Oscar Wilde: The Uncorrupt Aestheticist

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Oscar Wilde: The Uncorrupt Aestheticist Pleasure is a drug. While it may feel good taking it, one can easily become addicted and destroy themselves over time. By analyzing the famous poet and playwright Oscar Wilde’s work, one can understand his beliefs on how important beauty and pleasure are in the world. In his only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, the main character, Dorian Gray, starts to corrupt his soul as he realizes how much better his life can be when he ignores any sense of morals. When he wishes for his painting to age and for him to remain young forever, his actions throughout the book reflected the damage done to the painting over time. Eventually, Dorian tries to destroy the aged painting and ends up killing himself in the …show more content…

While most of his childhood is unknown, majority of the influences of his writing were sourced around his adulthood. For example, when Wilde was twenty seven and finished studying at Oxford, he moved in with a popular portrait artist named Frank Miles in London, England. During his time living with Miles, Wilde was able to publish a collection of poems which officially began his writing career. His time with Miles was an important influence in his later work because aside from being an inspiration for the character Basil Hallward in The Picture of Dorian Gray, Miles introduced Wilde to a man with very similar traits to Lord Henry in his novel. While details of their direct interactions are unknown, he seems to have pulled people from his life into his novel and portray them in a way to emphasize the popular aesthetic and hedonistic culture. After living with Miles throughout the year, Wilde decided to expand his career and travel across the United States in 1881 to lecture people on aesthetics. In fact, he led thousands of lectures throughout his time in the US and began working on a play called Vera. By being a spokesman on the topic of aestheticism, not only was Wilde able to directly talk to people about his ideas but by doing so he was able to practice bringing those ideas to life through various methods. One of the biggest influences on the ideas found in his work are from the Aesthetic Movement. During this era, artists and designers began to rapidly arise, spreading their dedication to beauty through various forms. Creativity flourished, and people were advocating behavior that enhanced one’s own beauty or pleasure (Duggan, P.). The belief of aestheticism is seen throughout The Picture of Dorian Gray because of how Dorian is so obsessed with his own beauty, and how everyone has no care for their own morals. Instead

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