Oscar Wilde

Abstract

1. To describe how the avant-garde experimentation in Symbolist literature during the late nineteenth century that led to Wilde’s proto-modernist style. 2. To identify the relationship between politics and aesthetics in proto-modernist literature like The Picture of Dorian Gray. 3. To develop an awareness of not only what the text says but how it goes about saying it: the relationship between content and form. 4. To recognize experimental form in literature, even in an uncomplicated mystery novel such as The Picture of Dorian Gray.