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Oscar Fingall O'Flahertie Wills Wilde |
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"Famous for his public speaking and wit, [Oscar] Wilde has often been accused of merely reproducing witty repartee in his plays, and the temptation to treat his work lightly is in large part due to his flamboyant and notorious lifestyle, which is often better known than his writings," Jennifer Kelly explained in the Dictionary of Literary Biography. "He posed as an Aesthete and a Decadent, which were movements of the late Victorian age whose followers believed in 'art for art's sake.' Wilde himself stated in The Picture of Dorian Gray that 'All art is at once surface and symbol.' Nevertheless, Wilde advocated reform through social critique in his plays, short stories, novel, essays, and poems, and he challenged Victorian morality with his work and his lifestyle." His lasting literary fame resides primarily in four or five plays, one of which--The Importance of Being Earnest, first produced in 1895--is a classic of comic theatre.
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