The Illumination Of Thanatopsis In Wilde's Fairy Tales

Death is the destination people can never escape. And death attracts people from ancient to modern times with its unique mysteriousness. It supplies enough imaginary space to people, and becomes the most important source of vital force of literature and art. Philosophers constantly think"what is death"or"what is alive", men of letters use words to describe"how wonderful life is"or"how frightened death is". There are a lot of discussions about death in literary works, even in great works, and the creations which focus on death theme or the writers who select death as theme are too numerous to mention one by one. Digesting these works, we could try to understand the meaning of death and experience death spiritually, so that we might dispel the mystery of death and reach a deeper appreciation for life.As the representative writer of Aestheticism in the end of the nineteenth century, and a phenomenon in English literature, Oscar Wilde had prominent literary talent admired by people, and his astonishing actions also shocked the world. Wilde learned widely from others'strong points and then he formed his artistic view of aestheticism and his utopian fancy of ideal society. Just for this reason, critics paid an excess of attention to Wilde's aestheticism, and ignored others. Wilde's dramatic life, which experienced from heaven to hell, suffered sad taste of world and underwent both fame and hardship. This type of life made Wilde gain a deep insight into death and life easily. Wilde expressed his unique view of the theme of death.The thesis is divided into five parts. The first part is the introduction which briefly talks about Wilde's literary theory and his contradictoriness in his literary creation, and explains the significance of death theme in his fairy tales. The second part talks about different types of death in Wilde's fairy tales, and it will be illuminated from three parts,"natural death","death for love"and"death for good". The third part focuses on elements which influence Wilde to select death as theme. In this part the analysis of the social background, Wilde's life experience and decadentism which was popular at the end of the nineteenth century explains the necessity of Wilde's selection of death theme. The fourth part reveals the profound meaning of Wilde's death theme. From the cause of death in his fairy tales and the social background, people can understand that Wilde chooses death theme not at will or by chance, but wants to express the desire for the rescue of artistic beauty, the enthusiasm for the praise of human love and the hope for the salvation of human or social morality. The fifth part is the conclusion of this thesis. Although Wilde sets up a flag as"All art is immoral", from the analysis of the death theme in his fairy tales, we can realize that Wilde is not a man who despises or tramples down morality. In contrast, Wilde has a high standard for moral. What Wilde opposed is the rigid and doctrinaire promotion of moral. Wilde hopes to reveal the artistic beauty and the moral beauty in his works. When people appreciate the beauty, people will realize the importance of morality and pursue the existence of beauty in their normal life. Nowadays, when people read Wilde's fairy tales again, besides the strong feeling of his aesthetic words and his satire of the social reality, they will understand Wilde's pursuit of"pure beauty"and his non-dogmatic intention of telling people to be good.