Wilde, Oscar

Oscar Wilde was 1871 in Trinity College Dublin and tutored by J.P. Mahaffy. He travelled with Mahaffy to Italy in 1875 and Greece in 1877, and was considerably influences by his former tutor's aesthetic perception. The contention of Mahaffy about Chinese civilization is shown in Twelve lectures on primitive civilization and their physical conditions, in which Mahaffy discusses the development of various civilisations in world history. [Siehe Mahaffy].
As an undergraduate at Magdalen College, Oxford, Wilde had his considerable collection of blue-and-white porcelain housed on the shelves. His remark "I find it harder and harder every day to live up to my blue china" brought him fame in the university. Wilde's enthusiasm for blue-and-white was a confirmation of his identity as an aesthete.

Brief von Oscar Wilde an William Ward.
Wilde saying "how can you, and aesthetic youth, dress yourself as a Chinaman and so exhibit yourself to some girl you are fond of ?" Wilde distinguished Ward and himself from the Chinese people who he thought had an inferior taste in beauty.

Wilde, Oscar. House decoration. [Vortrag in Amerika]. = Wilde, Oscar. Art and the handicraftsman. In : Wilde, Oscar. Essays and lectures. (London : Methuen, 1911).
online-literature.com schreibt ; "When I was in San Francisco I used to visit the Chinese Quarter frequently. There I used to watch a great hulking Chinese workman at his task of digging, and used to see him every day drink his tea from a little cup as delicate in texture as the petal of a flower, whereas in all the grand hotels of the land, where thousands of dollars have been lavished on great gilt mirrors and gaudy columns, I have been given my coffee or my chocolate in cups an inch and a quarter thick. I think I have deserved something nicer."

Wilde, Oscar. The decorative arts : a lecture delivered on 3rd October, 1882 in the City Hall, Fredericton, N.B.
Er schreibt : "When I was in San Francisco… I saw rough Chinese navies, who did work that the ordinary Californian rightly might be disgusted with and refuse to do, sitting there drinking their tea out of tiny porcelain cups, which might be mistaken for the petals of a white rose, and handling them with care, fully appreciating the influence of their beauty."

Wilde, Oscar. The house beautiful. = Interior and exterior house decoration. [Vortrag 11 March 1882 in Chicago].
jstor.org schreibt über zwei Räume von James Abbott McNeill Whistler in London : "The woodwork is all cane-yellow, with all the wall niches and brackets tinted a light yellow, and the shelves are filled with blue and white china… When the breakfast table is laid in this apartment, with its bright cloth and its dainty blue and white china, with a cluster of red and yellow chrysanthemums in an old Nanjing vase in the center, it is a charming room…"

Er schreibt : "As regards the floor : don't carpet it all over, as nothing is more unhealthy or inartistic than modern carpets ; carpets absorb the dust, and it is impossible to keep them as perfectly clean as anything about us should be. In this, as in all things, art and sanitary regulations go hand in hand. It is better to use a parquetry flooring around the sides and rugs in the center ; if inlaid or stained floors are not practical, have them laid with pretty matting and strewn with those very handsome and economical rugs from China, Persia, and Japan."
"In a restaurant in San Francisco I saw a Chinese navy drinking his tea out of a most beautiful cup as delicate as the petal of a flower…"

Chen Qi : Wilde's attitude towards the Chinese developed into a respectful stance. He demonstrates appreciation of the Chinese throughout some of his most representative essays and public lectures. The Chinese once being alienated by him because of their supposed inferior taste turned into his referential model of artistic lifestyle. This change in attitude happened after his visit to Chinatown in San Francisco. Escorted by the local mayor, Wilde watches operas in Chinese theatres and drank tea in Chinese restaurants. He wrote a letter to Norman Forbes-Robertson (27 March 1882) to share his excitement : 'tonight I am escorted by the Mayor of the city through the Chinese quarter, to their theatre and joss houses and rooms, which will be most interesting'. Richard Ellmann notes that Wilde even made a Chinese friend in San Francisco. He was invited by some local young artists to drink tea in a studio. A Chinese friend of these artists came to the party especially to prepare and serve the tea for them. It seems that Wilde enjoyed the experience of visiting Chinatown, because he frequently mentioned it in his lectures.
When Wilde made his American tour, a newspaper of the new world pictures him as a 'Chinaman' with a pigtail. In this grotesque cartoon, Wilde stands smugly between two Chinese vases, which contain a sunflower and a lily. The sunflower has rats for petals. The caption reads 'No like to call me John, call me Oscar'. This pictures contains the implication of racism against the Chinese, who were stereotyped as 'yellow peril' during the late nineteenth century by the white supremacists.
After experiencing Chinatown, Wilde as fascinated by Chineseness. He said : "I wish those people had a quarter in London. I should take pleasure in visiting it often". In California, Chinese communities were often harassed, attacked, or expelled. The Americans justified the anti-Chinese movement by denying the equal humanity of the Chinese people. Chinese labourers were recruited to work in the British Isles and the colonies of the empire through the 'Chinese coolie trade'. Londoners worried about the presence of the Chinese in the East End. The public feared that the Chinese, who were perceived as opium eaters and an inferior race, would bring 'racial degeracy' to the white Anglo-Sacons. Contrasting with this popular hostility to the Chinese, and considering that Chinatowns in the nineteenth century were usually squalid urban slumbs, Wilde's enthusiastic admiration for the Chinese people and Chinatown was obviously out of tune with the Victorian decent classes.
The American lecture tour inspired Wilde's deeper insight into his Irish identity, since then he no longer alienated the 'Chinaman' as he used to. Instead, he showed sympathy towards these 'common' and 'poor' Chinese labourers who were discriminated against and expelled by the white Americans, because he could see them as mirrors of the oppressed Irish under the British Empire's regime. Wild recognized that the humble Chinese people in poverty still possessed the aesthetic virtue of aristocracy that this old civilization once had. His admiration for the Chinese labourers in the San Francisco slum appeared eccentric among the general pejorative view of the Chinese during the Victorian period. It was the poverty and humiliation that the Chinese people suffered, which formed a strong contrast with the glory that China used to have, which made the Chinese a convenient reference point for Wilde to advocate his Irish identity and the necessity of reviving Celtic culture. In Wilde's logic, the Chinese could wash away their stigma caused by political, economical and military failures as long as they managed to keep their superiority in aesthetic taste. The experience in Chinatown influenced Wilde's ideas of life and aestheticism. The development of his literary career suggests that there was a positive correlation between his change of attitude towards the Chinese labourers and his sense of Irish cultural identity.
The American tour was a significant event in the development of Wilde's aestheticism. This was the first time that Wilde made profits from the commodification of the aeasthetic movement and the commodification of himself. In Chinatown in San Francisco he showed great admiration for Chinese artefacts and his interest in things Chinese was extensive, including blue-and-white porcelain, China tea, Chinese silks, and the textiles and costumes of Chinese theatre.

