An Irish writer, Wilde was the most brilliant figure of the movement that defended art for art's sake. In novels, plays, and essays, he celebrated beauty, pleasure, and individual freedom against Victorian morality. Sentenced to prison for his homosexuality, he died poor in Paris, a few years after leaving jail.
Core ideas
Art has no moral obligation: its value lies in beauty and the intensity it provokes
To live is to make one's own life a work of art, cultivating experiences and sensations
Socialism is worthwhile only if it frees the individual to develop their personality fully
The tradition: Aestheticism
Aestheticism places beauty and intense experience above usefulness and conventional morality. Oscar Wilde is its most famous spokesman, who made his own life and work a manifesto of this idea.
