Oscar Wilde: Essays Literary Elements

Essay collection

Victorian era England

Mainly Wilde himself, with the exception of ‘The Decay of Lying’ and ‘The Critic as Artist’, which use dialogue between characters to express their ideas.

The tone is informal, as if we are speaking to Wilde and the characters, and the mood of the essays is both witty and introspective.

There is no clear protagonist or antagonist due to the essay format of the collection. However, Gilbert and Ernest from ‘The Critic as Artist’ as well as Vivian and Cyril from ‘The Decay of Lying’ oppose each other in discussion, and they likely all view each other as antagonists.

The major conflicts in all of the pieces are ideological conflicts. In ‘The Decay of Lying’, Vivian argues that the dwindling amount of fictitious content in literature is leading to uninspired work, while Cyril expresses his enjoyment of modern pieces, and the want for realism in literature - however, he is won over by Vivian in the end. In ‘The Critic as Artist’, Gilbert argues that criticism is a valid art form, while Ernest argues that this denigrates the artist to a lower rank.

In the essays that are not in dialogue form, Wilde explores paradoxical or conflicting ideas, such as the idea that pretending can tell the truth more than reality in ‘The Truth of Masks’, or that charity can be harmful by not addressing the true capitalist issue in ‘The Soul of Man under Socialism’.

As is often standard in Wilde’s work, the climax of these pieces often comes near the end, in which he often summarises the essay with a witty epigram. For example, in ‘Pen, Pencil, and Poison’, an essay about the enduring influence of artist and serial killer Thomas Griffith Wainewright, he ends with “To be suggestive for fiction is to be of more importance than a fact”. This surmises the themes in the essay, and creates a climactic sense of finality for the reader.

Another example of this is in ‘The Truth of Masks’, where Wilde creates the climax of the essay by saying ‘The truths of metaphysics are the truths of masks”. In the dialogue-form essays, the climax is slightly different ‒ it comes near the middle, where one of the characters stops protesting and starts agreeing with what the other is saying.

For example, in the first half of ‘The Critic as Artist’, Ernest repeatedly voices his concerns about the fact that treating criticism as art means that all art needs to be imperfect, contrary to what Gilbert believes. However, in the second half, as Gilbert’s argument becomes more convincing, he simply asks clarifying questions in order to listen to Gilbert. This shows that reader that he has been won over by Gilbert’s more convincing argument.

There are several examples of foreshadowing in this collection. The first is the title of ‘Pen, Pencil, and Poison’, which alludes to the fact that Thomas Griffith Wainewright was both an artist and a killer. This creates anticipation right from the beginning of the essay.

Another example is in ‘The Decay of Lying’ when Vivian replies to Cyril’s plea to go outside and enjoy nature, saying “My own experience is that the more we study Art, the less we care for Nature.” This foreshadows the discussion they will soon have about art, showing a glimpse of the content to come.

Wilde uses understatement in the beginning of ‘Pen, Pencil, and Poison’, when he says “...Thomas Grffiths Wainewright, the subject of this brief memoir, though of an extremely artistic temperament, followed many masters other than art”. This is an understatement due to the fact that these ‘many masters other than art’ included serial killing.

The names of Wilde’s characters in ‘The Decay of Lying’ and ‘The Critic as Artist’ are allusions. In ‘The Critic as Artist’, one of the characters is called Ernest, which could be an allusion to his famous play titled ‘The Importance of Being Earnest’, which features both the name Ernest and a similar upper-class British setting.

The characters in ‘The Decay of Lying’ are named Cyril and Vivian, after his own sons. The setting, which is ‘the library of a country house in Nottinghamshire’, could allude to his own country house which he bought at Lord Alfred Douglas’s request.

Wilde often uses upper-class Victorian imagery to create a setting for these essays, which gives a sense of refinement and dignity to the ideas expressed. For example, Vivian and Cyril have their discussion in the splendour of a country house in Nottinghamshire, while Ernest and Gilbert have their discussion in the evening, in ‘the library of a house in Piccadilly, overlooking the Green Park’. By using these specific settings, Wilde creates refined imagery and highlights the lavish intellectualism of these discussions.

In ‘The Soul of Man under Socialism’, Wilde expresses the paradox of charity. He explains that philanthropy is touted as the solution for poverty, and thus people dedicate their whole lives to it, when the root of the issue is capitalism, and more should be done to create a world where poverty doesn’t exist. Therefore, being charitable is paradoxical, due to the fact that doing good can actually end up having negative consequences.

There is an example of parallelism in ‘The Decay of Lying’, when Vivian says “Ah! Meredith! Who can define him? His style is chaos illumined by flashes of lightning. As a writer he has mastered everything except language: as a novelist he can do everything, except tell a story: as an artist he is everything except articulate.” The use of parallelism here highlights Vivian’s distaste for Meredith’s work, and emphasises the humorous paradoxes he uses.

In ‘The Critic as Artist, Ernest says “Poor life! Poor human life! Are you not even touched by the tears that the Roman poet tells us are part of its essence.” When Ernest refers to the ‘tears’, he is using this as metonymy, as what he is really referring to is human sadness and woes.

While the essays don’t contain any personification of objects, the characters in the dialogue-form essays could be seen as personifications of certain moral outlooks. They embody a certain ideology very strongly, and their personalities aren’t developed much beyond their ideas ‒ Wilde uses them to represent the two sides of a debate, and allow for back-and-forth of ideas despite the essays being written by one person.