Wilde, Oscar. Impressions of America. Ed., with an introduction, by Stuart Mason. (Sunderland : Keystone Press, 1906). (Library of American civilization ; LAC 40007). [Geschrieben 1883].
Er schreibt : "The people – strange, melancholy Orientals, whom many people would call common, and they are certainly very poor – have determined that they will have nothing about them that is not beautiful… When the Chinese bill was presented, it was made out on rice paper, the account being done in Indian ink as fantastically as if an artist had been etching little birds on a fan."

The era (14 July 1883) reported that "the lecturer [Oscar Wilde] dwelt upon the beauties and peculiarities of Chinese theatricals in San Francisco, where the audiences show their approval, not by applause, but by taking a little cup of tea".

Wilde, Oscar. The truth of masks : a note on illusion. In : Wilde, Oscar. Intentions : The decay of lying. Pen, pencil and poison. The critic as artist. The truth of masks. (London : J.R. Osgood, McIlvaine, 1891). = Wilde, Oscar. Shakespeare and stage costume. In : Nineteenth century ; vol. 17, no 99 (1885).
online-literature.com also is too frequently used : it is not merely a dangerous colour to wear by gaslight, but it is really difficult in England to get a thoroughly good blue. The fine Chinese blue, which we all so much admire, takes two years to dye, and the English public will not wait so long for a colour.

