Oscar Wilde Books?

[MJ12]

I am really interested in him, but I've never read any of his books.

Does anyone have any recomendations?

 

[Yorick]

Portrait of Dorian Gray is a good classic.

 

[Geogaddi]

The classic that everyone knows is The Importance of Being Earnest, but pretty much everything he wrote was witty, even if the subject was a little boring. Ya dig?

 

[Eejit]

The Selfish Giant is good one, it's in The Happy Prince collection of short stories, all of which are good - though I read them as children's stories when I was young.

His plays can be read as books, but the stage or film versions are better - more of the characters show through.

 

[Viperidae]

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.........................................................'I liked Earnest, to be earnest.'

 

[Sulkdodds]

Read The Picture of Dorian Gray, and then go for his short stories.

Oscar Wilde...what a guy.

Then get to reading his contemporaries, RL Stevenson, Henry James and Thomas Hardy!

 

[Viperidae]

Sulk, your sig is missing a quotation mark, and uses double question marks. For shame. I should revoke your monocle.

 

[Sulkdodds]

I am suitably humbled.

 

[Solaris]

The Soul of Man under Socialism is a very good essay by Wilde.

"Just as the worst slave-owners were those who were kind to their slaves, and so prevented the horror of the system being realised by those who suffered from it, and understood by those who contemplated it, so, in the present state of things in England, the people who do most harm are the people who try to do most good; and at last we have had the spectacle of men who have really studied the problem and know the life - educated men who live in the East End - coming forward and imploring the community to restrain its altruistic impulses of charity, benevolence, and the like. They do so on the ground that such charity degrades and demoralises. They are perfectly right. Charity creates a multitude of sins.
There is also this to be said. It is immoral to use private property in order to alleviate the horrible evils that result from the institution of private property. It is both immoral and unfair. "

 

[The Monkey]

"Oscar Wilde...var inte han fikus?"

 

[Saruke]

The Soul of Man under Socialism is a very good essay by Wilde.

"Just as the worst slave-owners were those who were kind to their slaves, and so prevented the horror of the system being realised by those who suffered from it, and understood by those who contemplated it, so, in the present state of things in England, the people who do most harm are the people who try to do most good; and at last we have had the spectacle of men who have really studied the problem and know the life - educated men who live in the East End - coming forward and imploring the community to restrain its altruistic impulses of charity, benevolence, and the like. They do so on the ground that such charity degrades and demoralises. They are perfectly right. Charity creates a multitude of sins.
There is also this to be said. It is immoral to use private property in order to alleviate the horrible evils that result from the institution of private property. It is both immoral and unfair. "

Wow.... Oscar Wilde... I've lost a little respect for you.

 

[Solaris]

Wow.... Oscar Wilde... I've lost a little respect for you.

I dissapointed in your sense of intellectual integrity.

If a man I respect, Richard Dawkins for example, said that he thought the earth was flat, I'd be intrigued, I'd think 'I respect this man, clearly he has a very good line of reasoning that I'm not aware of' I'd investigate the idea and say, 'well he's wrong, I cannot respect this man now'.

You however just see that the man had a social conscience and dismiss his ideas and the man himself as wrong, without wondering if he was right, I bet you didnt even read his essay. Just saw that he was a socialist and dismissed him.

I doubt you even know what the socialism he talks about is.

 

[Gray Fox]

Well said there buddy.

 

[Sulkdodds]

Not to mention I think Mr. Wilde might frown upon your objecting to his work on political rather than aesthetic grounds. At least - the Wilde that is popularly portrayed would.

 

[Saruke]

I apologize, when I first made that comment I had not read the entire essay and my statement was uninformed, but now that I have I feel even more convicted in my position. Oscar Wilde did not truly understand the realities of life and had a fantastical view of the world that seems to come from his social status.

And frankly I don't appreciate his manipulation of the words of Jesus.

He doesn't give any practical explanations,

how do we achieve this realization?
Through socialism?
How will it do that?

 

[CptStern]

surprised you didnt say his homosexuality made him a sinner :upstare:

and perverting jesus' words? that's pretty ironical cuz christians have been perverting his words from pretty much day one

 

[Solaris]

I apologize, when I first made that comment I had not read the entire essay and my statement was uninformed, but now that I have I feel even more convicted in my position. Oscar Wilde did not truly understand the realities of life and had a fantastical view of the world that seems to come from his social status.

And frankly I don't appreciate his manipulation of the words of Jesus.

He doesn't give any practical explanations,

how do we achieve this realization?
Through socialism?
How will it do that?

You cant criticise him for not explaining how soicalism will work, becuase that isn't the topic of the essay. Granted, to agree with the essay, you must, in first part, be a socialist.

Read some Marx.

 

[Saruke]

CptStern, your accusing me of being intolerant because I'm a Christian?

What other type of people supposedly dishes out that sort of prejudice? Hmmmm......

And Solaris I have read a few Marx essays and I find them to be full of the same sort of ideas.

Ideas that, while well thought out and very eloquent, have no basis in the real world and only reflect the authors own inability to grasp the nature of humanity.

 

[Viperidae]

All of you, shut up.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-4UL9_bZFQ

 

[Solaris]

Ideas that, while well thought out and very eloquent, have no basis in the real world and only reflect the authors own inability to grasp the nature of humanity.

Naturalistic logial fallacy.

 

[Sulkdodds]

Surely not. To say that something is good because it is natural is a fallacy, as it would be to view a conception of 'human nature' as idyllic and ideal. But to observe human nature and say that it is necessary to consider it is no fallacy. If humans are animals who are poised between natural love and a savage instinctual aggression, it is not at all illogical to propose that any political system must take this into account.

I am not sure I agree with such a conception of human nature, or that such a conception necessarily releases us from the duty of building better worlds. I regard "it is human nature" as an inadequate response. Nevertheless, holding such a view, it is not a fallacy to build upon it.

 

[Solaris]

You're right, I concede.