Oscar Wilde

Oscar Wilde PDF Author: Richard Ellmann
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0804151121
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 737

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Book Description
Winner of both the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Pulitzer Prize, Oscar Wilde is the definitive biography of the tortured poet and playwright and the last book by renowned biographer and literary critic Richard Ellmann. Ellmann dedicated two decades to the research and writing of this biography, resulting in a complex and richly detailed portrait of Oscar Wilde. Ellman captures the wit, creativity, and charm of the psychologically and sexually complicated writer, as well as the darker aspects of his personality and life. Covering everything from Wilde's rise as a young literary talent to his eventual imprisonment and death in exile with exquisite detail, Ellmann's fascinating account of Wilde's life and work is a resounding triumph.

Oscar Wilde

Oscar Wilde PDF Author: Richard Ellmann
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0804151121
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 737

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Book Description
Winner of both the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Pulitzer Prize, Oscar Wilde is the definitive biography of the tortured poet and playwright and the last book by renowned biographer and literary critic Richard Ellmann. Ellmann dedicated two decades to the research and writing of this biography, resulting in a complex and richly detailed portrait of Oscar Wilde. Ellman captures the wit, creativity, and charm of the psychologically and sexually complicated writer, as well as the darker aspects of his personality and life. Covering everything from Wilde's rise as a young literary talent to his eventual imprisonment and death in exile with exquisite detail, Ellmann's fascinating account of Wilde's life and work is a resounding triumph.

Beautiful and Impossible Things: Selected Essays of Oscar Wilde

Beautiful and Impossible Things: Selected Essays of Oscar Wilde PDF Author: Oscar Wilde
Publisher: New York Review of Books
ISBN: 1910749397
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 159

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Book Description
This selection of Oscar Wilde’s writings provides a fresh perspective on his character and thinking. Compiled from his lecture tours, newspaper articles, essays and epigrams, these pieces show that beneath the trademark wit, Wilde was a deeply humane and visionary writer, as challenging today as he was in the late 1800s. This edition includes essays on interior design, prison reform, Shakespeare, the dramatic dialogue Decay of Lying and the seminal Soul of Man.

Essays

Essays PDF Author: Oscar Wilde
Publisher: Books for Libraries
ISBN:
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description


The Decay of Lying

The Decay of Lying PDF Author: Oscar Wilde
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 0141192658
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 330

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Book Description
'The Decay of Lying' sees Oscar Wilde explore his deepest preoccupations about the relationship between life and art, and examine the work of such writers as Shakespeare and Balzac.

The Decay of Lying

The Decay of Lying PDF Author: Oscar Wilde
Publisher: Les Prairies Numeriques
ISBN: 9782382748213
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 26

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Book Description
The Decay of Lying: An Observation By Oscar Wilde "The Decay of Lying - An Observation" is an essay by Oscar Wilde included in his collection of essays titled Intentions, published in 1891. This is a significantly revised version of the article that first appeared in the January 1889 issue of The Nineteenth Century.Wilde presents the essay in a Socratic dialogue between with Vivian and Cyril, two characters named after his own sons. Their conversation, though playful and whimsical, promotes Wilde's view of Romanticism over Realism. Vivian tells Cyril of an article he has been writing called "The Decay Of Lying: A Protest". According to Vivian, the decay of Lying "as an art, a science, and a social pleasure" is responsible for the decline of modern literature, which is excessively concerned with the representation of facts and social reality. He writes, "if something cannot be done to check, or at least to modify, our monstrous worship of facts, Art will become sterile and beauty will pass away from the land." Moreover, Vivian defends the idea that Life imitates Art far more than vice versa. Nature, he argues, is no less an imitation of Art than Life. Vivian also contends that Art is never representative of a time or place: rather, "the highest art rejects the burden of the human spirit [...] She develops purely on her own lines. She is not symbolic of any age." Vivian thus defends Aestheticism and the concept of "art for art's sake". At Cyril's behest, Vivian briefly summarizes the doctrines of the "new aesthetics" in the following terms: Art never expresses anything but itself.All bad art comes from returning to Life and Nature, and elevating them into ideals.Life imitates Art far more than Art imitates Life. It follows as a corollary that external Nature also imitates Art.Lying, the telling of beautiful untrue things, is the proper aim of Art.The essay ends with the two characters going outside, as Cyril asked Vivian to do at the beginning of the essay. Vivian finally complies, saying that twilight nature's "chief use" may be to "illustrate quotations from the poets."As Michèle Mendelssohn points out, "in an era when sociology was still in its infancy, psychology wasn't yet a discipline, and theories of performativity were still a long way off, Wilde's essay touched on a profound truth about human behaviour in social situations. The laws of etiquette governing polite society were, in fact, a mask. Tact was merely an elaborate art of impression management."

Critical Essays on Oscar Wilde

Critical Essays on Oscar Wilde PDF Author: Regenia Gagnier
Publisher: Macmillan Reference USA
ISBN:
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 296

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Book Description
Gagnier's introduction and selection of essays on Wilde (1854-1900) mainly concern contemporary American criticism, including three original essays written for this volume. Together they constitute an assessment of what Wilde's work and history mean for the US at this juncture of world history and social theory. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

The Artist as Critic

The Artist as Critic PDF Author: Oscar Wilde
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226897648
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 475

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Book Description
Reprint. Originally published: New York: Random House, [1969]

Oscar Wilde

Oscar Wilde PDF Author: Philippe Jullian
Publisher: Trans-Atlantic Publications Incorporated
ISBN: 9780094726208
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 420

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Book Description
'..a biographer of supreme intelligence and industry, since the bibliography is immense and he has delved into it with extraordinary taste and imagination.' - The Spectator 'An excellent book, detailed where detail was still needed, sensibly perfunctory where almost everything possible has already been told and said.' - The Observer 'M. Jullian's book succeeds in keeping the reader's interest unflaggingly alive.' - The Economist

Intentions

Intentions PDF Author: Oscar Wilde
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Art critics
Languages : en
Pages : 284

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Book Description


Best Critical Writing

Best Critical Writing PDF Author: Nora Rawn
Publisher: Dover Publications
ISBN: 0486826759
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 211

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Book Description
In "The Critic as Artist," Oscar Wilde declares that the critic's artistic capabilities are as important as those of the artist. Wilde's passionate defense of the aesthetics of art criticism is among the wide-ranging and thought-provoking essays of this original collection, in which noted writers discuss the role of criticism in English and American literature. Contents include Edgar Allan Poe's "The Philosophy of Composition," in which the author draws upon his most famous poem, "The Raven," to illustrate his theories on writing; Matthew Arnold's "The Study of Poetry"; and commentaries on Shakespeare's plays by Samuel Johnson and Wordsworth's poetry by William Hazlitt. Walter Pater, whose work was highly influential on the writers of the Aesthetic Movement, is represented by an essay on style. Other selections include Mark Twain's satirical "Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offences" and the "Preface to Leaves of Grass" by Walt Whitman. Brief introductory notes accompany each essay.