The Importance Of Wearing Masks

Oscar Wilde (1854-1900), Irish-horn celebrated wit, dandy, playwright, novelist, essayist, and poet, was the outstanding aestheticism spokesman, who advocated the "art for art' s sake" movement at the end of the nineteenth century, and has influenced the Western literary field for a whole century. Few writers have succeeded in so many genres as he did: the aesthetic novel The Picture of Dorian Gray, fairy tales The Happy Prince and The Selfish Giant, the high farce The Importance of being Earnest, the scenario of Salome, and the tragic poem The Ballad of Reading Gaol, are only five examples of Wilde' s mastery of different forms. However, few men of letters have experienced such a dramatic life as he did: born in a respectable family, he began to show his talent very early, conquered the London upper class by his witty talk, blossomed in different genres, the plays created are still performed throughout the world successfully, fell from the crest of reputation to endless shame and sufferings overnight, died in poverty and painful illness, and became the subject of increasing attention almost a century after his death.Taking a panoramic view of Oscar Wilde, no matter from his works or from his lifetime, we can sense his rebellious dandiacal characteristic. This thesis is the very attempt to probe into the reasons for Wilde' s preference for portraying dandies and how he succeeded in doing it. For the purpose of having a thorough understanding of the essence of the dandy image, this thesis, emphatically, discusses the uncovering and criticizing elements towards the bourgeoisie upper class realized by Wilde the Dandy and the dandies under his pen and the reasonable and progressive factors in aestheticism.This thesis is organized in four parts: the first aims to provide a general introduction to Wilde' s dandiacal lifetime, the backgroundcharacteristic of his time, and his theatrical contribution; the second places the focus on various dandies in Wilde' s four comedies and the only novel, analyzing how Wilde bitterly satirized the hypocrisy and degeneration of the bourgeoisie upper class; the third mainly discusses the subversive nature of comedy, the rebellious spirit of dandyism, the struggling resolution decided by Wilde' s Irish identity, and Wilde' s socialistic tendency; in the concluding part, my thesis analyses thehistory of aestheticism, and the opposite standpoints held by utilitarianists and aesthetes on the dialectical relation between means and ends, and finally reaches the conclusion that Wilde advocated "art for art' s sake" in reaction to "art for bourgeoisie political sake" , aiming at upholding art and subverting the bourgeoisie' s upper class, and his dandiacal pose was a vivid embodiment of aestheticism in real li fe.