Oscar Wilde生平,作品,流派.pptVIP

1. Life He， born in Dublin in1854, studied classics at Trinity College（三圣学院），and then went to Oxford University, where he distinguished himself as a classical scholar and poet. His Father was Ireland’s leading eye and ear surgeon and his mother was a poet and author. Aestheticism Aestheticism is a Victorian literary movement that was begun in the late 19th century. Followers of the movement believed that art should not be mixed with social, political, or moral teaching. Walter Pater’s statement “the love of art for its own sake” is a good summary of aestheticism. The movement had its roots in France, but it gained widespread importance in England in the last half of the nineteenth century, where it helped change the Victorian practice of including moral lessons in literature. Oscar Wilde is one of the best-known aesthetes of the late nineteenth century. Aestheticism The novel The Picture of Dorian Gray succinctly sets forth the tenets of Wilde’s philosophy of art. Devoted to a school of thought and a mode of sensibility known as aestheticism, Wilde believed that art possesses an intrinsic value—that it is beautiful and therefore has worth and does not need to serve any other purpose, be it moral or political. The purpose of art was to guide life, and to do this it must concern itself only with the pursuit of beauty. Aestheticism This attitude was revolutionary in Victorian England, where popular belief held that art was not only a function of morality but also a means of enforcing it. In the preface to The Picture of Dorian Gray, Wilde also cautioned readers against finding meanings “beneath the surface” of art. “All art is quite useless.” “Diversity of opinion about a work of art shows that the work is new, complex, and vital.” Aestheticism Wilde believed that the artist should hold forth higher ideals, and that pleasure and beauty would replace utilitarian ethics. Importance of individualism There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books ar