| Space plays a crucial part in our understanding of human existence and the external world In Oscar Wilde’s literary creations,too,space occupies a central position in the process of meaning construction.As it is,the problem of Wilde’s spatiality has not yet received enough attention.Current researchers are either limited to the observation of the spatial phenomena as scattered in his writings,or else they attempt to reduce the complexity of his spatial thinking to the tendency to return to the Inside.Examining Wilde’s spatial thinking against the background of the spatial reality of the late-Victorian London and his own aesthetic thought,this thesis further discusses the spatial features in The Picture of Dorian Gray and Salome in order to reach a more systematic comprehension of his spatiality.Firstly,through the investigation of Wilde’s spatial thinking in relation to the nineteenth-century spatial reality and his aesthetic theory,it is discovered that in his critical writings,there exists a spatial logic where the Outside is always represented as the space of danger,disorientation and deindividuation,while the aestheticized Inside is more often seen as a shelter for poetic passion,proportionality and personality.Such a logic rises mainly from Wilde’s personal experience of the physical and social spaces in urban London,where the subjugating force of mass conformity has produced in the individualist aesthete a rebellious outsider,while his ideal personality lies in the calm and harmonious individual developed in the aestheticized Inside,which affords the subject an instantaneous contact with the intensified sensory experiences,consequently offering him an artistic point of view and the temperament of freedom vital to the realization of the perfection in his personality.Based on Wilde ’s mode of spatial thinking,the thesis then analyzes the spatial phenomena in his two literary works,which demonstrates that although in his critical writings,Wilde’s spatiality still reveals itself in a clear dichotomy in favor of the aesthetized Inside,in his literary creations,the issue of space has taken on much more complexity:here,the hazardous outdoor spaces seem to hold a strange appeal for the characters,while even in the well-designed indoor spaces,one may experience a loss of freedom and subjectivity.In The Picture of Dorian Gray,the interior decoration is still presented as an artistic illusion through whose safe medium the characters may contemplate the chaotic nature of the outdoor reality,thereby recognizing the arbitrariness and absurdity of the conventional morality;unfortunately,Dorian’s indoor ideal cannot rid itself of the outdoor feature of mass conformity,which sets in motion his gradual degradation from the sphere of contemplation into that of action.In Salome,the aestheticized Inside,which no longer offers protection for individual characters but instead poses a serious threat to the heroine’s personal freedom,is identified with the outdoor reality under the omnipresent male gaze,which gives rise to Salome’s initial escape from the indoor.Performing the rituals of the Hellenized Dionysus on the outdoor terrace,she strives to restore her freedom and intensifies her sensory experiences in order to achieve a full development of her personality.Through the interplay between the characters and the spatial elements,Oscar Wilde reaches a new mode of spatial thinking where,in the free artistic expression,the dialectics of Inside and Outside open up to the possibility of a new space of art and beauty. |
