Towards an Ethical Aestheticism: Christianity, Christhood and Martyrdom in the Fiction of Oscar Wilde

<p>Oscar Wilde is part of our world. With his dandyish witticisms and decadent demeanour, he continues to serve as a model of subversive grace, an aesthetic beacon drawing his readers towards a lighthouse of beauty, even more than a century after his death. Few would suspect that Wilde’s work should offer any ethical guidance, given the tendency of fin-de-siècle aestheticism to place artistic beauty above ethical concerns. It is the purpose of this thesis to argue otherwise. The aim of this thesis is twofold. First, it intends to show that Wilde’s fiction, from his early fairy stories to his only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, is connected by a common interest in Christian ethics. Second, and more ambitiously, it intends to disprove the notion that aestheticism and ethics are irreconcilable. Throughout his work, Wilde develops an image of an aesthetic Jesus Christ, a martyr of beauty. Wilde dedicates much of his fictional oeuvre to illustrating this vision of Christ, usually through martyrdom and the relinquishment of selfhood. In doing so, this thesis argues that he connects artistic beauty with Christian ethics, synthesising an ethical aestheticism, only achievable through self-sacrifice in service of love – the aesthetic ideal. This kind of aesthetic martyrdom is present throughout Wilde’s fiction, the most commonly cited examples coming from two of his early fairy stories, “The Happy Prince” and “The Nightingale and the Rose” respectively. In these stories, the titular characters work to realise the vision of the aesthetic Christ – what this thesis calls his ‘aesthetic ideal’ – and achieve a higher appreciation of beauty, both bodily and immaterial. Christianity, this thesis finally argues, is the basis for Wilde’s ethical aestheticism and it is Christian ethics that Wilde uses to orientate his readers towards aesthetic Christhood, not with the cold, judging hand of a Victorian preacher but the warm, caring shoulder-pat of an aesthetic father-figure.</p>

Towards an Ethical Aestheticism: Christianity, Christhood and Martyrdom in the Fiction of Oscar Wilde

<p>Oscar Wilde is part of our world. With his dandyish witticisms and decadent demeanour, he continues to serve as a model of subversive grace, an aesthetic beacon drawing his readers towards a lighthouse of beauty, even more than a century after his death. Few would suspect that Wilde’s work should offer any ethical guidance, given the tendency of fin-de-siècle aestheticism to place artistic beauty above ethical concerns. It is the purpose of this thesis to argue otherwise. The aim of this thesis is twofold. First, it intends to show that Wilde’s fiction, from his early fairy stories to his only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, is connected by a common interest in Christian ethics. Second, and more ambitiously, it intends to disprove the notion that aestheticism and ethics are irreconcilable. Throughout his work, Wilde develops an image of an aesthetic Jesus Christ, a martyr of beauty. Wilde dedicates much of his fictional oeuvre to illustrating this vision of Christ, usually through martyrdom and the relinquishment of selfhood. In doing so, this thesis argues that he connects artistic beauty with Christian ethics, synthesising an ethical aestheticism, only achievable through self-sacrifice in service of love – the aesthetic ideal. This kind of aesthetic martyrdom is present throughout Wilde’s fiction, the most commonly cited examples coming from two of his early fairy stories, “The Happy Prince” and “The Nightingale and the Rose” respectively. In these stories, the titular characters work to realise the vision of the aesthetic Christ – what this thesis calls his ‘aesthetic ideal’ – and achieve a higher appreciation of beauty, both bodily and immaterial. Christianity, this thesis finally argues, is the basis for Wilde’s ethical aestheticism and it is Christian ethics that Wilde uses to orientate his readers towards aesthetic Christhood, not with the cold, judging hand of a Victorian preacher but the warm, caring shoulder-pat of an aesthetic father-figure.</p>

“Natural” in the philosophical and moralistic literature of the XVII century

In philosophy, &ldquo;natural&rdquo; is viewed as an ontological characteristic of the objects of internal and external reality along with the concept of &ldquo;artificial&rdquo;. However, in the XVII century, the philosophical and moralistic literature undergoes aestheticization. Numerous appeals of the writers, moralists and philosopher, as well as dialogues and arguments on the topic of &ldquo;natural&rdquo; indicate that this was of crucial importance for the aesthetic thought of the XVII century. The answer to the question &lsquo;what natural is&rsquo; has become the cornerstone of the new gallant aesthetics, and in behavior was associated with fluency and aristocratic inattention, which are opposed to pomposity and affectation. In art, &ldquo;natural&rdquo; was perceived as a desire to purge from the Baroque ostentation. In literature, it is the result of hard work on the language that allows achieving lightness and fluency. Ultimately, in the philosophical thought, &ldquo;natural&rdquo; is perceived as the correspondence with truth. Until the present, the question of aestheticization of the &ldquo;natural&rdquo; did not draw the attention of Russian researchers. This is partly explained by the historical tradition. Russia enters the European philosophical thought only in the Era of Enlightenment in the XVIII century; thus, the XVII century seems somewhat archaic on the background of the topical issues. However, the XVII century is the advent of the history of modern philosophical and aesthetic thought, and creates the foundation of modern European mentality. This period marks the formation of the new aesthetic ideal, new aesthetic norms, and the system for assessing the work of art, which assign an important role to the &ldquo;natural&rdquo;.