Wilde, Oscar. A Chinese sage [ID D27558].
A eminent Oxford theologian once remarked that his only objection to modern progress was that it progressed forward instead of backward--a view that so fascinated a certain artistic undergraduate that he promptly wrote an essay upon some unnoticed analogies between the development of ideas and the movements of the common sea-crab. I feel sure the Speaker will not be suspected even by its most enthusiastic friends of holding this dangerous heresy of retrogression. But I must candidly admit that I have come to the conclusion that the most caustic criticism of modern life I have met with for some time is that contained in the writings of the learned Chuang Tzu, recently translated into the vulgar tongue by Mr. Herbert Giles, Her Majesty's Consul at Tamsui.
The spread of popular education has no doubt made the name of this great thinker quite familiar to the general public, but, for the sake of the few and the over-cultured, I feel it my duty to state definitely who he was, and to give a brief outline of the character of his philosophy.
Chuang Tzu, whose name must carefully be pronounced as it is not written, was born in the fourth century before Christ, by the banks of the Yellow River, in the Flowery Land; and portraits of the wonderful sage seated on the flying dragon of contemplation may still be found on the simple tea- trays and pleasing screens of many of our most respectable suburban households. The honest ratepayer and his healthy family have no doubt often mocked at the dome-like forehead of the philosopher, and laughed over the strange perspective of the landscape that lies beneath him. If they really knew who he was, they would tremble. For Chuang Tzu spent his life in preaching the great creed of Inaction, and in pointing out the uselessness of all useful things. 'Do nothing, and everything will be done,' was the doctrine which he inherited from his great master Lao Tzu. To resolve action into thought, and thought into abstraction, was his wicked transcendental aim. Like the obscure philosopher of early Greek speculation, he believed in the identity of contraries; like Plato, he was an idealist, and had all the idealist's contempt for utilitarian systems; he was a mystic like Dionysius, and Scotus Erigena, and Jacob Bohme, and held, with them and with Philo, that the object of life was to get rid of self-consciousness, and to become the unconscious vehicle of a higher illumination. In fact, Chuang Tzu may be said to have summed up in himself almost every mood of European metaphysical or mystical thought, from Heraclitus down to Hegel. There was something in him of the Quietist also; and in his worship of Nothing he may be said to have in some measure anticipated those strange dreamers of mediaeval days who, like Tauler and Master Eckhart, adored the purum nihil and the Abyss. The great middle classes of this country, to whom, as we all know, our prosperity, if not our civilisation, is entirely due, may shrug their shoulders over all this and ask, with a certain amount of reason, what is the identity of contraries to them, and why they should get rid of that self-consciousness which is their chief characteristic. But Chuang Tzu was something more than a metaphysician and an illuminist. He sought to destroy society, as we know it, as the middle classes know it; and the sad thing is that he combines with the passionate eloquence of a Rousseau the scientific reasoning of a Herbert Spencer. There is nothing of the sentimentalist in him. He pities the rich more than the poor, if he ever pities at all, and prosperity seems to him as tragic a thing as suffering. He has nothing of the modern sympathy with failures, nor does he propose that the prizes should always be given on moral grounds to those who come in last in the race. It is the race itself that he objects to; and as for active sympathy, which has become the profession of so many worthy people in our own day, he thinks that trying to make others good is as silly an occupation as 'beating a drum in a forest in order to find a fugitive.' It is a mere waste of energy. That is all. While, as for a thoroughly sympathetic man, he is, in the eyes of Chuang Tzu, simply a man who is always trying to be somebody else, and so misses the only possible excuse for his own existence.
Yes; incredible as it may seem, this curious thinker looked back with a sigh of regret to a certain Golden Age when there were no competitive examinations, no wearisome educational systems, no missionaries, no penny dinners for the people, no Established Churches, no Humanitarian Societies, no dull lectures about one's duty to one's neighbour, and no tedious sermons about any subject at all. In those ideal days, he tells us, people loved each other without being conscious of charity, or writing to the newspapers about it. They were upright, and yet they never published books upon Altruism. As every man kept his knowledge to himself, the world escaped the curse of scepticism; and as every man kept his virtues to himself, nobody meddled in other people's business. They lived simple and peaceful lives, and were contented with such food and raiment as they could get. Neighbouring districts were in sight, and 'the cocks and dogs of one could be heard in the other,' yet the people grew old and died without ever interchanging visits. There was no chattering about clever men, and no laudation of good men. The intolerable sense of obligation was unknown. The deeds of humanity left no trace, and their affairs were not made a burden for posterity by foolish historians.
In an evil moment the Philanthropist made his appearance, and brought with him the mischievous idea of Government. 'There is such a thing,' says Chuang Tzu, 'as leaving mankind alone: there has never been such a thing as governing mankind.' All modes of government are wrong. They are unscientific, because they seek to alter the natural environment of man; they are immoral because, by interfering with the individual, they produce the most aggressive forms of egotism; they are ignorant, because they try to spread education; they are self-destructive, because they engender anarchy. 'Of old,' he tells us, 'the Yellow Emperor first caused charity and duty to one's neighbour to interfere with the natural goodness of the heart of man. In consequence of this, Yao and Shun wore the hair off their legs in endeavouring to feed their people. They disturbed their internal economy in order to find room for artificial virtues. They exhausted their energies in framing laws, and they were failures.' Man's heart, our philosopher goes on to say, may be 'forced down or stirred up,' and in either case the issue is fatal. Yao made the people too happy, so they were not satisfied. Chieh made them too wretched, so they grew discontented. Then every one began to argue about the best way of tinkering up society. 'It is quite clear that something must be done,' they said to each other, and there was a general rush for knowledge. The results were so dreadful that the Government of the day had to bring in Coercion, and as a consequence of this 'virtuous men sought refuge in mountain caves, while rulers of state sat trembling in ancestral halls.' Then, when everything was in a state of perfect chaos, the Social Reformers got up on platforms, and preached salvation from the ills that they and their system had caused. The poor Social Reformers! 'They know not shame, nor what it is to blush,' is the verdict of Chuang Tzu upon them.
