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99Humanity space International almanac VOL. 1, No 4, 2012: 891-899
Style features of Oscar Wilde's tales O.V. Stukalova
Federal State Research Institution of the Russian Academy of Education «Institute of Art Education»
Pogodinskaya str. 8, building 1, Moscow 119121 Russia Федеральное государственное бюджетное научное учреждение «Институт художественного образования» Российской Академии Образования 119121, Москва, ул. Погодинская, д. 8, корп.1; e-mail: [email protected]
Key words: Oscar Wilde, tales, style, aestheticism, irony, ornamental prose, image. Ключевые слова: Оскар Уайльд, сказки, стиль, эстетизм, ирония, орнаментальная проза, образ.
Abstract: The author analyzes the artistic features of the Oscar Wilde's style by the example of his famous tales. The irony, ornamental prose, rich detail and epithets are the stylistic features that make Wilde's fairy tales so popular among readers and critics.
Резюме: Автор статьи анализирует художественные особенности стиля Оскара Уайльда на примере его знаменитых сказок. Ирония, орнаментальность прозы, богатство деталей и эпитетов - все это стилевые черты, которые делают сказки Уайльда столь популярными у читателей и критиков. [Стукалова О.В. Стилевые особенности сказок Оскара Уайльда]
There are very clear words of A. Ransome devoted to Oscar Wilde: "Wilde was discontented with life as it was commonly lived and had learnt to hope that it might be beautiful be being set among beautiful things" (Ransome, 1913: 62). This can be used as an epigraph to all nine fairy stories of the famous English writer of the end of the nineteenth century.
Also, excessiveness, is often called as the main trait of Wilde. This [excessiveness] concernes both his life and his works.
Being under deep impression of Reskine, Dikkens, Flaubert, Andersen "The closest influence is Andersen" (The fairy stories of Oscar Wilde / With an introduction by Naomi Lewi's. London, 1976: 11), and some other predecessors Wilde, meantime, had his own strong style manners.
Many of the specialists in Wilde's works note the decadent motifs (rapprochement Love and Death, aetheticism of Evil and Vice and, also, the lack of understanding or sympathy between the sensitive artistic soul and the unfeeling Philistine majority). The last
theme is a common theme in Wilde's works.
Picture of life in his texts is expressly conditional. Problems of style were more important for Wilde than plot and psycological portray of the characters.
The object of analysis in this manuscript is Wilde's fairy tales. We want to speak about it one else, at greater length.
At first, "Oscar Wilde loved to tell stories. <...> he had a genuis for storytelling <...> That Wilde was pleased with his tales, especially the fairy tales, is clear from his letters <...>" (Ericksen Donald, 1977: 53).
At second, many of the tales possess the ornate stylistic embellishments found the larger artistic works of Wilde (such as Salome or The Picture of Dorian Grey).
At third, the themes and subject matter of Wilde's stories are essentially the same as those of his other works.
The fourth argument is the fact of presence of the improbable principle in the whole of Wilde's works. In addition, two volumes of fairy tales constitute two of Wilde's significant achievements as a prose writer if enduring popularity is any creation. What style features were used in two collections of tales? After our analysis of nine tales we draw such conclusion:
* The tales were written in the rhythmical, highly ornamental prose. Wilde uses to sharply illuminate his scenes. The effect in some cases is a rich, sensuous prose-poetry.
* The tales are filled with the highly ornate passages. For example (from "The Nightingale and the Rose"):
"The she gave one last burst of music. The wight moon heard it, and she forgot the dawn, and lingered in the sky. The red rose heard it, and it trembled all over with ecstasy, and opened its petals to the cold morning air. Echo bore it to her purple cavern in the hills, and woke the sleeping shepherds from their dreams. It floated through the reeds of the river, and the carried its messages to the sea".
From our point of view, the very artificiality of Wilde's style and the distancing effect it creates is the source of a portion of Wilde's success with the fairy tales.
