It is too great a task here to cover Wilde’s entire canon, underscoring all the while the moral argument of inpidual works。 Rather, I would like to review the unheralded fairy tales, and claim that the moral direction so obvious in them is analogous to the morality。 Wilde insists throughout his art, from the early poetry to his epistolary to Alfred Douglas (popularly known as De Profundis)。 Further, some of the tales reflect significant personal tensions regarding art and morality or art appreciation and religious obligation which also appear throughout the range of Wilde’s work。 These tensions reveal a critical instinct that goes beyond clever aphorisms and self-indulgent paradoxes。 They also illustrate a moral dimension in Wilde that is generally unexamined。

1。2 Background and Significance of the study文献综述

Wilde published two collections of tales: The Happy Prince and Other Tales in1888 and A House of Pomegranates in 1891。 The tales did not create the sensation that the novel (The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1890) or the subsequent plays did, although the tales were reviewed favorably by The Saturday Review, The Athenaeum, and the Pall Mall Gazette。 Wilde himself said little of the two books, but a passing remark of his about one of the tales could be applied to all of them and to Dorian Gray as well: “The Happy Prince,” he wrote in a letter, “is an attempt to treat a tragic modern problem in a form that aims at delicacy and imaginative treatment; it is a reaction against the purely imitative character of modern art。” The “form” Wilde chooses is fantasy, which he clearly prefers to realism or the “purely imitative character of modern art”: Wilde can treat a tragic problem even in a fairy tale that is unconcerned with sordid details or with a fidelity to everyday occurrences, Wilde also said that the tales were not intended for children。

The tales examine a number of vices and virtues。 Most of the tales expose and criticize selfishness and insensitivity。 The Selfish Giant will not permit children to play in his beautiful garden。 The Star-Child rejects “inferiors” as well as his own mother。 The Infanta makes fun of a deformed dwarf who dances for the Infanta’s pleasure on her birthday。 Big Hugh the Miller, ironically styled “The Devoted Friend,” hypocritically steals from his neighbor, little Hans。 The Young King embraces an unaccustomed life of luxury and lives entirely for pleasure。 The Roman Rocket in “The Remarkable Rocket” considers himself inexpressibly superior to lesser fireworks。