Article ID: CBB408800938

'No Artist Has Ethical Sympathies': Oscar Wilde, Aesthetics, and Moral Evolution (2016)

unapi

“There is no mode of action, no form of emotion, that we do not share with the lower animals” (137). This evolutionary claim is not attributable to Darwin, but to Oscar Wilde, who allows Gilbert to voice this bold assertion in “The True Function of Criticism.” While critics have long wrestled with the ethical stance and coherence of Wilde's writings, they have overlooked a significant influence on his work: debates concerning the evolution of morality that animated the periodicals in which he was writing. Wilde was fascinated by the proposition that complex human behaviours, including moral and aesthetic responses, might be traced back to evolutionary impulses. Significantly, he also wrote for a readership already engaged with these controversies.

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Review Haythem Bastawy (2017) Review of "'No Artist Has Ethical Sympathies': Oscar Wilde, Aesthetics, and Moral Evolution". Journal of Literature and Science (pp. 140-141). unapi

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https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB408800938/

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Authors & Contributors
Zadrozny, Sara
Pilar Blanco, María del
Benjamin Morgan
Andrea Wald
Martinson, T. J.
Luciani, Paola
Concepts
Science and literature
Aesthetics
Evolution
Romanticism
Science and art
Nature and its relationship to culture; human-nature relationships
Time Periods
19th century
20th century, early
18th century
Enlightenment
20th century
Places
Great Britain
England
Germany
Mexico City (Mexico)
United States
Italy
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