Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-ndw9j Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-19T06:11:40.832Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

“NO ARTIST HAS ETHICAL SYMPATHIES”: OSCAR WILDE, AESTHETICS, AND MORAL EVOLUTION

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 August 2016

Caroline Sumpter
Caroline Sumpter*
Affiliation:
Queen's University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

“There is no mode of action, no form of emotion, that we do not share with the lower animals” (137). This evolutionary claim is not attributable to Darwin, but to Oscar Wilde, who allows Gilbert to voice this bold assertion in “The True Function of Criticism.” While critics have long wrestled with the ethical stance and coherence of Wilde's writings, they have overlooked a significant influence on his work: debates concerning the evolution of morality that animated the periodicals in which he was writing. Wilde was fascinated by the proposition that complex human behaviours, including moral and aesthetic responses, might be traced back to evolutionary impulses. Significantly, he also wrote for a readership already engaged with these controversies.

Type
Research Article
Information
Victorian Literature and Culture , Volume 44 , Issue 3 , September 2016 , pp. 623 - 640
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2016 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

WORKS CITED

Clifford, W. K. Lectures and Essays. Ed. Stephen, Leslie and Pollock, Frederick. Vol 2. London: Macmillan, 1879.Google Scholar
Clifford, W. K.. “A Modern ‘Symposium’: Influence upon Morality of a Decline in Religious Belief.” Nineteenth Century 1 (1877): 353–58.Google Scholar
Carlisle, H. “Wallace on Darwinism.” Nineteenth Century 27 (1890): 408–23.Google Scholar
Cohen, Philip K. The Moral Vision of Oscar Wilde. London: Associated UP, 1978.Google Scholar
Collini, Stefan. Public Moralists: Political Thought and Intellectual Life in Britain 1850–1930. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1991.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Christie, J. D. “A Working Man's Reply to Professor Huxley.” Nineteenth Century 27 (1890): 476–83.Google Scholar
Darwin, Charles. The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex. London: Penguin, 2004.Google Scholar
Dawson, Gowan. Darwin, Literature and Victorian Respectability. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2007.Google Scholar
Dixon, Thomas. The Invention of Altruism. Making Moral Meanings in Victorian Britain. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2008.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Foster, John Wilson. Between Shadows: Modern Irish Writing and Culture. Dublin: Irish Academic, 2009.Google Scholar
Guy, Josephine. M. “‘The Soul of Man Under Socialism’: A (Con) Textual History.” Wilde Writings: Contextual Conditions. Ed. Bristow, Joseph. Toronto: U of Toronto P, 2003. 59–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haley, Bruce. “Wilde's ‘Decadence’ and the Positivist Tradition.” Victorian Studies 28.2 (1985): 215–29.Google Scholar
Huxley, T. H. Evolution and Ethics. London: Pilot, 1947.Google Scholar
Huxley, T. H.. Hume. London: Macmillan, 1879.Google Scholar
Huxley, T. H.. “A Modern ‘Symposium’: The Influence upon Morality of a Decline in Religious Belief.” Nineteenth Century 1 (1877): 536–39.Google Scholar
Huxley, T. H.. “On the Natural Inequality of Men.” Nineteenth Century 27 (1890): 1–23.Google Scholar
Huxley, T. H.. “The Struggle for Existence: A Programme.” Nineteenth Century 23 (1888): 161–80.Google Scholar
Kropotkin, Peter. “Mutual Aid Among Animals I.” Nineteenth Century 28 (1890): 337–54.Google Scholar
Kropotkin, Peter. “Mutual Aid Among Savages.” Nineteenth Century 29 (1891): 538–59.Google Scholar
Levine, George. Darwin the Writer. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2011.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Small, Helen. “Liberal Editing in the Fortnightly Review and the Nineteenth Century .” Publishing History 53 (2003): 75–96.Google Scholar
Spencer, Herbert. The Data of Ethics. London: Williams and Norgate, 1879.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Spencer, Herbert. Literary Style and Music. London: Watts, 1950.Google Scholar
Spencer, Herbert. “On Justice”; “On Justice Concluded.” Nineteenth Century 27 (1890): 435-48, 608–20.Google Scholar
Spencer, Herbert. The Principles of Psychology. 4th ed. Vol 2. London: Williams and Norgate, 1899.Google Scholar
Stephen, Leslie. “Thomas Henry Huxley.” Nineteenth Century 48 (1900): 905–18.Google Scholar
Sumpter, Caroline. “Anthropology, Socialist Prediction and William Morris's Commonweal .” Cultural and Social History 9.3 (2012): 349–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sumpter, Caroline. “On Suffering and Sympathy: Jude the Obscure, Evolution and Ethics.” Victorian Studies 53.4 (2011): 665–87.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Thomas, J. D. “The Soul of Man under Socialism: An Essay in Context.” Rice University Studies 51 (1965): 83–95.Google Scholar
Wainwright, Michael. “Oscar Wilde, the Science of Heredity, and The Picture of Dorian Gray .” ELT 54 (2011): 494–522.Google Scholar
Wilde, Oscar. Complete Letters. Ed. Holland, Merlin and Hart-Davis, Rupert. London: Fourth Estate, 2000.Google Scholar
Wilde, Oscar. The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde II: De Profundis ‘Epostola: in Carcere et Vinculis’. Ed. Small, Ian. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2005.Google Scholar
Wilde, Oscar. The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde III: The Picture of Dorian Gray 1890 and 1891 Texts. Ed. Bristow, Joseph. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2005.Google Scholar
Wilde, Oscar. The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde IV: Criticism: Historical Criticism, Intentions, The Soul of Man. Ed. Guy, Josephine M.. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2007.Google Scholar
Wilde, Oscar. “The Decay of Lying: A Dialogue.” Nineteenth Century 25 (1889): 35–56.Google Scholar
Wilde, Oscar. Oscar Wilde's Oxford Notebooks: A Portrait of Mind in the Making. Ed. with a commentary by Smith, Philip E. and Helfand, Michael S.. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1989.Google Scholar
Wilde, Oscar. “Pen, Pencil, Poison: A Study.” Fortnightly Review 45 (1889): 41–54.Google Scholar
Wilde, Oscar. “A Preface to ‘Dorian Gray”.’ Fortnightly Review 55 (1891): 480–81.Google Scholar
Wilde, Oscar. “The Soul of Man Under Socialism.” Fortnightly Review 49 (1891): 292–319.Google Scholar
Wilde, Oscar. “The True Function and Value of Criticism; With Some Remarks on the Importance of Doing Nothing: A Dialogue. Parts I and II.” Nineteenth Century 28 (1890): 123-47, 435–59.Google Scholar