The Truth of Masks
Taking center stage in two of his most well-known essays (as well as actually providing the title for a third), but often lurking in the background of much of his other writings is the idea of the mask as a means of presenting a more honest version of the truth. “The Critics as Artist” and “The Decay of Lying” both robustly promote the idea that the façade of deception is really a dual-edged form of duplicity. The persona that one puts on is, of course, a falsity, but it is precisely through the freedom of anonymity that the mask engenders which frees up the person behind it to be more forthright. As a homosexual living in Victorian England—even a flamboyant homosexual—Wilde would have explored this theme on a person level throughout his life.
The Value of Art to Life
Oscar Wilde is an aesthete. He places a higher value on artistic expression than most of society places on just about anything else. A writer noted for being a master of the epigram left behind a virtual catalog of aphoristic observations about art that would alone fill an impressive volume. When Wilde is discussing art, he is talking broadly: music as well as decorating, architecture as well as poetry. And the value he placed upon such expression is utterly unambiguous across the full canon of his essays on the subject:
“It is through art, and through art only, that we can realise our perfection; through art and through art only, that we can shield ourselves from the sordid perils of actual existence.”
Individualism
Wilde responds to the criticism of selfishness often leveled against those who manifest their individualism in a more eccentric or non-conformist manner with a succinct display of logical brilliance. True selfishness is demonstrated by expecting everyone else to act as you wish rather than rejecting the desire by others that you act as they do. As with the theme of truth being paradoxically freed by hiding it behind a mask, Wilde pursued the theme of the fundamental value of individualism as a result of walking the walk as well as talking the talk.
On the whole, Wilde was as flamboyantly individualistic as they came in the oppressive regime of Queen Victoria, and though the exercise of his corrosive wit may have been at the expense of the conformism of others, he never paired that aspect of perspective with insistence that others acted as he did. His essays on this subject—of which “De Profundis” and, especially, “The Soul of Man” are the most famous—never lapse into confusing the pursuit of one’s own individualism with any sort of expectation of superiority. Thus, his writings encourage exploring one’s own identity rather than replicating even his own.
