Oscar's Essays

Many people seem to judge Oscar on his only novel The Picture of Dorian Gray or on some of his great plays such as "The Importance of Being Earnest" or "A Women of No Importance", this is perhaps understandable. Or maybe some people pick up on his wise witticisms and like him, or dislike him, for the playfulness of his epigrams, this is also perhaps understandable.

However, I would ask those who are quick to judge and dismiss Oscar only with these works to read his essays. Read "Pen, Pencil and Poison" read, "The Critic as an Artist" read "The Soul of man Under Socialism" and you will begin to uncover a much deeper thinker indeed.

Add to this some biographical study and perhaps a few of his letters and maybe you will begin to piece together just how truly deep an important thinker Wilde was in the realms of art. It is as Stephen Fry said that "Oscar's opinion of art was so high that most people though he was joking", to Oscar art was life.

Works such as "Critic as an Artist" contain some of Oscar's most beautiful prose; he practised what he didn't really preach, and as ever made it truly beautiful.

http://www.online-literature.com/wilde/1305/