* Irony is one of the main elements of Wilde's artistic credo. For example, he no doubt admired the complexity created by
the ironic contrast between the student's undervaluation of the Nightingale's song and the Nightingale's overvaluation of the student's sincerity (from "The Nightingale and the Rose").
Next examples were taken from "The Remarkable Rocket": "I am made for public life," said the Rocket. <...> "Ah! the higher things of life, how fine they are", said the Duck and that reminds me how hungry I feel" <...>
"She has a decidely middle-class mind"<...> and he [the Rocket] sank a little deeper still mud, and began to think about the lonelines of genuis <...>"
There is the ironic contrast in this piece of the tale. We mind the contrast between "the higher things of life" and "a little deeper still mud", where the Rocket "began to think about" its. In this context the name of this tale is full of irony.
Wilde often used the ironic contrast in the finales of the tales: "I am rather afraid that I have annoyed him", ansewered the Linnet. "The fact is that I told him a story with a moral".
- Ah! that is always a very dangerous thing to do - said the
Duck.
And I quite agree with her. ("'Devoted Friend") * The other main element of the Wilde's style is
parody. This style feature is connected with stylisation.
Speech of the Woodpecker ("The Star Childe") is obvious parody. Wilde parodyized the philosophical treatises:
"- Well, for my own part - said the Woodpecker, who was a born philosopher.-I don't care an atomic theory for explanations. If a thing is so, it is so, and at present it is terribly cold".
We can see the different kinds of parody in the tales: Wilde parodyized the genre of literary fairy tale itself (of course, in the first place, the Andersen's tales, especially his manner - pretty poetic and imaginative flights; also the plots of its - for example, the plot of "The Fisherman and his Soul" is the smooth reflection of the plot of Andersen's "The Mermaid"); Wilde parodyized the different styles (example above); in conclusion, he parodyized the different social types:
- the Wolf from "The Star-Childe" is the collective character of the typical Philistine):
"Ugh - snarled the Wolf, as he limped through the
brushwood with his tail between his legs, - "this is perfectly monstrous weather. Why doesn't the Government look to do it!" <...>
"Nonsense", growled the Wolf, "I tell you that it is all the fault of the Government, and if you don't believe me I shall eat you". The Wolf had a thoroughly practical mind, and was never at a loss for a good argument".
- the student, "who only knew the things that are written down in books" ("The Nightingale and the Rose")is opposite to the Nightingale as a true Philistine to a true artist.
* Wilde creates an effect in the tales, partly by use of two levels of reality.
Let us analyse the tale "The Birthday of the Infanta":
one level consists of the Infanta's surface world of elegance, beauty, and laughter and the second consists of an underlying world of sorrow, cruelty and death.
With great skill, Wilde employs image after image to reinforce the reader's conscience of the often ironic contrast between these two levels.
* Wilde used not only the ironic contrast, we meet such type of contrast as antithesis. This style feature is especially important for the tale's plot.
For example, there is a contrast between Beauty and Ugliness in the plot of "The Star-Child':
the first picture of the Star-Child:
"<...> he was white and delicate as sown ivory, and his curls were like the rings of the daffodil".
(after he said to his mother, "<...> rather would I kiss the adder or the toad than thee", he looked into the well of water "and lo!
his face was the face of a toad, and his body was scalled like an adder".
* Such type of usage of the antithesis is connected with Wilde's criticism.
Wilde's deep concern with social issues is strikingly evident in such stories as "The Happy Prince", "The Star-Child' and "The Birthday of the Infanta".
In addition, Wilde is also attaking what he saw as the
tendency of the wealthy and privileges classes to justify their own indifference and selfishness by specious economic and moral rationalizations. The social conscience that Wilde was to reveal in such later works as "The Soul of man under Socialism", "The Ballad of Reading Gaol" is much in evidence in his fairy tales.
