OSCAR WILDE

Wilde is the most important exponent of aestheticism, which celebrated beauty over standard codes of behaviour. This movement was born in France during the 19^th century especially with Theophile Gautier and his ideal of 'l'art pour art'.

Lord Wotton is the principal character who represents aestheticism. In his behaviour and his speech there is a note of decadence. Gautier, in fact, underlined that decadence was opposed to everything that was considered 'natural' both biologically and morally. He claimed that real beauty is unnatural and can only be produced by artifice. Unnaturalness and artifice are present in everything Wotton says or does.

The main characters of Wilde's novel 'The Picture of Dorian Gray' are Lord Wotton and the young Dorian. Wotton has the sophistication, suavity and persuasiveness traditionally associated with the devil. It seems that Wilde is creating a 19^th century reworking of the Faustus myth where Wotton plays the part of the devil or devil's servant Mephistopheles, and Dorian plays the part of Faust that stays balanced between innocence and the promise of a special knowledge.

Dorian wanted to be young and he done a pact: he won't be old, but his Basil's portrait will be old for him. The first imperfections appears in the portrait when he falls in love with Sybil Vane, but she killed herself. Under Lord Wotton, Dorian became a vice but his portrait is getting old. When Dorian met Basil, he killed him and, then, when he saw his portrait he can't tolerate his old imagine and cut the portrait. So he killed himself.

'The importance to be Earnest' is his most famous play with a central and complicated plot, which is ending with an happy end. This play shows the hypocritical face of the society, but repeats, however, the Victorian moral. Wilde uses a oblique because it isn't declared or direct. He uses, also paradox and no-sense dialogues/ideals.

Wilde uses an absurd logic full of paradox, which attacks the commonplaces and destroys them. In fact in this play Earnest is a name and an adjective: we can translate the title as 'L'importanza di chiamarsi Ernesto' or 'L'importanza di essere Onesto'. Wilde plays with the double meaning of the world. The play ends with the happy end as the Victorian Age wants.

The main character is Jack Worthing, who wants to escape by his dull life in the country. He invents a brother in London and he leaves to visit him. There, in London, he falls in love with Gwendolen, Algeron's cousin, his friend. But when he proposes to the young lady, her mother forbids the marriage because she believes that Jack is a foundling. Jack has to find a mother and a father who can attest that Jack is their son and his name is really Earnest. In the end of the story Jack discovers that he is Algernon's brother - because his absent-minded governess left him a hand-bag at Victoria Station - and his name is really Earnest.