Salvation And Being Saved

Every literary ideological trend has its own social life and culture background. The big leap in capitalism industrial development in 19th century made everybody in Europe advocated the atmosphere of"material"and"interest". Sensitive artists at the time were avoiding assimilated by the sense of worth——"money is the supreme"and the prevailing hypocritical morality, meanwhile they were also looking out the corruption of the purity and independence of their arts from the trend of commerce.Although the English writer Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) is not the origin of aestheticism, he's well qualified for representative man of aestheticism. The movement of aestheticism reached summit in Wilde's high production period and ringed down the curtain as Wilde was histrionically put in jail. Wilde thinks the arts imitate the life, not otherwise, the arts have nothing to do with morality, beauty is against the grain of ethical idea. Wilde is always the headliners with mixed results of literature critics. One hundred years after Wilde passed away, people still take delight in talking about his various forms of literatures, noteworthy conduct and independent character and his resourceful word, these characters of Wilde never behind the times.This article digests Wilde's representative works to uncover the reason why he is born as salvation of modern literature while end up in a self-contradiction way of aestheticism and how backfired Wilde saved scarring aestheticism and himself. From within, we can grasp the position and purport of Wilde and his aestheticism in the history of literature.First chapter of this article introduces the era background of aestheticism movement history and the representatives of aestheticism in different times, indicates the aestheticism are born for salvation. Wilde formed his own aestheticism point of view based on predecessor and his"artistic life"aestheticism practice. This chapter also reveals how Wilde spare no effort to practice his own way of aestheticism by introducing several anecdotes of Wilde's artistic life. By analyzing of images of debauchee in Wilde's drama to indicate the common characters of debauchees in Wilde's drama– they sneered at hypocritical and vulgar social reality, at the same time they were always trying to keep the subtle balance between criticize and compromise. The second chapter induces an innovative idea comparing to previous studies——through digesting Wilde's drama——"The Picture of Dorian Gray"and"Salomé". This chapter analyzed the supreme grievous result of beauty and love, found the root cause of the contradiction within Wilde's aestheticism and Wilde's fail and greatness as a tragedy prophet. The first part went through Wilde's representative drama——"The Picture of Dorian Gray"to indicate: This drama is not as immorality as most literature critics thought, on the contrary, it has significant moral exhort. It's also a pessimistic prophesy of aestheticism and aesthetes, it's an early warning that aesthetes might end up in a tragedy. The second part analyzed the detailed scenarios and role relationship to indicate that the dramatis personae worshiped beauty too much to evacuate the connotation of beauty, materialize the supreme beauty lied within their heart. The third part gives detailed explanation the Wilde's aesthetic drama of"Salomé". The dramatis personae's love was illiberal and intensive, they owned love but at the same time they also destroyed love. In the drama which expend all Wilde's energies. To make the dramatis personae which he placed his aesthetic hope end up in tragedy, Wilde implied that the aesthetes'always get the opposite of their intention, it's their fate. Wilde's sober pessimism not only predicts his own fail, but also his greatness as a self doom seeking aesthete.The third chapter analyzed the comedy"The ghost of canterville". This chapter discusses Wilde's salvation aestheticism. The first part analyzed Wilde's comedy"The ghost of canterville", indicated that Wilde's designate the road of salvation for the aesthetes who went to the dead end. The second part analyzed Wilde's life and transformation of his thinking after he was released from prison. This part indicates Wilde and his aestheticism finally got the salvation, he went back to philanthropy instead of his love of intolerance, he went back to religion instead of arts, he went back to spontaneousness instead of artificially beauty. This life long aestheticism pursuit finally got peace in his mind that he never had before.