We show this feature by the tale "The Happy Prince": the final of the story about the virtuous Prince, who wanted to help the poor people, is full of sorrow and bitter irony:
"So they pulled down the statue of the Happy Prince.
"As he is no longer beautiful he is no longer useful", said the Art Professor at the University.
Then they melted the statue in a furnace <...>"
The only thing could remind about the Happy prince: it was "the broken lead heart." But it was unusual Heart: it "will not melt in the furnace". But the heart was thrown on "a dust-heap where the dead Swallow was also lying".
May be, there is the only "silver lining" in this cruel story:
"You have rightly chosen," said God, "for in my garden of Paradise this little bird shall sing for evermore, and in my city of gold the Happy Prince shall praise me".
May be... but, it seems to us, there is the Wilde's irony in these words. Is it merited recompence for the Prince?
* In many of Wilde's fairy tales the motifs of suffering and redemption through love appear as consistent threads "a varity of writers have remarked upon the fascination Wilde seemed to have had throughout his life for Christianity and especially the figure of Christ" (Ericksen Donald, 1977: 77).
This Christ motif permites the texture of "The Selfish Giant" most visibly. The little boy whom the Giant had helped into the tree long ago finally returns with the marks of crucifixion on his hands and feet and a message of love. The Christian motifs are obvious also in "The Young King": such rich metals are often correlative to transcendence in Biblical literature, in this tale the King becomes illuminated by
"a marvellous and mystical light".
* Wilde had always striven to create an atmosphere of strange and exotic beauty.
- he integrates his rich detailes (especially in "The Young
King" - the Young King send his servants for):
"all rare and costly materials had certainly a great fascination for him <...> curious green turquoise which is found only in the tombs of kings, and is said to possess magical properties <...> silken carpets <...> stained ivory <...> sandal - wood and blue enamel <...>"
- he often uses the epithets connected with treasures (jewels, gold and silver and so on):
"my city of gold (The Happy Prince)";
"most brilliant descent in a shower of golden rain" ("The Remarkable Rocket");
"an aureole of faded gold stood out stiffly round her pale little face" ("The Birthday of the Infanta");
"The dead staff blossomed and bare lilies that were whiter than pearls. The dry thorn blossomed, and bare roses that were redder than rubies.
Whiter than fine pearls were the lilies and their stems were of bright silver. Redder than male rubies were the roses and their leaves were of beaten gold" ("The Young King");
"<...> he was white and delicate as sown ivory, and his curls were like the rings of the daffodil" ("The Star-Child");
"gold dust on their wings " ("The Birthday of the Infanta"); "Fisherman and His Soul" possess the same lengthy catalogues of exotic jewels, precious metals."
The "precious" epithets are not only metaphor. For example, the Happy Prince was made off gold and jewels:
"He was gilded all over with thin leaves of fine gold, for eyes he had two bright sapphires, and a large ruby glowed on his sword-hilt".
"Gold", "sapphires" have a literal meaning in this description. But these words can possess a figurative sense too. So the description of the Prince is enriched by two meanings. The main idea of this tale is enriched too, of course. We can compare the first description of the Prince to the end of this tale: the Prince had the "lead heart". Lead is not a precious metal, but in that case it means true treasure: " This broken lead heart will not melt in the furnace".
- Wilde is the wonderful painter, but his instruments are the Word and the Imagination.
This is the initial description of the Infanta's garden, thou strikingly sensuous and ornate, foreshadows the sad end of this tale
("The Birthday of Infanta"):
"The purple butterflies fluttered about with gold dust on their wings, visiting each flower in turn; the little lizards crept out of the crevices of the wall, and lay backing in the white glare; and the pomegranates split and cracked with the heat, and showed their bleeding red hearts".
The colouring the Wllde's fairy tales is rich and polychromatic (especially in tales from the collection "The House of Pomegranates": for example, the description of the meeting with the priests ("Fisherman and His Soul").
Sometimes other colour has the important meaning for the characteristic of the tale's personages:
"She was like a white rose before" said a young page to his neighbour.
