Wilde’s collection of essays contain an artful mix of wit, humor, introspection, and paradox. They all feature an ideological or moral debate, with Wilde, or one of his characters, arguing for a certain point. They highlight the ethical issues caused by industrialization in the Victorian era, as well as the changes in art and literature that occurred in Wilde’s lifetime.
One of the more political essays in the collection, ‘The Soul of Man under Socialism’, argues for the root of poverty and suffering to be addressed, rather than advocating for philanthropy. Wilde states that “...the majority of people spoil their lives by an unhealthy and exaggerated altruism ‒ are forced, indeed, so as to spoil them”, and says that the rather, “the proper aim is to try and reconstruct society on such a basis that poverty will be impossible.” Therefore, he feels that the industrialist and capitalist values that the Victorian era revolved around were ultimately harmful, and more focus should have been spent on trying to prevent poverty from happening, rather than helping those that are poor, as they shouldn’t have been poor in the first place. This sentiment would have been particularly controversial in his era, due to the fact that philanthropy had had a huge boom, and many of the upper-class gentry were high-profile philanthropists.
Two other essays, ‘The Decay of Lying’ and ‘The Critic as Artist’, use dialogue between characters to analyze aspects of art. In ‘The Decay of Lying’, the character Vivian expresses the idea that lying is crucial to art, and the entire point is to express human ideas through fiction, rather than trying to reflect society directly. Vivian summarizes at the very end of the text, “The final revelation is that lying, the telling of beautiful untrue things, is the proper aim of art.” This shows us Wilde’s final view on ‘art for art’s sake’ ‒ the idea that hyperrealism is not what art should revolve around. The other essay, ‘The Critic as Artist’, analyses the idea that criticism is a valid art form, and should be treated as such; that it has an intrinsic relationship with art, and that art cannot exist without criticism. Gilbert, the character arguing for this point, states “It is increasingly more to criticism than to creation that the future belongs as its subject matter and the need to impose form on chaos constantly increases.” This shows the reader that Wilde thinks that criticism, the reaction to art rather than the conception of it, is just as important, if not more important, than the creation of art itself.
Lastly, the ‘Phrases and Philosophies for the use of the Young’ show Wilde’s talent for wit, as well as his love for contradictions and paradox. He states controversial ideas such as “Wickedness is a myth invented by good people to account for the curious attractiveness of others,” which shows his rebelliousness in the prudish, proper Victorian era. He continues along the same strand, describing the need in humans for Hedonism and lavishness, and that the Victorian ideas of being ‘proper’ were created to hide people’s true need for such decadence.
These essays, combined together, show us Wilde’s unique outlook on the world that was so controversial and shocking in his time. He rebels against the typical upper-class ideas of philanthropy by calling for socialism to be implemented, argues that criticism is a form of art, and that art should focus on fiction rather than hyperrealism, and lastly, argues that moralistic outlooks are only to hide the true human need for decadence. Through this collection we can understand the Victorian era attitudes, as well as their flaws that Wilde points out, as well as understand his unique view on the universal human concepts of art and morals.
