Memorial Notices Mr. Oscar Wilde | 1900-12-01 | The Manchester Guardian

Memorial Notices Mr. Oscar Wilde From The Guardian Unlimited Dated December 1, 1900 Mr. Oscar Wilde died at Paris last Friday in his 45th year. He was the son of Sir William Wilde, an eminent Irish surgeon, and his mother was a woman of considerable literary ability. In 1874, he entered Magdalene College, Oxford, where he won his two firsts in the classical school and also the Newtigate Prize for English Verse. But the bent of his mind was not academic or scholarly. Even while he was at Oxford, he was the most prominent leader in the New Aesthetic Movement, as it was called. The Aestheticism of the day was largely a misreading of the spirit of Hellenism. The modern world is apt to draw false antithesis between the good and the pleasant, and to make hard and fast distinctions between the moral, intellectual, and physical sides of life. The Greek knew nothing of this antithesis. Moral and physical excellence were alike beautiful. Moral and physical defects were alike ugly. Hence the philosophic basis of the New Aesthetic Movement or cult of the beautiful. The beautiful in life was the only thing worth pursuing. Ugliness was a thing to be avoided. Of course, there is a degree of truth in all this. But the fallacy of the Aesthetic doctrine of that day, as many understood it, was that it narrowed down the comprehensive Greek ideal of beauty to mere physical or material beauty. The extravagances of the Aesthetic school are almost forgotten now. But its warped and one-sided philosophy was not born with Wild, nor has it died with him. He had great literary gifts. His Romance, the Picture of Dorian Gray, which embodies his philosophy of Aestheticism, is a book of unmistakable tragic power. In 1892, he appeared as a writer of comedies with Lady Windermere's Fan. This was followed by A Woman of No Importance and An Ideal Husband. His plays were witty, paradoxical, and perverse. There was little variety in the characterization, but the work in other respects was technically admirable. In 1895, Wild disappeared from public life. Two years later, on his release from prison, he published The Ballad of Redding Gow, perhaps his most powerful piece of writing. Wild's life is one of the saddest in English literature. His abilities were sufficient to win him an honored place as a man of letters, but they struggled in vain against his lack of character. End of article