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The study of the aesthetic views in the novel is not thoroughly discovered and analyzed and the moral views are not understood objectively. Thus, this paper will explore the ethical values concealed under the aesthetic views of Wilde and probe into the relation between the aestheticism and morality of Wilde, with which readers will grasp a more thorough understanding of Wilde’s aestheticism and moral values. Meanwhile, it will help readers to recognize and find the beauty in the real life through the artistic charm of Wilde.
3. Wilde’s Art and Morality
3.1 Wilde’s Aestheticism
Wilde has his own unique views on art and it can be said that his whole life is tightly connected with the principle “art for art’s sake”, using the pure beauty of art to disclose the ugly and ordinary aspects of life. 源`自,优尔`.论"文'网[www.youerw.com
Wilde attaches great importance to the independence of art. He thinks that nature imitates art but not art imitates nature. He puts human feeling which is decided by art in a supreme position. Also, Wilde believes in the eternity of art in which Wilde thinks the only way to create eternal art is to get rid of the entanglement of the times.
As for the transcendence of art, Wilde considers art transcends anything including morality of the time. That is to say, art is independent of and unconstrained by morality. Art does not serve for morality and has its own pursuit—beauty. Moreover, Wilde advocates the absoluteness and formalism of art. He holds the view that the form is the highest target of art. It is because what art pursues is the beautiful but unreal form that art is immoral and contrary to the times.
3.2 Wilde’s Morality
Before being arrested in prison, Wilde was proud as a young genius, thinking that art had nothing to do with morality and insisted on hedonism. But it can not be concluded that Wilde has no moral anxiety and ethical sense according to this. In The Picture of Dorian Gray, readers may find out that Wilde’s morality can only be presented in the form of art.
During the years in prison, Wilde wrote The Ballad of Reading Gaol, starting to take a hard look at him-self and believe in the God who he had disdained in the earlier years. As an artist of sufferings, Wilde pursued a real morality with a higher form, full of compassion, to bring charges against the late Victorian era, namely an instinctive morality.