Sunday, June 10, 2007
The Decay of Lying
In Oscar Wilde's "The Decay of Lying," he states, "The ancient historians gave us delightful fiction in the form of fact; the modern novelist presents us with dull facts under the guise of fiction (833-834)." This to me was an interesting statement by Wilde. He seems to be criticizing many of the ficticious poems that were being created in his day. I believe what Wilde is really trying to come to is that many of the ficticious writers of his day were not using their imaginations in order to tell a ficticious story. I also gathered from reading further in the story that is seems like the present writers were learning about the issue that they were trying to present. However, I believe he thinks they are boring because they just present the facts, and they fail to use their imagination in presenting the facts like the "ancient historians" used to do. The lack of imagination could be Wilde trying to critise the way that everything in England had changed since the Industrialization. He may have felt the change has taken something away from the writers of the day. Maybe he felt like the writers were trying to please the public instead of making the ficticious novels what he felt they should be.
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3 comments:
Robert,
OK comment on Wilde's "Decay of Lying." You select a good quotation for your focus, and make some interesting generalizations about it. I would have liked you to do more to support your claims, though, or to connect it to other authors we have read this session.
Good job of analyzing Wilde’s The Decay of Lying. Wilde was amazingly insightful. I think you have to peel away his layers to understand his meaning. His savviness was light years ahead of mine. Part of his appeal is that I never know when to take him seriously. For instance, when he said “A short primer, ‘When to Lie and How,’ if brought out in an attractive and not too expensive a form, would no doubt command a large sale, and would prove of real practical service to many earnest and deep-thinking people.” This is of course a humorous assertion, but I think he was being “earnest” at the same time. Wilde was a master at blurring the line between seriousness and frivolousness. The bottom line is Wilde was telling us to engage our imaginations when he suggested that we “cultivate the lost art of lying.” When we do, “over our heads will float the Blue Bird singing of beautiful and impossible things, of things that are lovely and that never happen, of things that are not and that should be.”
rob,
once again i feel like you have picked a good quote to go over from "The Decay of Lying", however i think that some of the claims that you made from the quote and the rest of the poem could have used more supportive evidence. With that said, i do see how you could have come to that conclusion, that Wilde was criticizing the fictional writers of his day. I just thought you could have given more evidence from the text but still a good job
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