Soul — Anguish — Perfection: Oscar Wilde’s Dialogue with Kropotkin and Dostoevsky

Abstract

Much has already been said about the ‘Russian theme’ in Oscar Wilde’s works. Yet the question concerning Russian sources of the motifs of anguish and the soul’s way to perfection has not yet been cleared up sufficiently. The article aims at defining the particular character of appropriating Petr Kropotkin’s philosophy of anarchism in Wilde’s works in the context of its reference to the notions of ‘Nihilism’ and ‘self-sacrifice’, and through them, to Dostoyevsky’s novels. The basic material of the research is Wilde’s essay ‘Man’s Soul under Socialism’ and his early play ‘Vera; or, The Nihilists’. The key method used in the research is comparative analysis (in the way it is used in comparative literature). The author argues that in these texts, the motifs of Christian self-sacrifice and anguish bring Nihilism (understood as Kropotkin-style anarchism) together with the spiritual psychology of Dostoyevsky and that the way to inner perfection in Wilde’s philosophy of individualism is connected with the concepts of soul, man, and society the writer formulates based on Kropotkin and Dostoevsky. Bringing the notion of ‘soul’ close to the notion of ‘socialism,’ defining Christ as a perfect personality, treating pain and anguish in contemporary society as a way to this sort of person-ality, and opposing inner feelings to outer morals, Wilde combines the philosophy of individ-ualism with the pathos of Kropotkin’s doctrine of anarchism: moral, even Christian at its core. He also adheres to the idea of resurrecting inner morals through anguish and compassion: the idea he appropriated from Dostoyevsky. As a result, in Wilde’s essay the doctrine of individ-ualism turns into a doctrine of the soul’s natural Christianity (holiness) and of resurrection in perfection through a ‘true Socialism.’ In Wilde’s play ‘Vera; or, The Nihilists’ the motifs of personal love and social pain, connected with social disorder and common unhappiness, con-stitute the very image of contemporary man’s way to personal perfection that is philosophical-ly described in his essay nearly ten years later.