The economic question, also, is discussed by this almond-eyed sage at great length, and he writes about the curse of capital as eloquently as Mr. Hyndman. The accumulation of wealth is to him the origin of evil. It makes the strong violent, and the weak dishonest. It creates the petty thief, and puts him in a bamboo cage. It creates the big thief, and sets him on a throne of white jade. It is the father of competition, and competition is the waste, as well as the destruction, of energy. The order of nature is rest, repetition, and peace. Weariness and war are the results of an artificial society based upon capital; and the richer this society gets, the more thoroughly bankrupt it really is, for it has neither sufficient rewards for the good nor sufficient punishments for the wicked. There is also this to be remembered--that the prizes of the world degrade a man as much as the world's punishments. The age is rotten with its worship of success. As for education, true wisdom can neither be learnt nor taught. It is a spiritual state, to which he who lives in harmony with nature attains. Knowledge is shallow if we compare it with the extent of the unknown, and only the unknowable is of value. Society produces rogues, and education makes one rogue cleverer than another. That is the only result of School Boards. Besides, of what possible philosophic importance can education be, when it serves simply to make each man differ from his neighbour? We arrive ultimately at a chaos of opinions, doubt everything, and fall into the vulgar habit of arguing; and it is only the intellectually lost who ever argue. Look at Hui Tzu. 'He was a man of many ideas. His works would fill five carts. But his doctrines were paradoxical.' He said that there were feathers in an egg, because there were feathers on a chicken; that a dog could be a sheep, because all names were arbitrary; that there was a moment when a swiftly-flying arrow was neither moving nor at rest; that if you took a stick a foot long, and cut it in half every day, you would never come to the end of it; and that a bay horse and a dun cow were three, because taken separately they were two, and taken together they were one, and one and two made up three. 'He was like a man running a race with his own shadow, and making a noise in order to drown the echo. He was a clever gadfly, that was all. What was the use of him?'
Morality is, of course, a different thing. It went out of fashion, says Chuang Tzu, when people began to moralise. Men ceased then to be spontaneous and to act on intuition. They became priggish and artificial, and were so blind as to have a definite purpose in life. Then came Governments and Philanthropists, those two pests of the age. The former tried to coerce people into being good, and so destroyed the natural goodness of man. The latter were a set of aggressive busybodies who caused confusion wherever they went. They were stupid enough to have principles, and unfortunate enough to act up to them. They all came to bad ends, and showed that universal altruism is as bad in its results as universal egotism. They 'tripped people up over charity, and fettered them with duties to their neighbours.' They gushed over music, and fussed over ceremonies. As a consequence of all this, the world lost its equilibrium, and has been staggering ever since.
Who, then, according to Chuang Tzu, is the perfect man? And what is his manner of life? The perfect man does nothing beyond gazing at the universe. He adopts no absolute position. 'In motion, he is like water. At rest, he is like a mirror. And, like Echo, he answers only when he is called upon.' He lets externals take care of themselves. Nothing material injures him; nothing spiritual punishes him. His mental equilibrium gives him the empire of the world. He is never the slave of objective existences. He knows that, 'just as the best language is that which is never spoken, so the best action is that which is never done.' He is passive, and accepts the laws of life. He rests in inactivity, and sees the world become virtuous of itself. He does not try to 'bring about his own good deeds.' He never wastes himself on effort. He is not troubled about moral distinctions. He knows that things are what they are, and that their consequences will be what they will be. His mind is the 'speculum of creation,' and he is ever at peace.
All this is of course excessively dangerous, but we must remember that Chuang Tzu lived more than two thousand years ago, and never had the opportunity of seeing our unrivalled civilisation. And yet it is possible that, were he to come back to earth and visit us, he might have something to say to Mr. Balfour about his coercion and active misgovernment in Ireland; he might smile at some of our philanthropic ardours, and shake his head over many of our organised charities; the School Board might not impress him, nor our race for wealth stir his admiration; he might wonder at our ideals, and grow sad over what we have realised. Perhaps it is well that Chuang Tzu cannot return.
Meanwhile, thanks to Mr. Giles and Mr. Quaritch, we have his book to console us, and certainly it is a most fascinating and delightful volume. Chuang Tzu is one of the Darwinians before Darwin. He traces man from the germ, and sees his unity with nature. As an anthropologist he is excessively interesting, and he describes our primitive arboreal ancestor living in trees through his terror of animals stronger than himself, and knowing only one parent, the mother, with all the accuracy of a lecturer at the Royal Society. Like Plato, he adopts the dialogue as his mode of expression, 'putting words into other people's mouths,' he tells us, 'in order to gain breadth of view.' As a story-teller he is charming. The account of the visit of the respectable Confucius to the great Robber Che is most vivid and brilliant, and it is impossible not to laugh over the ultimate discomfiture of the sage, the barrenness of whose moral platitudes is ruthlessly exposed by the successful brigand. Even in his metaphysics, Chuang Tzu is intensely humorous. He personifies his abstractions, and makes them act plays before us. The Spirit of the Clouds, when passing eastward through the expanse of air, happened to fall in with the Vital Principle. The latter was slapping his ribs and hopping about: whereupon the Spirit of the Clouds said, 'Who are you, old man, and what are you doing?' 'Strolling!' replied the Vital Principle, without stopping, for all activities are ceaseless. 'I want to _know_ something,' continued the Spirit of the Clouds. 'Ah!' cried the Vital Principle, in a tone of disapprobation, and a marvellous conversation follows, that is not unlike the dialogue between the Sphinx and the Chimera in Flaubert's curious drama. Talking animals, also, have their place in Chuang Tzu's parables and stories, and through myth and poetry and fancy his strange philosophy finds musical utterance.
Of course it is sad to be told that it is immoral to be consciously good, and that doing anything is the worst form of idleness. Thousands of excellent and really earnest philanthropists would be absolutely thrown upon the rates if we adopted the view that nobody should be allowed to meddle in what does not concern him. The doctrine of the uselessness of all useful things would not merely endanger our commercial supremacy as a nation, but might bring discredit upon many prosperous and serious-minded members of the shop-keeping classes. What would become of our popular preachers, our Exeter Hall orators, our drawing-room evangelists, if we said to them, in the words of Chuang Tzu, 'Mosquitoes will keep a man awake all night with their biting, and just in the same way this talk of charity and duty to one's neighbour drives us nearly crazy. Sirs, strive to keep the world to its own original simplicity, and, as the wind bloweth where it listeth, so let Virtue establish itself. Wherefore this undue energy?' And what would be the fate of governments and professional politicians if we came to the conclusion that there is no such thing as governing mankind at all? It is clear that Chuang Tzu is a very dangerous writer, and the publication of his book in English, two thousand years after his death, is obviously premature, and may cause a great deal of pain to many thoroughly respectable and industrious persons. It may be true that the ideal of self-culture and self-development, which is the aim of his scheme of life, and the basis of his scheme of philosophy, is an ideal somewhat needed by an age like ours, in which most people are so anxious to educate their neighbours that they have actually no time left in which to educate themselves. But would it be wise to say so? It seems to me that if we once admitted the force of any one of Chuang Tzu's destructive criticisms we should have to put some check on our national habit of self-glorification; and the only thing that ever consoles man for the stupid things he does is the praise he always gives himself for doing them. There may, however, be a few who have grown wearied of that strange modern tendency that sets enthusiasm to do the work of the intellect. To these, and such as these, Chuang Tzu will be welcome. But let them only read him. Let them not talk about him. He would be disturbing at dinner-parties, and impossible at afternoon teas, and his whole life was a protest against platform speaking. 'The perfect man ignores self; the divine man ignores action; the true sage ignores reputation.' These are the principles of Chuang Tzu.
Chuang Tzu: Mystic, Moralist, and Social Reformer. Translated from the Chinese by Herbert A. Giles, H.B.M.'s Consul at Tamsui. (Bernard Quaritch).

