Abstract: Looking back on his life in De Profundis, Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) saw himself as the symbol of his age,1 a figure in which its diverse intellectual, cultural, and artistic tendencies had been finally embodied. Wilde dominates the fin de siècle scene by representing the efflorescence of nineteenth century culture — efflorescence in the sense both of flowering and of final crystalization. His writing is informed by a bewildering number of the „sensations and ideas“ (as his teacher the aesthetic critic Walter Pater would say) that made up the multitudinous consciousness expressed in nineteenth century literature. These include a remarkable sensuousness, a continuous appeal (mainly through the medium of language, of course) to the eye and ear and sometimes humbler organs. Wilde went as far as any of his predecessors in cultivating this sensuousness, often by appealing to more than one sense at a time: in the mingling of fragrance and color that opens The Picture of Dorian Gray he emulates the sensory fusions of John Keats (1795–1821) and Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867). Nevertheless, Wilde’s sensuous imagery is most significant when he opposes the two primary senses, sight and hearing, instead of blending them. In opposing these he favors hearing — despite the teachings of the moralist-critic John Ruskin (1819–1900), who preached the moral obligation of seeing. Through Ruskin’s vast work runs what Robert Hewison has justly called „The Argument of the Eye“:2 to this argument Wilde, notwithstanding his appreciation of Ruskin, offers a counterargument that could be called „the argument of the ear“.
Publication Year: 2003
Publication Date: 2003-01-01
Language: en
Type: book-chapter
Indexed In: ['crossref']
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