The Aesthete's Utopia: Oscar Wilde And Oriental Culture

From the beginning of China's new-vernacular literature, Oscar Wilde has been introduced into the country for nearly 100 years. The academic research on Oscar Wilde has been deepened and systemized. Particularly since the mid-1980s, along with a large number of various west theories introduced, studies of Oscar Wilde have shown the tendency with the perspective of the overall diversification, especially on the cultural perspective, but also have extended to different directions, such as modernity and consumer culture. However, these studies are almost based on the same cultural context of the diversification analysis. It is seldom seen the research from the cross-cultural perspective to analyse the relationship between Oscar Wilde and oriental culture. At present some researches have been made from this angle and have come to a certain depth, but there are still some limitations.The thesis is done from the cross-cultural perspective and is divided into five parts. The first chapter, that is, the preface introduces the situation of research on Oscar Wilde in China, explains the significance of the study about Oscar Wilde from the cross-cultural perspective and gives the reason why the writer chooses such a topic and the goal the writer wants to obtain. The second chapter centers on how the Chinese culture and Japanese culture, the representatives of the oriental culture, spread in Britain and how they enlighten the British Arts. Also this part illustrates the influence of the oriental culture on aestheticism and the relationship between Oscar Wilde and the oriental culture. The third chapter interprets Oscar Wilde's acceptance from Chuang Tzu Doctrine, and analyzes the criticism and innovation of Oscar Wilde on Chuang Tzu "inaction" and "justice" thinking. Chapter Four states the signs of the oriental culture in the life and writing of Oscar Wilde through the careful reading of the works. The final chapter concludes the main views and ideas of the thesis. The thesis is aimed to broaden Oscar Wilde's study in the Chinese academic circle by analyzing how the oriental culture affected Oscar Wilde and how he responded, accepted and absorbed the oriental culture. While we understand more deeply the close relationship between Oscar Wilde literary creation and oriental culture, we will have a wider vision to check the relationship between the oriental and the west culture, namely, each side supplying what the other needs, exchanging the cream of one another's culture and then achieving each other's development.