Impure stone and the threat to decency: marble tints and veins

According to the classical tradition, marble sculptures were to be made of ‘pure’ white material. This remained an aesthetic ideal even after archaeological findings had revealed evidence of ancient polychromy. This article argues that tinting as well as natural staining on marble figures in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were not only aesthetically but also morally reprehensible, because they violated the ideal of homo clausus. This term, coined by the sociologist Norbert Elias, conceptualizes a subject that imposes ‘self-restraint’ to control its physical body and its emotions. Perfect control was seen embodied in the ancient images of the gods, which were assumed to have been made of immaculate white marble. Any colouring, whether of natural origin or deliberately produced, seemed to contaminate this concept. My investigation is focused on the historical justifications for John Gibson’s scandalous Tinted Venus, and figures of veined marble rejected in France on similar grounds in the late eighteenth century, such as Christoph-Gabriel Allegrain’s Venus and Jean-Antoine Houdon’s Frileuse. I examine how the coloured veins and tints of the stone gained semantic qualities in female figures, where a blush or a vein seemed to reveal emotions and desires and thus infringe the ideal.

COMPARATIVE LITERATURE: EAST AND WEST STUDIES

The article analyzes the results of the research on the representation of the aesthetic ideal through the image of the ideal hero in two national literatures. For research purposes, attention was paid to highlighting the category of the ideal hero as an expression of the author's aesthetic views. In Sinclair Lewis’s “Arrowsmith” and Pirimkul Kodirov's “The Three Roots”, the protagonists artistically reflect the authors' views on truth, virtue, and beauty. In these novels, professional ethics is described as a high noble value. The scientific novelty of the research work includes the following: in the evolution of western and eastern poetic thought, in the context of the novel genre, the skill, common and distinctive aspects of the creation of an ideal hero were revealed by synthesis of effective methods in world science with literary criteria in the history of eastern and western literary studies, in the example of Sinclair Lewis and Pirimkul Kodirov.

“What Is to Come After This?”

This chapter engages with Britain’s fin-de-siècle socialist revival by investigating its presiding spirit, William Morris. Morris is revered for inspiring a socialist culture characterized by its fusion of artistic and emancipatory commitments. From the longer perspective that Imagining Socialism affords, however, this synthesis of aesthetics and socialism looks less like an unprecedented development than a change in modalities. Imagining Socialism demonstrates that the aesthetic was constitutive of an important strand of the British socialist tradition; sublimated aesthetic energies underpinned and invigorated a succession of anti-political schemes of communal regeneration. Morris corrected this excessively instrumentalizing tendency by promulgating a highly self-conscious aesthetic of sensuous surfaces. By desublimating socialism’s aesthetic impulse, he fostered an environment in which successful socialist art and literature was finally possible. But despite Morris’s own intentions, this chapter contends, his intercession also conspired to drain socialism of its anti-political vitality. This argument is staged through a thickly contextualized reading of News from Nowhere. In his utopia, Morris employs an erotically saturated style and plot to entice readers to embrace his own vision of Britain’s socialist future. However, this approach sanctions the emergence of a privatized aesthetic ideal that is fundamentally at odds with the nongovernmental utopia of the craft arts that News from Nowhere officially espouses. By desublimating the aesthetic impulse, Morris inadvertently contributed to the dispersal of the vitality and resources that the aesthetic had hitherto lent Britain’s socialist anti-political tradition.

Baboons, Centipedes, and Lemurs: Becoming-Animal from Queer to Ghost of Chance

The paper establishes a connection between the becoming-writer of Burroughs, who found his calling and style during the 1950s and his signature characteristic of becoming-animal. This can first be observed in Queer, where Burroughs develops his so-called routine; a short sketch-like text that often involves instances of metamorphosis or transformation. The theoretical background for this short form and the term becoming-animal is taken from Deleuze’s and Guattari’s book on Kafka, who also worked best in short texts and frequently wrote about animals. “The Composite City” may be the central text to understanding Burroughs’ work. It is the text where Burroughs found his style and his identity as a writer. Becoming-animal is a logical consequence that further develops Burroughs’ aesthetic ideal. Over the following decades, he experimented with it in different forms, and toward the end of his career, it became part of an environmental turn. In Ghost of Chance, one can find the same aesthetic ideal that starts Burroughs’ writing in 1953, but the political implications have turned toward saving the lemurs of Madagascar.

INTERPRETATION OF IDEAL HISTORICAL IMAGES IN HAMSA

In the article, historical images that play an important role in the artistic system of “Khamsa” by Alisher Navoi are divided into three types - ideal, real and metaphorical historical images. The author of the first of them is a scientific analysis of ideal historical images. The aesthetic principles of the artistic interpretation of ideal historical images within the framework of the five epics of “Khamsa” are studied in the context of world literature. Ideal historical images, their internal ramification, the poetic significance of their repetition in the composition of five epics, the artistic goal and the role of the author in expressing the aesthetic ideal are discussed