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A Few Maxims for the Instruction of the Over-Educated
Short story.
- GenresNonfictionEssays
Unknown Binding
First published January 1, 2012
2 people are currently reading
89 people want to read
About the author
Oscar Wilde
6,073 books38.3k followersOscar Fingal O'Fflahertie Wills Wilde was an Irish poet and playwright. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of the most popular playwrights in London in the early 1890s. He is best remembered for his epigrams and plays, his novel The Picture of Dorian Gray, and his criminal conviction for gross indecency for homosexual acts.
Wilde's parents were Anglo-Irish intellectuals in Dublin. In his youth, Wilde learned to speak fluent French and German. At university, he read Greats; he demonstrated himself to be an exceptional classicist, first at Trinity College Dublin, then at Magdalen College, Oxford. He became associated with the emerging philosophy of aestheticism, led by two of his tutors, Walter Pater and John Ruskin. After university, Wilde moved to London into fashionable cultural and social circles.
Wilde tried his hand at various literary activities: he wrote a play, published a book of poems, lectured in the United States and Canada on "The English Renaissance" in art and interior decoration, and then returned to London where he lectured on his American travels and wrote reviews for various periodicals. Known for his biting wit, flamboyant dress and glittering conversational skill, Wilde became one of the best-known personalities of his day. At the turn of the 1890s, he refined his ideas about the supremacy of art in a series of dialogues and essays, and incorporated themes of decadence, duplicity, and beauty into what would be his only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890). Wilde returned to drama, writing Salome (1891) in French while in Paris, but it was refused a licence for England due to an absolute prohibition on the portrayal of Biblical subjects on the English stage. Undiscouraged, Wilde produced four society comedies in the early 1890s, which made him one of the most successful playwrights of late-Victorian London.
At the height of his fame and success, while An Ideal Husband (1895) and The Importance of Being Earnest (1895) were still being performed in London, Wilde issued a civil writ against John Sholto Douglas, the 9th Marquess of Queensberry for criminal libel. The Marquess was the father of Wilde's lover, Lord Alfred Douglas. The libel hearings unearthed evidence that caused Wilde to drop his charges and led to his own arrest and criminal prosecution for gross indecency with other males. The jury was unable to reach a verdict and so a retrial was ordered. In the second trial Wilde was convicted and sentenced to two years' hard labour, the maximum penalty, and was jailed from 1895 to 1897. During his last year in prison he wrote De Profundis (published posthumously in abridged form in 1905), a long letter that discusses his spiritual journey through his trials and is a dark counterpoint to his earlier philosophy of pleasure. On the day of his release, he caught the overnight steamer to France, never to return to Britain or Ireland. In France and Italy, he wrote his last work, The Ballad of Reading Gaol (1898), a long poem commemorating the harsh rhythms of prison life.
Wilde's parents were Anglo-Irish intellectuals in Dublin. In his youth, Wilde learned to speak fluent French and German. At university, he read Greats; he demonstrated himself to be an exceptional classicist, first at Trinity College Dublin, then at Magdalen College, Oxford. He became associated with the emerging philosophy of aestheticism, led by two of his tutors, Walter Pater and John Ruskin. After university, Wilde moved to London into fashionable cultural and social circles.
Wilde tried his hand at various literary activities: he wrote a play, published a book of poems, lectured in the United States and Canada on "The English Renaissance" in art and interior decoration, and then returned to London where he lectured on his American travels and wrote reviews for various periodicals. Known for his biting wit, flamboyant dress and glittering conversational skill, Wilde became one of the best-known personalities of his day. At the turn of the 1890s, he refined his ideas about the supremacy of art in a series of dialogues and essays, and incorporated themes of decadence, duplicity, and beauty into what would be his only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890). Wilde returned to drama, writing Salome (1891) in French while in Paris, but it was refused a licence for England due to an absolute prohibition on the portrayal of Biblical subjects on the English stage. Undiscouraged, Wilde produced four society comedies in the early 1890s, which made him one of the most successful playwrights of late-Victorian London.
