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Oscar WildeA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Oscar Wilde was a writer and renowned conversationalist whose wit, humor, and style made him the toast of London society in the late 1800s. Born in Dublin in 1854, Wilde was raised in an upper-class family. His mother’s interest in literature was something she shared with her son as he grew up. As a young man, Wilde studied classics, or classical studies, at Trinity College, Dublin, and Oxford University. By the 1880s, Wilde was living and writing in London. In his lifetime, he published poetry, essays, short stories, and plays, as well as the novel The Picture of Dorian Gray. Wilde’s work and flamboyant personality became representative of the Aestheticism movement. Though married and a father to two sons, Wilde’s sexual orientation gained notoriety and ultimately led him to be imprisoned from 1895 to 1897 due to Victorian laws against “gross indecency,” which effectively criminalized gay relationships. He died of meningitis in 1900.
Wilde’s keen intellect and knack for witty banter shine through in much of his work, including “The Decay of Lying.” He adeptly uses rhetorical devices, wordplay, and allusion to make insightful and humorous observations about behavior, art, style, and literature, and these skills are on display in this essay. Wilde’s voice and opinions are channeled through Vivian, and he does not shy away from lampooning even some of the most popular writers of the era, such as Hall Caine and Robert Louis Stevenson. Thus, ever the devotee of beauty, Wilde uses “The Decay of Lying” not only as a platform to espouse aestheticist ideals, but also to level criticism against what he perceives to be the shortcomings of the major artistic movements of his time.
Wilde frames the presentation of his opinions and the principles of aestheticism as a dialogue between Vivian and Cyril, characters named after Wilde’s own two sons. Within this dialogue, Vivian presents Wilde’s argument and responds to Cyril, who poses questions. Cyril’s questions are not critical but simply interrogative—his role in the dialogue is largely functional. Cyril anticipates the questions that readers may have regarding the points Vivian makes, and so he prompts Vivian to elaborate on his arguments and brings up relevant doubts, comments, and counterarguments.
Little information is given regarding Cyril or Vivian’s backgrounds, though it can be assumed that they are friends, as Cyril badgers Vivian about spending too much time cooped up in the library. It is also revealed that Vivian is part of a club ironically called “The Tired Hedonists” (2), which comically has being “a good deal bored with each other” (2) as one of its main aims. Vivian claims that his article has been written for publication in a magazine curated by this club, which would mean that its main audience is others who are interested in the pleasures in life—a likely reference to the Decadent movement. However, Vivian is open to sharing the article with Cyril on the condition that Cyril promises “not to interrupt too often” (2), underscoring that the dialogue is one that Vivian will guide. This establishes the structure the essay follows, which is largely dominated by Vivian’s article with the occasional question or reaction from Cyril.
By Oscar Wilde