Oscar Wilde: The Critic as HumanistFairleigh Dickinson Univ Press, 1999 - 197 páginas Through a discussion of critical works, including The Decay of Lying and De Profundis, Bashford demonstrates the theoretical goals Wilde set for himself in his criticism and how he achieved them. |
Índice
| 21 | |
| 28 | |
Fathoming the Soul in De Profundis | 45 |
Wilde as Rhetor and Rhetorician | 54 |
Oscar Wilde as Humanist | 77 |
Defining Humanism | 79 |
The Rise of Historical Criticism and the Consequences of Genuine Explanation | 87 |
The Critic as Humanist | 104 |
Afterword | 153 |
Notes | 160 |
Bibliography | 185 |
Index | 191 |
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Palavras e frases frequentes
action aesthetic appear argument asserts beauty belief capacity claim concepts contemplative creative Critic as Artist critical dialogues critical theory culture Decay of Lying defining definition discourse discussion Erskine essay experience explain expression faculty Gilbert Greek Harold Bloom historical criticism humanism's humanist commonplaces idea imagination imitation individual inspiration instance intellectual interpretive critic judgment kind literary Matthew Arnold means method Michael Field mind mode Monroe Beardsley narrator nature Northrop Frye notion one's Oscar Wilde pair paradox Pater Perelman's persons perspective philosophical Plato position present primary principle Profundis realize realm reversal Richard Ellmann Rise role Rupert Hart-Davis says scientific sense simply Sonnets soul story subjectivism things thinker thought Thucydides tion topoi tradition truth unity University Press version of humanism Victorian Vivian Wilde's critical Wilde's Oxford Wilde's rhetors Wilde's theory Willie Hughes Winfield Parks Writings of Oscar York
Passagens conhecidas
Página 33 - Yes, Ernest : the contemplative life, the life that has for its aim not doing but being, and not being merely, but becoming — that is what the critical spirit can give us. The gods live thus: either brooding over their own perfection, as Aristotle tells us, or, as Epicurus fancied, watching with the calm eyes of the spectator the tragi-comedy of the world that they have made.
Página 113 - For he to whom the present is the only thing that is present, knows nothing of the age in which he lives. To realise the nineteenth century, one must realise every century that has preceded it and that has contributed to its making.
Página 153 - ... the judgment which almost insensibly forms itself in a fair and clear mind, along with fresh knowledge, is the valuable one; and thus knowledge, and ever fresh knowledge, must be the critic's great concern for himself. And it is by communicating fresh knowledge, and letting his own judgment pass along with it, — but insensibly, and in the second place, not the first, as a sort of companion and clue, not as an abstract lawgiver, — that the critic will generally do most good to his readers.
Página 62 - All that I desire to point out is the general principle that Life imitates Art far more than Art imitates Life, and I feel sure that if you think seriously about it you will find that it is true. Life holds the mirror up to Art, and either reproduces some strange type imagined by painter or sculptor, or realises in fact what has been dreamed in fiction.
Página 49 - He realised in the entire sphere of human relations that imaginative sympathy which in the sphere of Art is the sole secret of creation. He understood the leprosy of the leper, the darkness of the blind, the fierce misery of those who live for pleasure, the strange poverty of the rich. Some one wrote to me in trouble, ' When you are not on your pedestal you are not interesting.
Página 29 - Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.
Página 90 - Goethe's profound, imperturbable naturalism is absolutely fatal to all routine thinking ; he puts the standard, once^ for all, inside every man instead of outside him...
Página 39 - To the critic the work of art is simply a suggestion for a new work of his own, that need not necessarily bear any obvious resemblance to the thing it criticises. The one characteristic of a beautiful form is that one can put into it whatever one wishes, and see in it whatever one chooses to see...
Página 121 - Certainly, for us of the modern world, with its conflicting claims, its entangled interests, distracted by so many sorrows, with many preoccupations, so bewildering an experience, the problem of unity with ourselves, in blitheness and repose, is far harder than it was for the Greek within the simple terms of antique life. Yet, not less than ever, the intellect demands completeness, centrality.
Página 144 - Under proper conditions machinery will serve man. There is no doubt at all that this is the future of machinery, and just as trees grow while the country gentleman is asleep, so while Humanity will be amusing itself, or enjoying cultivated leisure — which, and not labour, is the aim of man — or making beautiful things, or reading beautiful things, or simply contemplating the world with admiration and delight, machinery will be doing all the necessary and unpleasant work.