1. Invitation to Imitate (Oscar Wilde 44)
2. Go over the background information on Oscar Wilde. Be sure to define aesthetic and decadent for them (see below).
3. In The Importance of Being Earnest (TIOBE), we see Wilde's aestheticism manifest in his dialogue. Rather than going for realistic dialogue, his goal is beautiful dialogue. So, his writing is full of witty sayings, double meanings, paradoxical epigrams, and amazing parallel constructions. Almost every sentence is a little work of art.
3. TIOBE is a satire. Remind the students that in satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement. Although satire is usually meant to be funny, its greater purpose is often constructive social criticism, using wit as a weapon.
4. Assign parts: Lane (small), Algernon Moncrieff, Ernest Worthing, Gwendolyn Fairfax, Lady Bracknell.
The artists and writers of Aesthetic style tended to profess that the Arts should provide refined sensuous pleasure, rather than convey moral or sentimental messages. As a consequence, they did not accept the utilitarian conception of art as something moral or useful. Instead, they believed that Art did not have any purpose; it need only be beautiful. The Aesthetes developed a cult of beauty, which they considered the basic factor of art. Life should copy Art, they asserted. They considered nature as crude and lacking in design when compared to art.
Decadence is the writer's version of Aestheticism. It was the name given, originally by hostile critics, to several late nineteenth-century writers who valued artifice more than the earlier Romantics' naïve descriptions.
Task Four (rough draft, 3 page minimum for full credit) due on April 25th. Please bring 2 printed copies to class.
