AUTONOMY AND RECONCILIATION IN THE FIN-DE-SIÈCLE AESTHETIC DEBATE: ‘THE DECAY OF LYING’ AND NEWS FROM NOWHERE
Authors
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Pablo San Martín-Varela
Universidad de Chile
https://orcid.org/0009-0002-1913-1660
Abstract
This essay interprets “The Decay of Lying” by Oscar Wilde and News from Nowhere by William Morris as contributions to the debate concerning realist art that took place during the late-Victorian period. Specifically, it compares the ways in which these works deployed the strategies of autonomy and reconciliation characteristic of modern aesthetic discourse. For this purpose, the author establishes an interpretive framework by discussing relevant rhetorical devices developed by German classical aesthetics in the late eighteenth century. Thus, s/he identifies and analyzes the main similarities and differences between Wilde’s and Morris’ aesthetic stances, and, finally, reassesses the definition of autonomy as “uselessness”, usually employed in the scholarship on British aestheticism.Keywords:
Purposiveness without an end, Aestheticism, Utility, Immanuel Kant, Friedrich Schiller, Oscar Wilde, William MorrisReferences
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