Günther Debon : Mit seiner Rezension reitet Oscar Wilde eine Attacke auf die englische Gesellschaft seiner Zeit, mit ihrer puritanischen Moral, die sich mit einem merkantilen und nationalen Egoismus verbinden konnte. Zielscheibe seines Spottes sind vor allem die aufdringlich-selbstgefälligen Philanthropen.
Der Einfluss, den der chinesische Weise Zhuangzi auf Wilde ausübte, wird ganz verschieden eingeschätzt. Vielleich am nachdrücklichsten betont ihn George Woodcock : "It is clear that the reading of Chuang Tzu's writings had a decisive influence on Wilde's own philosophy, confirming his natural tendencies toward non-action and philosophic anarchism. In two of his later works, The critic as artist and The soul of man under socialism, he makes prominent and appreciative references to the Chinese philosopher, and his moral outlook came to agree in many respects with Taoist ideas".

Wilde, Oscar. The picture of Dorian Gray. In : Lippincott's monthly magazine ; vol. 46, no 271 (1890).
online-literature.com schreibt :
Chap. 2
Two globe-shaped china dishes were brought in by a page. Dorian Gray went over and poured out the tea.
Chap. 4
Some large blue china jars and parrot-tulips were ranged on the mantelshelf, and through the small leaded panes of the window streamed the apricot-coloured light of a summer day in London.
Chap. 8
Finally his bell sounded, and Victor came in softly with a cup of tea, and a pile of letters, on a small tray of old Sevres china, and drew back the olive-satin curtains, with their shimmering blue lining, that hung in front of the three tall windows.
Chap. 15
His fingers moved instinctively towards it, dipped in, and closed on something. It was a small Chinese box of black and gold-dust lacquer, elaborately wrought, the sides patterned with curved waves, and the silken cords hung with round crystals and tasselled in plaited metal threads. He opened it. Inside was a green paste, waxy in lustre, the odour curiously heavy and persistent. He hesitated for some moments, with a strangely immobile smile upon his face. Then shivering, though the atmosphere of the room was terribly hot, he drew himself up and glanced at the clock. It was twenty minutes to twelve. He put the box back, shutting the cabinet doors as he did so, and went into his bedroom.
Chap. 16
The hideous hunger for opium began to gnaw at him. His throat burned and his delicate hands twitched nervously together. He struck at the horse madly with his stick… At the end of the room there was a little staircase, leading to a darkened chamber. As Dorian hurried up its three rickety steps, the heavy odour of opium met him. He heaved a deep breath, and his nostrils quivered with pleasure.
Chap. 17
It was tea-time, and the mellow light of the huge, lace-covered lamp that stood on the table lit up the delicate china and hammered silver of the service at which the duchess was presiding.

Chen Qi : Dorian's acquisition of goods from China and other oriental nations secures his 'aristocratic' distinction. He creates an aesthetic consumption above the mass market. He consumes both the use-value in practical life and the symbolic value in social fashion of Chinese commodities and finalizes his self-definition of aesthetic identity through such consumption. Dorian's collection also serves as a recognition of temptations of commodity fetishism. The yellow Chinese hangings in Dorian's collection are pieces of art, but also commodities with practical use-value as furniture.
Dorian's thirst for opium is driven by the same psychology as that operating in the reconstruction of his collection. The opium addiction is the transmogrifying form of commodity fetishism. In the aestheticisation of opium, Wilde employs the symbol of 'China' to bridge consumerism and decadence.

Wilde, Oscar. The sphinx. With decorations by Charles Ricketts. (London : E. Mathews and J. Lane, 1894). [Gedicht].
www.online-literature.com/wilde/2307/.
"Dawn follows Dawn and Nights grow old and all the while this curious cat
Lies couching on the Chinese mat with eyes of satin rimmed with gold."

A drawing entitled 'A voluptuary' in the magazine Pick-me-up (14 July 1894) pictures Wilde as sterotyped Chinese – thin, slit-like eyes and prominent buckteeth – smoking opium in the chair.
A satirical review of a London Chinese restaurant in Illustrated sporting and dramatic news (9 Aug. 1894) was accompanied by a sketch 'Oscar in China', which depicts Wilde smoking a cigarette and taking a Chinese teacup in hand, as a pigtailed Chinese waiter watching aside.

Wilde, Oscar. The rise of historical criticism. (Hartford : Privat Print, Sherwood Press, 1905).
online-literature.com schreibt : "The Chinese annals, ascending as they do to the barbarous forest life of the nation, are marked with a soberness of judgment, a freedom from invention, which is almost unparalleled in the writings of any people; but the protective spirit which is the characteristic of that people proved as fatal to their literature as to their commerce."

Oscar Wilde : Rezeption in China allgemein.
Bonnie S. McDougall : In the debates which took place in the early stages of the new movement in China, Oscar Wilde's name did not commonly appear, nor did he provide the major inspiration to any group of young writers. He did have some influence : the Xin yue she (Crescent Moon Society) writers acknowledged his theories on art.
Wilde's work had much to offer the creators and critics of China's new literature. On the social side, there is his defence of individualism and of feminism, his criticism of governments and politicians, his exposure of the moral poverty underlying conventional respectability and his contribution to libertarian socialism ; on the artistic side, apart from the actual example set by his own work, there is his stress on the importance of criticism in art, and on the importance of art in literature. If there were other aspects of his writing left unexplored or unappreciated, such as his ideas on abstract art, or his general theory of making an art of life, this is hardly to be wondered at, the violent prejudice which led most English and American critics to dismiss him as 'insincere' and 'frivolous', obscured Wilde's standing in his own country for many years. It is even possible that the initial enthusiasm for Wilde in China was dampened by the unfavourable remarks of these critics who had an undue influence among the intellectually impressionable young critics of the early twenties. Neither in China nor in England could censorious critics prevent the widespread popularity of Wilde's fairy-tales and plays.
For Chinese readers, less dazzled by the brilliance of Wilde's wit and remembering his persecution in England, the satire of the plays was sharp and powerful. Again, less aware of the luxury and artificiality of his personal life, they were able to believe in the sincerity of the fairy-tales and prose-poems, which describe the beauty of humility and simplicity.
Wilde's theories on art and literature were neglected in the early period of the new literary movement, though there is some evidence that the Crescent group took them up in the late twenties and early thirties. None of the critics seems to have said that he liked Wilde's plays simply because they were very funny.

