretikos The Garden of Eros Rosa Mystica The Burden of Itys Wind Flowers Impression du Matin Magdalen Walks Athanasia Serenade Endymion La Bella Donna della Mia Mente Chanson Charmides Flowers of Gold The Sphinx The Ballad of Reading Gaol... Essays & Lectures: Intentions The Decay of Lying The Critic as Artist Pen, Pencil, and Poison The Truth of Masks The Rise of Historical Criticism The English Renaissance of Art House Decoration Art and the Handicraftsman Lecture to Art Students London Models Poems in Prose The Soul of Man under Socialism Phrases and Philosophies for the Use of the Young A Few Maxims for the Instruction of the Over-Educated De Profundis Impressions of America... Literary Reviews: Dinners and Dishes A Modern Epic Shakespeare on Scenery A Bevy of Poets Parnassus versus Philology... Other Works: Aphorisms Des Grieux (Prelude to Teleny) Teleny Letters: Letters to the Daily Chronicle Children in Prison and Other Cruelties of Prison Life Letters on Dorian Gray Letters to Robert Ross Oscar Wilde, His life and Confessions – Biography by Frank Harris