Oscar Wilde: As Daoist Sage

Abstract

In 1890 Oscar Wilde wrote a review of the first complete translation into English of the fourth-century BCE Daoist sage, Zhuangzi (Chuang Tsŭ as then transliterated). From numerous echoes in his subsequent work, we may surmise that in Zhuangzi Wilde discovered a fellow spirit, one who would, in the event, crystallize Wilde’s most distinctive ideas, among them the fundamental uselessness of everything useful and that creed of dandyism that articulates Zhuangzi’s concept of wu wei (“the principle of inaction”). Finally, Zhuangzi’s advocacy for the non-government of mankind resonates throughout Wilde’s one political essay, “The Soul of Man under Socialism.” Discovering Zhuangzi thus became a crucial agent in transforming Wilde’s inherently Irish style of thinking into that of the most startling British intellectual of his day.