The Doctring of Art for Art’s Sake in Oscar Wilde’s Critical Writings;

The main belief related to the doctrine of art for art’s sake is the autonomy of art, the concept that art finds perfection within itself or the belief in the aim of art its own perfection. In England the doctrine was championed by the writer critic Oscar wild. This theory of art dwelt mainly on the terms art and beauty.This thesis is an analytical study of wilde’s essays on literary criticism. The thesis falls into three chapters. Chapter one deals with the origin of the doctrine represented by the german thinkers kant, goethe and schiller and development of literary theory represented by different European and American thinkers, namely Arnold, Pater, Swinburne, Poe, Baudealire, Dostoevsky and de Sanctis.Chapter Two deals with wilde’s critical essays. ”The Decay of lying” is a protest against realism. In the this essay wilde summerizes the doctrines of the new aesthetics in three points: First: Art is autonomous. Second: Realism is a comlete failure and third: life imitates art far more than art imitates life, a paradox which is meant to express the influence of art on lifeas well as to assert the autonomy of art.”Pen, pencil and poison” is a Biographical essay on a critic who represents the false taste of his time.In his literary dialogue ” The critic as Artist” wild discusses many points concerning criticism. Criticism, Wilde believes, is a creative art. it works with materials and puts them in a new and beautifal form. Criticism is creation within creation.Chapter three deals with the elements of wilde’s literaey theory. Wilde’s concept resolves itself in the following points: the belief in the autonomy of criticism as creation.In ” The Decay of lying” he says paradoxically to assert the autonomy of art that life imitates aArt and nature like life is an imitation as Art.Wild believes that Art achieves its perfection in the unity of content and form. Form and substance cannot be separated in a work of art. In Art, Wilde believes, the outward is expressive of the inward.Finally, this thesis is an attempt to understand and estimate the literary conceptions of a famous creative artist who thinks of himself as the symbol of his age, a writer who declares his thoughts in striling formulas which shock us into a deep under-Standing of what he means.