Aestheticism Entangled in Morality

Irish born dramatist, essayist, novelist and poet, Oscar Wilde is an outstanding representative of aestheticism and an active advocate of the nineteenth-century “Art for Art’s Sake” Movement in Britain. He has long been considered as a controversial figure, and many critics have pointed out the contradictory nature of his aesthetic theories. Although Wilde’s only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, is considered the best work to embody his artistic taste, it reflects conflicts between his artistic proposition and practice.