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Proseminararbeit

Alfred Douglas

Bucolic Motifs in Oscar Wilde's

Art Fairy Tales

Prof. Dr. Alfred Wills

Proseminar "Oscar Wilde: A Literature of Decadence?"

Wintersemester 1897/98

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Table of Contents

1. Introduction ................................................................................................ 1

2. Bucolic and Pastoral Literary Tradition ..................................................... 2

3. Bucolic Motifs in Oscar Wilde's Art Fairy Tales ....................................... 5

3.1. Nature/Culture Dichotomy....................................................................... 5

3.2. Bipartite Nature........................................................................................ 9

3.3. Christian Motifs ....................................................................................... 2

4. Narrative Sympathy.................................................................................. 14

5. Conclusion................................................................................................ 15

Works Cited...................................................................................................... 16

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1

1. Introduction

From a critical perspective, Oscar Wilde's art fairy tales have received a

comparatively small amount of professional attention. In the light of the wide

distribution of the art fairy tales, this is more than mildly surprising: In 1980,

Norbert Kohl estimates the number of sold copies in German translation alone

at several hundred thousand (87). The apparent lack of interest in a critical

examination may be, on the one hand, connected to the genre of the fairy tale

itself; the fact that the addressee of the art fairy tale in particular does not

necessarily have to be a child or child-like is often neglected.

On the other hand, the often moralising content and the clear separation

of good and evil marks a distinct difference to Wilde's other works. An

approach attempting a consistent interpretation might therefore tend to ignore

The Happy Prince and Other Tales and A House of Pomegranates due to this

apparent inconsistency. Seemingly, they do not really fit the partly ironic and

cheerful, partly sarcastic and gloomy play with literary conventions and

traditions that frequently defines Wilde's other works. This, however, seems

inadequate, since

Wilde assigned a special place in the canon of his work to The Happy Prince and Other Tales and A House of Pomegranates. [] Wilde's reactions and letters do indicate the importance of these two short volumes to Wilde himself, and to the study of the artist and his work (Tattersall 131).

In the course of this paper I will attempt to show that the genre of the fairy tale,

with its conventions regarding morals, values, poetic justice and stereotypical

characters, lends itself particularly well as a sort of 'testing ground' for the

inversion and subversion of conventions and traditions that defines Wilde's

works as a whole. Examining "The Nightingale and the Rose", "The Young

King" and "The Birthday of the Infanta". The growing impression of a clear

distinction between good and evil in the fairy tales is confirmed and reinforced

when examining the correlation of bucolic and Christian motifs. Since pastoral

poetry is firmly established within the Christian tradition due to the rendition of

Jesus' birth in the Gospel of Luke (Curtius 195), bucolic motifs are significant

as both Christian and pastoral metaphors.

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16

Works Cited

Literature

Wilde, Oscar. The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde. Ed. Vyvyan Holland. 3rd

ed. Glasgow: HarperCollins, 1994. Print.

Criticism

Cuddon, J. A. Dictionary of Literary Terms and Theory. 3rd ed. London and

New York: Penguin, 1992. Print.

Curtius, Ernst Robert. Europische Literatur und Lateinisches Mittelalter. 2nd

ed. Bern: Francke, 1954. Print.

Kohl, Norbert. Oscar Wilde: Das Literarische Werk zwischen Provokation und

Anpassung. Heidelberg: Winter, 1980. Print.

Nnning, Ansgar, ed. Metzler Lexikon Kultur- und Literaturtheorie. 2nd ed.

Stuttgart and Weimar: Metzler, 2001. Print.

Tattersall, Carol. "An Immodest Proposal: Rereading Oscar Wilde's Fairy

Tales." Wascana Review of Contemporary Poetry and Short Fiction 26

(1991): 128-39. Print.

Varty, Anne. "Oscar Wilde." The Literary Encyclopedia. 25 Jan. 2001. The

Literary Dictionary Company. Web. 4 Jun. 2007. .

Willoughby, Guy. "The Marvellous Rose: Christ and the Meaning of Art in

'The Nightingale and the Rose'." English Studies in Africa 31 (1988): 107-

17. Print.

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