Zhou Xiaoyi : The first half of the twentieth century witnessed a 'Wilde-mania' throughout China. After his tragic death in Paris in 1900, the English aesthete was introduced into China as the figure head of England's aesthetic movement. Chinese responses to his works, which adumbrate the principle of art for art's sage, were enthusiastic. A large number of Chinese writers were attracted to aestheticism and produced voluminous works in the aesthetic style. Wilde was regarded as the symbol of an artistic lifestyle and the major representative of those Western writers who lived cloistered away from the ordinary world and devoted themselves entirely to pure art.
Wilde was first introduced into China not simply as a writer of a Western literary genre entirely new to the Chinese, but mainly as an apostle of pure art or, to be more specific, a practitioner of a new way of life.
The aesthetic ideas of Wilde that attracted modern Chinese writers were in many ways simplified. Wilde's earlier thinking, which developed in his first 'aesthetic' period during the 1880s, was much emphasized by his Chinese audience. In the Chinese account of Wilde, his various ideas from that period, such as art as religion, art for art's sake , and pure form as the ultimate value of artistic creation, subtle impressions and feelings, the flamboyantly aesthetic mode of being and the severe critique of the existing social order, were regarded as basic principles of aestheticism and key concepts of Wilde's thinking. But the moral radical side of Wilde and his most radical conceptions which are presented in The picture of Dorian Gray and Intentions and other essays on life and art are pointedly ignored. In 1920s and 1930s, Wilde was better known for his literary works than for his critical essays.
The Chinese reception of Wilde's works was thus highly selective. If Wilde was not entirely misread, he was at least only partially received and interpreted. His aesthetic theory and literary practice were transfigured into the forms which conformed to the social realities and cultural dynamics of China at that time. He was regarded as an artistic symbol of the time surrounded by a mysterious aesthetic aura. His life and his thought on art were widely admired, and his arguments were frequently quoted as the most important sources for Chinese modernists defending their aesthetic approach to art.
Wilde represented an idealized image that rebellious May Fourth writers could identify with. It is not the Wilde of wit and paradox that fascinated the Chinese aesthetes, it is the flamboyant Wilde, the extravagant and self-fashioning Wild, that impressed the Chinese minds questing for a new and alluring way of life.

Linda Pui-ling Wong : The reception of Wilde in China in the 1920s and 1930s, new and modern modes from the West surfaced in various areas like fashion, general Westernized appearance, schools, establishment of different social and literary communities and journals.
The Chinese intellectuals' new perception of their social and personal positions in relation to Chinese traditions, in which a different and modern mentality emerged. Such consciousness warred against the conservative Confucian mode of thinking and engendered new, or anti-traditional, visions of the concept of self.
Wilde was widely known for his extravagant and eccentric clothes, which was a mark of his 'aesthetic dandyism'. Guo Moruo condemned such a movement which was entirely external and had nothing to do with inner problems.
The Chinese writers, as seen in their commentaries and essays, praised Wilde for being a phenomenal literary figure of the nineteenth-century, especially for his leading position in the aesthetic movement. Their reviews and comments on Wilde's work basically were consistent with those of the Victorian readers. Readers of both cultures, regardless of the time and cultural lapses and gaps, understood ideas like social satire, hypocrisy, conservatism, social injustice, and class discrimination shown in his plays.

Yu wai xiao shuo ji. Zhou Zuoren yi. [ID D12489].
Earliest translation of Oscar Wilde was The happy prince by Zhou Zuoren in classical Chinese. In his short introduction, Zhou argues that the key point of Wilde's aestheticism is to 'transform life into an art. He himself practiced it by wearing eccentric clothes of an extraordinary shape and walking down in the street with a sunflower in hand'. According to Zhou, Wilde was an artist with a will to transcend ordinary life and elevate himself to the higher level of the kingdom of art.
Zhou Zuoren's efforts to promote Western humanist writing were unsuccessful at that time. A re-issue of these translations in 1921 was soon out of print, this time presumably because classical Chinese was now superseded by the vernacular.

Chen, Duxiu. Xian dai Ouzhou wen yi shi tan [ID D27627].
Zhou Xiaoyi : Chen says that Wilde was one of the 'four greatest modern writers' in European literature. The others are Ibsen, Turgenev, and Maeterlinck. Chen's praise is an example of the prevalent perception among Chinese writers of Wilde as a leading artist in world literature. Wilde's aesthetic practice – his way of dressing and other non-conformist behavior – further reinforces this image of Wilde as a unique artist. He was seen as the representative aesthete in England, whose reputation and achievements in art and aesthetic theory surpassed even Walter Pater and other aesthetes, although translations of Pater's works were also available in China at that time.

Chen, Duxiu. Wen xue ge ming lun [ID11258] :
Chen schreibt : "Die europäische Kultur hat freilich viel der Politik und der Wissenschaft zu verdanken, doch auch nicht weniger der Literatur. Ich habe das Frankreich von Rousseau und Pasteur lieb, aber noch mehr das von Goethe und Hauptmann ; ich liebe das England von Bacon und Darwin, aber noch mehr das von Dickens und Wilde. Ist unter unseren heldenhaften Literaten jemand da, der den Mut hat, ein Hugo oder Zola, ein Goethe oder Hauptmann, ein Dickens oder Wilde zu werden ?" = "European culture has benefited considerably from the many contributions of political thinkers and scientists, but the contribution of writers has not been small either. I love the France of Hugo and Zola ; I love the Germany of Kant and Hegel, but I love especially the Germany of Goethe and Hauptmann ; I love the England of Bacon and Darwin, but I love especially the England of Dickens and Wilde. Is there some outstanding writer in our own national literature who will take on the role of China's Hugo, Zola, Goethe, Hauptmann, Dickens or Wilde ? Is there anyone bold enough to make a public challenge to the 'eighteen demons', ignoring the criticism of reactionary scholars ? If so, I am willing to drag out the cannon to from his vanguard."
[Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Louis Pasteur, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Gerhart Hauptmann, Francis Bacon, Charles Galton Darwin, Victor Hugo, Charles Dickens, Oscar Wilde, Emile Zola].

