Oscar Wilde and the Art of Lying

Book excerpt: Utilizing Wilde’s own characters “Vivian” and “Cyril,” this critique in play format begins by discussing the playwright’s ideas on the relation of Art to Life, exploring his pronouncements on the artist’s true purpose. Wilde’s statement about the artist as a “creator of beauty”, found in his “Preface to the Picture of Dorian Gray”, is then examined with regard to his last and most popular play, The Importance of Being Earnest. Discussing …Earnest in extensis, this book discovers whether the elegant artificiality and epigrammatic conceits of contemporary farce prevail as beauty per Wilde’s earlier theories as expressed in The Decay of Lying. The consequence of Wilde’s assault on Victorian values is considered in terms of its social contribution to perceptions of beauty and the way in which we might appreciate both the playwright and …Earnest now.