I managed to get through about a third of "The Critic as Artist," the two plays, Salome and The Importance of Being Earnest, his novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, about one-fifth of "De Profundis" which is the amazingly (amazingly) long letter to his ex-boyfriend, and some of his poems. What an interesting character he was! Modesty was not one of his traits, and his discussions of "Art" made me role my eyes, but I really enjoyed his works of fiction, and was left feeling bad for the poor guy despite his whining

Salomé: 2 stars. This might have to do with my deep interest in ancient history and philosophy, but I found the play almost to the point of offensive, particularly the first half. I was extremely uncomfortable with the way Wilde made a mockery of certain people and ideas -- most likely, the Greeks, the Romans, the Egyptians, the Jews, religious principles, and what we nowadays call "philosophical" thinking. Given that the play was supposed to be an adaptation of the Biblical story of Salomé, the woman who beheaded John the Baptist, was the following sweeping generalisation, condescendingly enumerated, necessary?

Within there are Jews from Jerusalem who are tearing each other in pieces over their foolish ceremonies, and barbarians who drink and drink, and spill their wine on the pavement, and Greeks from Smyrna with painted eyes and painted cheeks, and frizzed hair curled in columns, and Egyptians silent and subtle, with long nails of jade and russet cloaks, and Romans brutal and coarse, with their uncouth jargon (397).

Similarly, what was the point of dragging the Stoic philosophers in?

There be some who slay themselves, sire. They are the Stoics. The Stoics are people of no cultivation. They are ridiculous people (408).

I was also bothered by Wilde's ridicule of religious arguments -- those back-and-forths between the Jews (410-11).I can imagine how meticulous exposition of ordinary and abstract matters might come across to some as comical and absurd. But ultimately, I do think such a "philosophical" approach is essential to our gradual understanding of reality: this is how we can unpack and address fundamental, challenging questions -- e.g., does God exist? what is knowledge? how ought we live?

Yes, "it is not wise to find symbols in everything that one sees" (419). We should not, however, underestimate the role of critical thinking in our lives, especially when coupled with imagination.

Read all of his works in here, Salome was beautiful and I even watched the German play on YouTube. Suffer me thy kiss Jokanaan

Oscar Wilde is a very meticulous writing when based on word choice and sentence structure. All of his magnificents pieces show great knowledge of literature, great intelligence and great domination of the language. His philosophy impresses me, although I disagree with him at some levels, I agree with him on his messages.

PLenty of Wilde to choose from in this handy volume - Dorian Grey, Importance of Being Earnest, Reading Gaol, etc.

this is a great colletion of oscar wilde works.

God I am so glad to be done with this. Should have been a short story.

For QEII, read The Importance of Being Earnest and The Ballad of Reading Gaol.

Arthur Conan Doyle meets Oscar Wilde

Stoddart, the American editor of Lippincott's Magazine, proved to be an excellent fellow, and had me and another writer to dinner in London. I discovered the other was Oscar Wilde, who was already a famous writer. It was indeed a golden evening for me. Wilde to my surprise had read my novel, "Micah Clarke" and was enthusiastic about it, so that I did not feel a complete outsider. His conversation left an indelible impression upon my mind. He towered above us all, and yet had the art of seeming to be interested in all that we could say. He had delicacy of feeling and tact, for the monologue man, however, clever, can never be a gentleman at heart. He took as well as gave, but what he gave was unique. He had a curious precision of statement, a delicate flavour of humour, and a trick of small gestures to illustrate his meaning.

The result of the evening was that both Wilde and I promised to write books for Lippincott's Magazine—Wilde's contribution was "The Picture of Dorian Grey," a book which is surely upon a high moral plane, while I wrote "The Sign of Four," in which Holmes made his second appearance. A young Rudyard Kipling, who could not make the dinner, wrote "The Light That Failed" for the magazine.

-Arthur Conan Doyle, Memories and Adventures

http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks14/1400...

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Some wit and wisdom

per my mother in law....

"Some cause happiness wherever they go, others whenever they go."

per my father in law...

“With age comes wisdom, but sometimes age comes alone.”

==

“A bore is someone who deprives you of solitude without providing you with company.”

“The public have an insatiable curiosity to know everything, except what is worth knowing.”

“Indeed I have always been of the opinion that hard work is simply the refuge of people who have nothing to do.”

“Consistency is the hallmark of the unimaginative.”

“It is what you read when you don't have to that determines what you will be when you can't help it.”

“I think it's very healthy to spend time alone. You need to know how to be alone and not be defined by another person.”

“If you cannot write well, you cannot think well; if you cannot think well, others will do your thinking for you.”

“Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.”

“Life is too short to learn German”

“Irony is wasted on the stupid”

“The one charm about the past is that it is the past.”

“Punctuality is the thief of time”

“The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible.”

“Nowadays people know the price of everything and the value of nothing.”

“There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.”

“Children begin by loving their parents; as they grow older they judge them; sometimes they forgive them.”

"As for a spoiled life, no life is spoiled but one whose growth is arrested."

“Anybody can sympathise with the sufferings of a friend, but it requires a very fine nature to sympathise with a friend's success.”

“America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between.”

"Romantic art deals with the exception and the individual. Good people, belonging as they do to the normal, and so, commonplace, type are artistically uninteresting. Bad people are, from the point of view of art, fascinating studies. They represent colour, variety and strangeness. Good people exasperate one’s reason; bad people stir one’s imagination."

"In a world run by fools the writer can only chronicle the doings of fools and their victims."

"Comedy is a weapon more dangerous than tragedy."

“The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame.”

well this was absolutely transcending thank you very much (especially de profundis)
i couldn't get through the 20 or so pages about Jesus or the end of the critic as artists even though im sure it was dead interesting, but i will at some point. the letters were great too.

Used this as a convenient way to read some Wilde I had missed out on. So the parts I read were:

The Picture of Dorian Gray
De Profundis
Ballad of Reading Gaol
and the letters from Wilde included in this volume (only about half a dozen)