At the height of his fame and success, while An Ideal Husband (1895) and The Importance of Being Earnest (1895) were still being performed in London, Wilde issued a civil writ against John Sholto Douglas, the 9th Marquess of Queensberry for criminal libel. The Marquess was the father of Wilde's lover, Lord Alfred Douglas. The libel hearings unearthed evidence that caused Wilde to drop his charges and led to his own arrest and criminal prosecution for gross indecency with other males. The jury was unable to reach a verdict and so a retrial was ordered. In the second trial Wilde was convicted and sentenced to two years' hard labour, the maximum penalty, and was jailed from 1895 to 1897. During his last year in prison he wrote De Profundis (published posthumously in abridged form in 1905), a long letter that discusses his spiritual journey through his trials and is a dark counterpoint to his earlier philosophy of pleasure. On the day of his release, he caught the overnight steamer to France, never to return to Britain or Ireland. In France and Italy, he wrote his last work, The Ballad of Reading Gaol (1898), a long poem commemorating the harsh rhythms of prison life.
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
November 23, 2021
In true Oscar Wilde fashion, this was both philosophical and witty.
“The only thing that the artist cannot see is the obvious. The only thing that the public can see is the obvious. The result is the Criticism of the Journalist.”
“It is a very sad thing that nowadays there is so little useless information.”
“The only thing that the artist cannot see is the obvious. The only thing that the public can see is the obvious. The result is the Criticism of the Journalist.”
“It is a very sad thing that nowadays there is so little useless information.”
January 23, 2022
Once you pass the misogyny and the entitlement that come with Oscar Wilde, his opinion about Art and Nature is quite interesting.
I would agree with it for about 50%. I think Art is humans trying to perfect nature, which is imperfect in the essence of balance. But I still think Art is part of Nature as it is part of the Human being.
I would agree that reading a mundane book can only be interesting when the time it is writing in is so far from the reader's present that it might sound like a fantasy world.
PS: Oscar was shady all along the book *o*
I would agree with it for about 50%. I think Art is humans trying to perfect nature, which is imperfect in the essence of balance. But I still think Art is part of Nature as it is part of the Human being.
I would agree that reading a mundane book can only be interesting when the time it is writing in is so far from the reader's present that it might sound like a fantasy world.
PS: Oscar was shady all along the book *o*
September 10, 2021
Oscar Wilde écrit ici, dans sa nouvelle Le Déclin du mensonge : «Si on ne peut pas prendre du plaisir à lire et relire indéfiniment un livre, il ne sert à rien de le lire une première fois.» Je trouve cette phrase bien ironique, car je n'ai aucunement le goût de relire ce recueil de nouvelles et maximes qui est franchement ennuyeux.
J'ai tout de même donné 2 étoiles, car la nouvelle "Impression d'Amérique" est très belle et bien écrite.
J'ai tout de même donné 2 étoiles, car la nouvelle "Impression d'Amérique" est très belle et bien écrite.
May 31, 2023
C'était vraiment chouette. La plume d'oscar Wilde est vraiment charmante. Elle est pleine d'humour, de bon sens. Il va à contre sens des idées toute faites et apporte un regard nouveau sur pas mal de sujet, vu et revu. Pourtant ça reste fluide.
Très bonne lecture
Très bonne lecture
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January 18, 2020Didn't get most of it
December 18, 2020
Great stuff here!
March 13, 2021
« La littérature annonce toujours la vie. Elle ne l'imite pas ; elle la façonne pour l'asservir à son objectif. »
December 25, 2021
A better title for this work would have been "Aphorisms that only nerds will get." Good content, but far too short.
January 21, 2024
J’ai po kiffé
Read
May 29, 2024“One should never listen. To listen is a sign of indifference to one's hearers.”
August 14, 2020
Se lit rapidement, style agréable à lire...
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews