Expressing One’s Self

  • Jure Gantar
Chapter

Abstract

One of the most surprising dimensions of Wilde’s wit is its role in constructing its author’s identity. This characteristic is particularly obvious in several of his best known “Phrases and Philosophies” that are at the same time both highly personal and remarkably honest. Inasmuch as wit generally appears to be more interested in what separates us from others than in what makes us unique, the inevitable side effect of the truly insightful observations is the reaffirmation of the witty speaker as a rational and even intelligent subject. In Wilde’s case, wit was not merely a rhetorical device to which he resorted when all other means of persuasion failed; rather, it was a permanent mode of his being and featured just as prominently in his everyday life as on the pages of his works. While it is probably true that Wilde never uttered some of the quips that have been attributed to him, the mere fact that even in the most trying circumstances, during his imprisonment in Reading Gaol, he still mustered enough strength to respond to his jailers with wit is probably a good indication of how inextricably the two are connected.1 Let us look, then, at a few of these epigrams and how they relate to Wilde’s identity.

Keywords

Anonymous Author Imaginary Dialogue Indefinite Pronoun Insightful Observation Intelligent Subject 
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
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Notes

  1. 1.
    See the accounts published in E. H. Mikhail’s collection Oscar Wilde: Interviews and Recollections (London and Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1979), 2:331, 2:340.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
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© Jure Gantar 2015

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  • Jure Gantar

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