"But she is like a red rose now" and the whole court was delighted.
For the next three days everybody went about saying, "White rose, Red rose, Red rose, White rose <...>" ("The Remarkable Rocket")
In that case "Red" and "White" are the context antonym. This episode maintains the psycological notes (the girl became "Red Rose" after the words of love), but Wilde did not describe inner feelings, he showed only outer display of her emotion.
* The Wilde's style is close to the antique authors. He admired the subjects of the material culture as them (the description of the furniture in the Young King's room).
* There is interesting usage of stylisation in the tale "The Fisherman and His Soul":
"And in the first chamber I saw an idol seated on a throne of jasper bordered with great orientpearles;
And I said to the priest; is this the god? And he answered me, "This is the God". <...> And I touched his hand, and it became withered <...>
And the priest besought me <... >"
The reiteration "And" creates an illusion of the scriptural
* One of the main style feature of the Wilde's tales is the constant usage of comparisons . He used:
- simple comparisons (to one subject):
"His hair is dark as the hyacnth-blossom, and his lips are red as the rose of his desire; but passion has made his face like pale ivory, and sorrow has set her seal upon his brow". ("The Nightingale and the Rose);
"<...> and the fish dart about like silver birds" ("The Fisherman and His Soul");
- comparisons to the whole complex of different feelings: "<...> and a delicate flush ofpink came into the leaves of the
rose, like the flush in the face of the bridegroom when he kisses the lips of the bride". ("The Nightingale and the Rose)
The colour of the Rose is not only a tint of red, the Rose was coloured by the first love, the first tenderness, mixed with the first sexual feeling.
* Wilde created his images using the bright detailes:
"Two tiny slippers with big pink rossetes peeped out beneath her dress as she walked". ("The Birthday of the Infanta");
"<...> she did so she throw into the air seven pink stars". ("The Remarkable Rocket").
This style feature creates the particular elegance and the atmosphere of vivacity.
* The usage of prosopopoeia has some particulations. Wilde made full use of certain names of places and persons
and, perhaps, trusting to the capital letters to carry them through, frequently decorated his tales:
"He did not hate the Winter now, for he knew that it was merely the Spring asleep, and the flowers were resting". ("The Selfish Giant")
* Finally, the tales are full of the examples of maxims. As usual for the Wilde's style they are paradoxes:
"You will never be in the best society unless you can stand on your heads" <...> ( "DevotedFriend");
"The love is vile", cried the Priest, knitting his brows,"and the vile and evil are the pagan things God suffers to wander through His world". ( "The Fisherman and His Soul")
There is no doubt the last maxim is a parody. It is a bright
example of the Wilde's irony.
REFERENCES
Arnold I.V. 1990. Contemporary English style. Moscow. Prosveshchenie. 300 p.
Arnold I.V., Yakovleva N.Ya. 1967. Analytical reading (English prose of 18-20 centuries). Leningrad. Prosveshchenie: 199-210 (Oscar Wilde).
Encyclopaedia Britannica. Vol. 12: 683; Vol. 15: 328; l. 21: 488-489.
Ericksen Donald H. Oscar Wilde. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1977. 175 p.
Galperin I.R. 1958. English language style. Moscow. [Izdatelstvo literatury na inostrannykh yazykakh]. 459 p.
Literary encyclopaedic dictionary. Moscow. [Sovetskaya Entsiklopediya]: 132, 259, 418, 419.
Problems of lingustic style. [Sbornik]. Moscow, 1969. 175 p.
Ransome A. 1913. Oscar Wilde. A critical study. London, 1913. 236 p.
The fairy stories of Oscar Wilde / With an introduction by Naomi Lewi's. London, 1976: 11.
The Oxford English dictionary. Vol. II; 710; Vol. VI: 254, 398; Vol. VIII: 1493.
Получена /Received: 09.10.2012 Принята/Accepted: 16.10.2012
