O Crepúsculo de Oscar Wilde: escrita de si e estética da existência em De Profundis (1897)

Abstract

The object of analyses of this study is the relationship between art and life in the thoughts of the Irish writer Oscar Wilde (1854–1900). The main reference source is Wilde’s autobiographical epistle, posthumously titled De Profundis, written by Wilde while in Reading Gaol prison, in 1897, after the playwright was sentenced to two years of hard labour for “gross indecency”. In addition to this letter, we have also studied other Wilde’s works, such as the essays “The Decay of Lying”, “The Critic as Artist”, and “The Soul of Man under Socialism”; which directly connects with our main reference source. In general, we argue in favour of the hypothesis that, from the notions of self writing and aesthetics of existence, De Profundis shows not only a continuation of Wilde's defense of the main ideals of aestheticism, but also an attempt by the writer to bestow a coherent image of himself to posterity. In addition to this, the Irish artist, due to his experience in prison and the public humiliation he suffered, assimilates the suffering and sadness in his aesthetic thinking. In this way, he resumes and deepens his proposal of a critical ethical elaboration, intermediated by artistic enjoyment and with potential for resistance to normativity, which he calls “individualism”.