On The Aesthetic Deaths In Oscar Wilde's Fairy Tales

Oscar Wilde is a representative writer of aestheticism in the 19th century. He has a high reputation in literary history. Wilde's two collections The Happy Prince and Other Tales and A House of Pomegranates have long been considered as a model which represents his aestheticism. With the development of research on Oscar Wilde's fairy tales, some researchers have discussed the relationship between aestheticism of art and the style of fairy tale. Some have compared the difference between Wilde's fairy tales and the traditional fairy tales from the structure and the way of writing. This thesis will attempt to make a systematic and thorough exploration of the aesthetic deaths in Oscar Wilde's fairy tales. It will analyze the connotations of the aesthetic deaths in the fairy tales from the perspectives of children and adults.To begin with, this thesis sorts the deaths in Wilde's fairy tales into three categories. The characters in the tales die of love or kindness and some die unexpectedly. Then, the thesis makes an exploration of the connotations of death in his fairy tales from the perspectives of children and adults respectively.From the perspective of children, this thesis analyzes that the aesthetic deaths in Wilde's fairy tales can make children's fear of death decrease and accept the concept of death rightly. In this part the thesis also focuses on aesthetic treatment of Christ. Through an analysis of the way of death in fairy tales we find that Wilde actually wants to use Christian principles like love, kindness, tolerance and selflessness to inform children that love is the best thing in the world. It can purify the soul and the purified soul will gain eternal life and enter the worry-free hall.From the perspective of adults, the interpretations of the aesthetic deaths are different from those in children's eyes. The deaths reveal Wilde's aestheticism. This part focuses on identifying that the deaths in Wilde's fairy tales are the aesthetic deaths through the combination of the deaths and the three main views of Wilde's aestheticism: "Art never expresses anything but itself", "Life imitates art far more than art imitates life" and "Art should alienate from life". The beautiful untrue death embodies the independence of art creation. The ideal death implies that art should guide life and life should imitate art. The art utopia implies Wilde tries to build an art utopia in his art works to pursue the beauty and goodness. In such an artistic world which alienates from life, the artists' self can be strengthened and rebuilt and the essence of art can be achieved. However, the aim to establish utopia does not focus on the real practice or whether it can be achieved, but the challenge to its ideological barriers and the fighting against the limitations of thinking. So the aesthetic deaths bear the author's profound concept of the aesthetic art view and aesthetic philosophy. By the unique aesthetic death, Wilde achieves the intention of writing-to express his own aesthetic art view and aesthetic attitude toward life. And this is also a practice of aestheticism in artistic creation.Next, any kind of thoughts and ideas are the reflection of the objective world. Then, how does the unique idea of the aesthetic deaths come into being? This thesis discusses the possible answer to this question by brief analysis of the impact brought by decadence and aestheticism on Wilde's art creation and the influence of Wilde's social and family background.In short, the thesis attempts to gain a further discussion of the richness of Oscar Wilde's fairy tales by the research of the aesthetic deaths. The aesthetic deaths make Wilde's fairy tales not only meet the children's unique and imaginative psychological needs, but also touch adults'suffered and sophisticated minds. It shows Wilde's pursuit of the ultimate beauty of life and the constant practice of aesthetic ideology. Today people give unprecedented attention to the children and their education. We expect to have more "adult's literature" that children love and "children's literature" that adults appreciate published.