Precis on "The Decay of Lying" by Oscar Wilde...

Forgive me if this is totally off base...I know how you are a huge fan of Wilde Dale...



Dale presented the article “The Decay of Lying,” by Oscar Wilde as “supplementary” reading to the course, which begs the question—Why? What about this lofty dialogue between two men smoking cigarettes and shootin the shit about art applies to our class? Well when looked at closely I believe the answer is a muddled one. The paradoxes and word play seem to work with and against the readers understanding, perhaps forcing the reader to question his or her own view of nature. Through framing the dialogue with our disillusionment with Nature Oscar Wilde, in taking up the persona of Vivian, attempts to make apparent this disillusionment in relation to recreating Art while also complicates it tremendously. Wilde states that our disillusionment is entirely due to our “national stupidity”. He states his article to be a “most salutary and valuable warning” which leans toward a “new Renaissance of Art”.

I take his audience to be other tired Hedonists like himself, readers of the Retrospective Review, people who are interested in the pursuit of pleasure and the importance of the pursuit. One of these pleasures Wilde refers to as “lying”. He plays with the term throughout the essay and we can never quite be sure whether or not he is taking up this “lost art of lying” which seems to align itself with the preconceived notion of an unreal rhetoric of the Sophists. He states "the aim of the liar is simply to charm, to delight, to give pleasure". Is he just charming us?

His word play brings to mind a Platonic relationship to Language. Words can be deceptive or slippery, and it is hard to find whether or not truth resides within them, especially when Vivian is trying to bring back the lost art of “lying” or deception. The words seem to be going beyond what they are doing. His use of “lying” for imagination and perception and redefining of “nature” and “art” seem to be reaching for a far more grandiose protreptic. The irony here is that he utilizes Socratic dialogue in order to prove that the words themselves are only incidental. Something is at stake with this idea of lying— is Wilde himself lying? What does it mean when he regards Nature to be “external to man” and then later says “Nature is our creation” only to proceed to imply nature did not exist until invented by Art. His redefinition of nature is perplexing. His definition implies that Nature is solely a creation of our own perception and imagination. In regards to this class then, what implications does this redefinition provide? Nature is what we make it? And how do we resolve the idea that “Beautiful things do not concern us”? Is Nature not beautiful, and are we therefore not concerned with it?
He also goes on to say “As long as a thing is useful or necessary to us, or affects us in any way, either for pain or for pleasure, or appeals strongly to our sympathies, or is a vital part of the environment in which we live, it is outside the proper sphere of art”. I believe Nature is useful and necessary to is, it affects us, it appeals to our sympathies and it is a vital part of the environment in which we live. In this case, how can nature recreate art if it is outside the proper sphere of art?

Overall this article was perfect as a supplementary reading for this course. Through use of paradox, irony, and word play it entices the reader to explore the complexities of how Nature and Life work to recreate Art while forcing the reader to question the validity of Wilde’s claims, just as we are forced to question the validity of most people’s views of nature. He forces us out of our disillusionment by forcing us to question it.



Ashley Russell