Bonnie S. McDougall : Chen meant no more than a literature in which the material world is shown to affect people's lives, and in which concern is shown particularly for the sufferings of the poor. The demand for 'freshness' should be taken in the context of 'stale classicism' ; Chen was not opposed to rich and elaborate descriptions of scenery or emotions as such, he only rejected the euphuistic and allusive language typical of a great deal of classical Chinese poetry and essays. His final aim, to create a simple and popular literature to replace obscure scholarly or eremitic literature, shows the most obvious reason for classing Wilde among the literary giants.

Mao Dun as editor of Xiao shuo yue bao chose Oscar Wilde as the prime example of a writer whose works were of no use in the present situation. He denounced both Western and Chinese aesthetic and decadent schools, among whom such practices as smoking opium, debating homosexuality, wearing strange clothes, regarding murder as a game and dyeing one's hair green were considered highly romantic. Wilde dyed his carnation green but not his hair. If Mao Dun disliked this side of Wilde's personal behavior and writing, he still acknowledged Wilde's more serious works.

[Wilde, Oscar]. [Ye ying yu mei gui]. Hu Yuzhi yi. [ID D27629].
Hu Yuzhi argues that 'we have to study his poems and fairy tales if we want to know Wilde as an aesthete'. This is mainly because 'only in his poems and fairy tales, his vivid imagination of beauty, his rare gift in art, and his wonderful attractiveness are given full play'.

[Wilde, Oscar]. An le wang zi. Lu Xun yi. In : Yu wai xiao shuo ji (1909). Übersetzung von Wilde, Oscar. The happy prince. In : Wilde, Oscar. The happy prince, and other stories. Ill. By Walter Crane and Jacomb Hood. (London : D. Nutt, 1888).
安樂王子

[Wilde, Oscar]. Li xiang zhang fu. Qing nian za zhi (1915). [Serie]. Übersetzung von Wilde, Oscar. An ideal husband. In : Wilde, Oscar. Salomé and other plays. (Harmondsworth : Penguin Books, 1894). [Uraufführung 3. Jan. 1895, Theatre Royal, London]. [Wilde's Porträt erscheint auf dem Einband von no 3 (1915)].
理想丈夫

[Wilde, Oscar]. Shao nai nai di shan zi. In : Xin qing nian (1918). Übersetzung von Wilde, Oscar. Lady Windermere's fan. (London : Elkin Mathews and John Lane, 1893). (Kline/Roethke collection). [Erstaufführung 1892 St. James Theatre London].
少奶奶的扇子

[Wilde, Oscar]. Shao nai nai di shan zi. In : Xin chao ; March (1919). Übersetzung von Wilde, Oscar. Lady Windermere's fan. (London : Elkin Mathews and John Lane, 1893). (Kline/Roethke collection). [Erstaufführung 1892 St. James Theatre London].
少奶奶的扇子

[Wilde, Oscar]. [Ye ying yu mei gui]. Hu Yuzhi yi. In : Dong fang za zhi ; vol. 17, no 8 (April 1920). Übersetzung von Wilde, Oscar. The nightingale and the rose. In : Wilde, Oscar. The happy prince, and other stories. Ill. By Walter Crane and Jacomb Hood. (London : D. Nutt, 1888).
夜莺与玫瑰

[Wilde, Oscar]. Shalemei. Tian Han yi. (Shanghai : Zhonghua shu ju, 1921). Übersetzung von Wilde, Oscar. Salomé : drame en un acte. (Paris : Librairie de l'art indépendant, 1893). = Salome : a tragedy in one act. (London : E. Mathews & John Lane ; Boston : Copeland & Day, 1894). [Uraufführung Théâtre de l'oeuvre, Paris 1896].
沙樂美

[Wilde, Oscar]. [Bu yao jin de nü ren]. Geng Shizhi yi. In : Xiao shuo yue bao (1921). Übersetzung von Wilde, Oscar. A woman of no importance. (London : J. Lane, 1894). [Uraufführung Haymarket Theatre, London 1893].
不要緊的女人

[Wilde, Oscar]. [Zi si de ju ren]. Zhou Zuoren yi. In : Xin chao ; Sept. (1921). Übersetzung von Wilde, Oscar. The selfish giant. In : Wilde, Oscar. The happy prince, and other stories. Ill. By Walter Crane and Jacomb Hood. (London : D. Nutt, 1888).
自私的巨人

[Wilde, Oscar]. Yu zhong ji. Wang'erde zhu ; Zhang Wentian, Wang Fuquan yi. In : Jue wu ; April-May (1922). = (Shanghai : Shang wu yin shu guan, 1932). (Wen xue yan jiu hui cong shu). Übersetzung von Wilde, Oscar. De profundis. (London : Methuen, 1905).
獄中記

[Wilde, Oscar]. Shalemei. Xu Baoyan yi. (Shanghai : Guang hua shu ju, 1927). [Wilde, Oscar]. Übersetzung von Wilde, Oscar. Salomé : drame en un acte. (Paris : Librairie de l'art indépendant, 1893). = Salome : a tragedy in one act. (London : E. Mathews & John Lane ; Boston : Copeland & Day, 1894). [Uraufführung Théâtre de l'oeuvre, Paris, 1896].
莎樂美

[Wilde, Oscar]. She hui zhu yi yu ge ren zhu yi. Wangerde zhu ; Yuan Zhenying fan yi. (Xianggang : Shou kuang chu ban bu, 1928). Übersetzung von Wilde, Oscar. Soul of man under socialism. In : Fortnightly review ; Febr. 1891).
社會主義与個人主義 / 王爾德著袁振英翻译

Ou Mei xiao shuo. Anteliefu [et al.] zhu ; Zeng Xubai yi. (Shanghai : Zhen mei shan shu dian, 1928). [Übersetzung von europäischen und amerikanischen Short stories].
歐美小說
[Enthält] : Leonid Andreyev, Anton Chekhov, Thomas Hardy, H.G. Wells, James Stephens, Theodore Dreiser, Edgar Allan Poe, O. Henry, Hermann Sudermann, Leopoldo Alas, Karoly Kisfaludy, Sholem Asch, Oscar Wilde, Prosper Mérimée.

