His plays are full of visions of the future. Even George Bernard Shaw, the archetypal Fabian socialist, was a utopian in certain respects.
Think of someone like William Morris, who was a utopian visionary. More generally, utopianism was a strong element in late nineteenth-century socialist politics. In The Soul of Man under Socialism, Wilde writes that ‘ map of the world that does not include Utopia is not worth even glancing at.’ Is this the utopian element of his politics? They would not be obliged, as socialists, to do some hard graft on local committees, or forego their personal taste in luxury. It’s the idea that everybody gets to be a dandy-aesthete if that’s what they would like.
#OSCAR WILDE PLAYS RANKED FREE#
Intellectually, the brand of socialism that he propounded in The Soul of Man under Socialism is a fantastically ideal one in which the state provides you with all that you need, and then you are free to do whatever you like. He was not part of active political groups. And he expressed his admiration for Russian nihilists and many of the leading socialists. He bailed out John Barlas, a young revolutionary who was arrested for firing off a pistol near the House of Commons. He signed a petition for the reprieve of some anarchists who were condemned to death in Chicago. He described himself as a socialist and indeed something of an anarchist. Were there more direct ways in which he was politically engaged?
But it also resists utilitarianism and that kind of competitive ethos. So on the one hand, Wilde’s aesthetics of beauty, idleness and genius suggests that he is so brilliant that he does not need to put any effort into his work. But by contrast, Wilde was acutely aware of how far the system is actually fixed. It complements the pseudo-Darwinian idea that merit will rise, and that the system is not fixed. It justifies a highly competitive market place. This kind of Samuel Smiles self-help ethic in many ways supports free market and laissez-faire ideology. There was the idea that as long as you have character, integrity, dedication and self-control then even the mediocre can flourish. I also think that Wilde was strongly opposed to the kind of Victorian work ethic that was about dutifulness. But he loved to give the impression that he just dashed it off as lazy brilliance. The Importance of Being Earnest went through about eight drafts it started off about two and a half times the length of its final compressed version. Yet, for a large part of his career, he was very hard-working. You may not believe me, but I assure you that it must have taken me fully five minutes to write!’ For example, when he was told to take a scene out of The Importance of Being Earnest by the actor-manager George Alexander, he replied: ‘This scene you feel is superfluous cost me terrible exhausting labour and heartrending nerve-wracking strain. It is a carefully cultivated image that Wilde developed. Foreign Policy & International RelationsĪ popular perception persists of Oscar Wilde as an idle aesthete.
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