A Study Of Oscar Wilde's Humanism

Oscar Wilde (1856-1900) was a famous English playwright, novelist, poet and literary critic in the late Victorian age. This thesis attempts to discuss the humanist thought of Oscar Wilde which has attracted less critical attention in the past century than it should deserve. As an inseparable part of Western humanism, Wilde's humanist ideas find its roots especially in ancient Greek and nineteenth century English culture. Through a thorough analysis of Wilde's works, this thesis explores the origin and development, the main ideas and major feature (i.e. both subversive and reconstructive) of his humanist thought.This thesis consists of four chapters.Chapter one studies the various definitions of humanism and its essential elements, so as to gain a working definition through which the main ideas and major feature of Wilde's humanism are explored. This chapter studies the dialogues of some major intellectuals in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries on humanism. Although various in social and intellectual background, Wilde's humanist ideas have something in common with those of Jean-Paul Sartre, Friedrich Nietzsche, Irving Babbitt, T.S. Eliot, Lionel Trilling and Edward Said. These ideas all have a critical and subversive character, with an aim to reform man and to reconstruct the world. Wilde believes that man's responsibility to nature and society is to reform them, and the poets should take the task of changing the national morality so as to renovate the world and the age.Chapter two explores two origins of Wilde's humanism, which can be dated back to ancient Greece and Victorian England. His childhood longing for and later travel to Greece, his intensive study of Greek classics in Ireland and Oxford, and the pervasive Hellenism in Victorian England, all contribute to his heritage and reinterpretation of ancient Greek humanism. The Greek influences can be found in his reflection on rationality and sensibility, his appreciation for hedonism, his stress on virtue, his love for beauty and his exploration of self-consciousness. Living in Victorian England, he has personal contacts with such humanists as Mathew Arnold, John Ruskin and Walter Pater, whose influences on him are evident in his criticism of materialism, his analysis of the function of beauty, his admiration for sensibility and his thinking on culture and morality.Chapter three focus on the core of Wilde's humanism which contains the moral dimension in his atheistic ideas, self-fulfillment through 'individualism', and the harmonious coexistence of rationality and sensibility. These three aspects are intertwined and embody the subversive and reconstructive character of his humanist ideas.Wilde thinks highly of the purification of man's soul and social life by the force of beauty, especially the rebellious beauty of "Evil" which reforms the grounds of morality and art. He regards individuality as the road to self-fulfillment. His own individualistic rebel against his age is the promotion of sensibility, the so-called "new Hedonism". But the respect for rationality centers in his early humanist thought, and its critical spirit still continues in his later thinking.Chapter four provides a textual analysis of his novel, comedies, fairy tales and critical essays, in which the core and major feature of Wilde's humanist ideas are illustrated. The Picture of Dorian Grey contains Wilde's interpretations on rationality and sensibility, which reminds their harmonious coexistence in ancient Greek and criticizes the overstress on the former in Victorian England. The Importance of Being Earnest and Lady Windermere's Fan expose the moral hypocrisy and redefines good and evil. The Happy Prince and The Nightingale and the Rose reveal Wilde's attempt to reconstruct morality through beauty, good and love.Wilde's humanism develops the humanist ideas before him and responds to the social reality and psychology. It has great influences on the artistic and humanist trends since the beginning of the twentieth century. Its main ideas and major feature still deserve serious consideration in our contemporary humanist thinking.