[Wilde, Oscar]. Yi ge li xiang de zhang fu. Wang'erde zhu ; Xu Peiren yi. (Shanghai : Jin wu shu dian, 1928). Übersetzung von Wilde, Oscar. An ideal husband. In : Wilde, Oscar. Salomé and other plays. (Harmondsworth : Penguin Books, 1894). [Uraufführung 3. Jan. 1895, Theatre Royal, London]
一個理想的丈夫

Lu guan. Zhao Jingshen yi. (Shanghai : Shen zhou guo guang she, 1930). [Anthologie von Novellen von M. Prishvin, Marietta Shaginian, G. Delleda, Guy de Maupassant, Henri Barbusse, Oscar Wilde, Lord Dunsany, Henry Van Dyke, August Strindberg].
芦管
[Enthält] :
San jia zhi bu ji. Xie Jinglin.
Liang ge nan ren he yi ge nü ren. Dailidai.
Xiao jiu tong. Mobosang.
Bu kuai le di shen ti. Tangshannan.
Kuang feng. Tangshangnan.
Lan hua. Fandake.
Tian ran di zhang ai. Shitelinbao.

[Wilde, Oscar]. Shalemei : shi jie yu han wen dui zhao. Wang'erde zhu ; Zhong Linhan yi. (Chengdu : Zhong hua lü xin she, 1934). Übersetzung von Wilde, Oscar. Salomé : drame en un acte. (Paris : Librairie de l'art indépendant, 1893). = Salome : a tragedy in one act. (London : E. Mathews & John Lane ; Boston : Copeland & Day, 1894). [Uraufführung Théâtre de l'oeuvre, Paris, 1896].
莎樂美 : 世界語漢文對照

[Wilde, Oscar]. Shao nai nai di shan zi. Zhang Youji yi. (Shanghai : Qi ming shu ju, 1936). (Shi jie wen xue ming zhu). Übersetzung von Wilde, Oscar. Lady Windermere's fan. (London : Elkin Mathews and John Lane, 1893). (Kline/Roethke collection). [Erstaufführung 1892 St. James Theatre London].
少奶奶的扇子

Zhou, Zuoren. Zi ji de yuan di. In : Chen bao fu kan ; Jan.-Oct. (1922). = (Beijing : Chen bao she chu ban bu, 1923). (Chen bao she cong shu ; 11). [One's own garden]. [Enthält Eintragungen über Oscar Wilde].
自己的園地

Yu, Dafu. Ji zhong yu 'Huang mian zhi' de ren wu. In : Chuang zao zhou bao ; no 20-21 (1923). The yellow book. (London : E. Mathews & J. Lane, 1894-1897). [Abhandlung über englische Autoren des The yellow book].

Ou mei zuo jia lun. Jide deng zhu [et al.] ; Bai Sha bian zhu. (Taibei : Ju ren chu ban she, 1970). (Ju ren cong kan ; 10). [Enthält 8 Essays von westlichen und taiwanesischen Autoren oder Übersetzern].
[Enthält] :
[Gide, André]. Wei mei de wang er de. Übersetzung von Gide, André. Oscar Wilde : "in memoriam" (souvenirs), le "De profundis". (Paris : Mercure de France, 1910). 唯美的王爾德
[Gide, André]. Gede lun. Übersetzung von Gide, André. Goethe. (Paris : Nouvelle revue française, 1932). 哥德論
歐美作家論

Dougall, Bonny S. Fictional authors, imagery audiences : "The importance of being earnest" in China. = McDougall, Bonnie S. The importance of being earnest in China : early Chinese attitudes towards Oscar Wilde. In : Journal of the Oriental Society of Australia, vol. 9 (1972/73).

[Morley, Sheridan]. Wang'erde. Liang Shiqiu zhu bian ; Xuelüdeng Moli zuo zhe ; Lan Fangkai yi zhe. (Taibei : Ming ren chu ban shi ye gu fen you xian gong si, 1982). (Ming ren wei ren zhuan ji quan ji ; 66). Übersetzung von Morley, Sheridan. Oscar Wilde. (New York, N.Y. : Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1976).
王爾德

[Montgomery Hyde, Harford]. Wang'erde di huang jin shi dai. Haide zhu ; Zhang Shiyin yi. (Taibei : Jiu ge chu ban she, 1983). (Jiu ge wen ku ; 128). Übersetzung von Montgomery Hyde, H[arford]. Oscar Wilde. (Harmondsworth : Penguin Books, 1962).
王爾德的黃金時代

Chang, Nam-fung. A critical study of the Chinese translations of Oscar Wilde's comedies with special reference to Lady Windermere's fan and The importance of being earnest. = Wangerde xi ju han yi yan jie : "Wendemei fur en de shan zi" ji “Ren zhen wei shang” yi li zi xi. (Hong Kong : Hong Kong University, 1987). Diss. Hong Kong Univ., 1987).
王爾德喜劇漢譯硏究

[Harris, Frank]. Aosika Wangerde zhuan. Halisi zhu ; Cai Xinle, Zhang Ning yi. (Zhengzhou : Henan ren min chu ban she, 1996). Übersetzung von Harris, Frank. Oscar Wilde : his life and confessions. (New York, N.Y. : Printed and publ. by the author, 1916).
奥斯卡王尔德传

Zhou, Xiaoyi. Oscar Wilde : an image of artistic self-fashioning in modern China, 1909-1949. In : Images of Westerners in Chinese and Japanese literature : proceedings of the XVth Congress of the International Comparative Literature Association‚ Literature as cultural memory, Leiden 1997. Ed. by Hua Meng, Sukehiro Hirakawa. (Amsterdam : Rodopi, 2000).