Oscar Wilde’s Aestheticism

Abstract

Abstract -Dandyism is a very important and significant social phenomenon in 19 th century Europe. This paper focuses on Oscar Wilde and Wilde’s numerous works. Aestheticism was used as a tool by the dandy in his rebellious performances in London, manifesting the contradiction between the spiritual and the material, the aristocracy and the bourgeoisie, and art and nature. The social backgrounds and life experiences of Wilde influenced his transformation into dandies during the time of the Victorian period. With his strong sense of fashion and style, and their elegant ironic use of language, the dandies focused on the importance of artificial forms - himself included — in daily life and work. The dandies’ concern was pleasure seeking through consuming the visual and actual. To this end Wilde developed unique aesthetic theories regarding evil; he looked for the beautiful in the ugly and repulsive. At the same time, Oscar Wilde criticized the hypocrisy of bourgeois morality and values, showing the genuinely ugly and evil reality beneath bourgeois industrial society, and focusing on revolt and resistance against the bourgeois world. Index Terms -Dandyism,  Aestheticism, Revolt