On The Aesthetics Of Death In Oscar Wilde’s Fairy Tales

Oscar Wilde is a representative of Aestheticism in England at the end of19thcentury. Death theme in his The Happy Prince and Other Stories contains typicalaesthetics of Aestheticism. So this thesis focuses on Wilde’s fairy tales to explore theaesthetic features of death theme.The thesis mainly adopts close reading and readers’ response theories andcombines with Wilde’s aesthetic theory and the philosophy of death in his times toexplore Wilde’s special aesthetics of death from three perspectives. Firstly, from theaesthetic foreshadowing and characterization for death and the tragic beauty of deaththat can shock people’s souls, the thesis explains the reason why death presents beautyin the fairy tales: readers’ imagination for beauty can be mobilized through the powerof art so as to transfer the horror of death to beauty. Secondly, the thesis discusses thatcharacters in the fairy tales end their life in a voluntary mood for the pursuit of reallove not existing in real life or to condemn hypocritical love in real life. In this way,the rebellion against utilitarianism in real life is showed. Death is a way to rebel withaesthetic features and death discards the bound of utilitarianism which makes itpossible to study death from aesthetic sense. Since death is an embodiment and pursuitof beauty and love, why there always appear many Christ images in the death ending ofthe fairy tales? The last part of the thesis aims to solve this question. With further closereading, Wilde’s Christian aestheticism is found by taking Wilde’s religious changeprocess and his aesthetic understanding about Christ image and Christ death intoconsideration. Christ image is only a mask. The final belief that death seeks is love andbeauty which completes the aesthetic transcendence of death.By studying aesthetics of death in Wilde’s fairy tales, the thesis finds theagreement between death theme and the features of Aestheticism, and makescontribution for people to better understand Wilde’s humanism and aestheticism.Meanwhile, the thesis finds the limitation of Aestheticism: due to class compromise,Wilde still lacks the courage to subvert the old thoughts completely，and to put forwardthe distinct connotation of the new belief. Because study on aesthetics of death of thethesis only focuses on Wilde’s fairy tales, the thesis has some limitations. Theresearcher still hopes to help people in the modern society to discard death puzzle andunderstand the aesthetic meaning of death.