Oscar Wilde: Classic or Dud? Search and Destroy

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He was witty but I was never very satisfied by any of the 'serious' works I read. Dorian Gray is not bad but it requires you to buy into this absurd premise that there is some direct correlation between physical beauty and virtue of character. The Importance of Being Earnest was too much of a corny Victorian drama, with its heavy-handed moralizing and coincidence-driven plot. The poetry had its moments but he wasn't Keats or anything. On the other hand, I thought the fairy tales were very good, possibly the best medium for him. "The Happy Prince" is classic.

― sundar subramanian, Saturday, 10 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

I never sleep. It wasn't much of a thread actually.

― Nick, Saturday, 10 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

nick you're suck a buffoon

― Mike Hanle y, Saturday, 10 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

I know, but still.

― Nick, Saturday, 10 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

There's also those bits in Dorian Grey were he's talking about the gems he's studying and stuff like that... it's such obvious filler.

― Sean, Saturday, 10 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

Doesn't Bosie look a bit like Steve Malkmus?

― Arthur, Saturday, 10 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

I hate people who think they're good for quoting Mr Wilde. Oh, well done, how learned you are.

― DG, Saturday, 10 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

Sean, those bits are an homage to Huysman's 'A Rebours'

― dave q, Saturday, 10 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

Those bits about the gems etc were taken verbatim from catalogues of the day. FWIW. "postmodernist" anticipation bleh bleh NO, just taking the piss and doing it subtly and well. UNLIKE some others who've tried a similar tack in recent years (BE Ellis, D. Coupland)

― Tracer Hand, Saturday, 10 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

I say he's very much classic. I love the fairy tales (especially The Young King), like Dorian Gray, and haven't read any of the plays yet.

I don't think Dorian requires you to buy into that absurd premise, Sundar. I wouldn't take it literally to mean that if you do something bad you get uglier; that's so ridiculous it can't be what Wilde meant. The idea that your character builds on your actions is much more commonplace and I think Wilde was using Dorian's appearance to illustrate it.

― Maria, Saturday, 10 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

oh and....http://www.planetmonk.com/wilde/index.html has some of his stuff up. my favorites are "the young king," "the birthday of the infanta," and "the nightingale and the rose."

― maria, Saturday, 10 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

what Maria said. there is also a fascinating school of thought which holds that Wilde's homosexuality was expressed in his literature by way of the inversion of normal ideas and tropes and the constant and self-reflexive tension between "nature" and "art" in his works. it's too intricate to go into at this time of the morning though.

― katie, Sunday, 11 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

Good point re À Rebours, which goes hand in hand with Dorian Gray. While Wilde is not a Symbolist, his most symbolist work like the aforementioned classic and Salome have the most appeal to me. His Salome is to me the best take on the theme, being so much more lyrical than Flaubert's excruciatingly factual "Herodias". Saltavit et placuit!

― Simon, Sunday, 11 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

I think the plays are alot more subtle then you give him credit for and i took the exat oppisote message from Dorian Grey. But you are all forgetting the amazing De Profundis

― anthony, Sunday, 11 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

Make sure you read the uncut De Profundis if you can. Either way, it's an amazing example of a confession with the truth just dressed up enough to seem even more dramatic.

― Ned Raggett, Sunday, 11 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

Crazy, I was thinking about a thread like this on some of my 500 mile drive round the country this weekend. (ILE is all pervasive)

I adore the happy prince, it is so beautiful, even more so in frecnh because the 'swallow, swallow, little swallow...' become 'hirondeau, hirondeau, petit hirondeau' ( i know this because we did thr happy prince as a french play in my prep school under the auspices of a french teacher who looked like alaister sim in a wig (a big orange plastic beehive of a wig))

however I do think its a wonderfull little fable

― Ed, Monday, 12 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

I didn't really think the message of Dorian Grey was that bad actions lead to physical ugliness in the real world. But that was the premise for the world he created in the book in order to relate the message you mentioned. I just thought it was a weird metaphor to use, that's all. I wasn't totally sure it worked for me. My phrasing was a little provocatively obtuse. I did generally like the book.

I only saw the one play.

― sundar subramanian, Monday, 12 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

He was especially good in my eighteen-year-old velvet jacket phase. Still good now. I agree about De Profundis.

― Will, Monday, 12 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

nine years pass...

Alex Ross in the New Yorker:

http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2011/08/08/110808crat_atlarge_ross?currentPage=all

― Ned Raggett, Monday, 8 August 2011 21:15 (twelve years ago) link

An excellent piece.

― livin in my own private Biden hole (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 8 August 2011 21:16 (twelve years ago) link

And as we already both agree on, the Ellmann bio remains the gold standard for any general approach.

Only finally recently read the Lippincott Dorian Gray so this article was well timed. Knowing that earlier versions exist intrigues. (I'd read some on the initial changes but not all.)

― Ned Raggett, Monday, 8 August 2011 21:22 (twelve years ago) link

six years pass...

hbd Oscar, millennial Twitter rageaholics would demonize you worse than the Crown did.

― ice cream social justice (Dr Morbius), Monday, 16 October 2017 20:43 (six years ago) link

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