Victoria University

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

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dc.contributor.advisor Ferrall, Charles
dc.contributor.author Pope-Mayell, Shey
dc.date.accessioned 2020-06-30T21:03:20Z
dc.date.available 2020-06-30T21:03:20Z
dc.date.copyright 2020
dc.date.issued 2020
dc.identifier.uri http://researcharchive.vuw.ac.nz/handle/10063/8946
dc.description.abstract 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. en_NZ
dc.language.iso en_NZ
dc.publisher Victoria University of Wellington en_NZ
dc.subject Aestheticism en_NZ
dc.subject Aesthetic en_NZ
dc.subject Christianity en_NZ
dc.subject Christhood en_NZ
dc.subject Martyrdom en_NZ
dc.subject Decadence en_NZ
dc.subject Catholicism en_NZ
dc.subject Wilde en_NZ
dc.subject Homoeroticism en_NZ
dc.subject Ethics en_NZ
dc.title Towards an Ethical Aestheticism: Christianity, Christhood and Martyrdom in the Fiction of Oscar Wilde en_NZ
dc.type Text en_NZ
vuwschema.contributor.unit School of English, Film, Theatre and Media Studies en_NZ
vuwschema.type.vuw Awarded Research Masters Thesis en_NZ
thesis.degree.discipline English Literature en_NZ
thesis.degree.grantor Victoria University of Wellington en_NZ
thesis.degree.level Masters en_NZ
thesis.degree.name Master of Arts en_NZ
dc.rights.license Author Retains Copyright en_NZ
dc.date.updated 2020-06-11T23:15:20Z
vuwschema.subject.anzsrcfor 200503 British and Irish Literature en_NZ
vuwschema.subject.anzsrcseo 970120 Expanding Knowledge in Language, Communication and Culture en_NZ
vuwschema.subject.anzsrctoa 1 PURE BASIC RESEARCH en_NZ


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