28. Aestheticism. O. Wilde’s stories “The Happy Prince and other stories” and the novel “The Picture of Dorian Grey”. The embodiment of paradox in o. Wilde’s works.

The British decadent writers were much influenced by the Oxford professor Walter Pater and his essays published during 1867–68, in which he stated that life had to be lived intensely, with an ideal of beauty. His text Studies in the History of the Renaissance (1873) was very well regarded by art-oriented young men of the late 19th century. Writers of the Decadent movement writers used the slogan "Art for Art's Sake" (L'art pour l'art), the origin of which is debated. Some claim that it was invented by the philosopher Victor Cousin, although Angela Leighton in the publication On Form: Poetry, Aestheticism and the Legacy of a Word (2007) notes that the phrase was used by Benjamin Constant as early as 1804.^[3] It is generally accepted to have been promoted by Théophile Gautier in France, who interpreted the phrase to suggest that there was not any real association between art and morality.

The artists and writers of Aesthetic style tended to profess that the Arts should provide refined sensuous pleasure, rather than convey moral or sentimental messages. As a consequence, they did not accept John Ruskin and Matthew Arnold's utilitarian conception of art as something moral or useful.^{[citation needed]} Instead, they believed that Art did not have any didactic purpose; it need only be beautiful. The Aesthetes developed a cult of beauty, which they considered the basic factor of art. Life should copy Art, they asserted. They considered nature as crude and lacking in design when compared to art. The main characteristics of the style were: suggestion rather than statement, sensuality, great use of symbols, and synaesthetic effects—that is, correspondence between words, colours and music. Music was used to establish mood.^{[citation needed]}

Predecessors of the Aesthetics included John Keats and Percy Bysshe Shelley, and some of the Pre-Raphaelites. In Britain the best representatives were Oscar Wilde and Algernon Charles Swinburne, both influenced by the French Symbolists, and James McNeill Whistler and Dante Gabriel Rossetti. The style and these poets were satirised by Gilbert and Sullivan's comic operaPatience and other works, such as F. C. Burnand's drama The Colonel, and in comic magazines such as Punch.

Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde (16 October 1854 – 30 November 1900) was an Irish writer and poet. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of London's most popular playwrights in the early 1890s. The Picture of Dorian Gray is considered a work of classic gothic fiction with a strong Faustian theme.^[

После публикации романа в обществе разразился скандал. Вся английская критика осудила его как аморальное произведение, а некоторые критики требовали подвергнуть его запрету, а автора романа — судебному наказанию. Уайльда обвиняли в оскорблении общественной морали. Однако обычными читателями роман был принят восторженно. По жанру — это философский роман, написанный в декадентском стиле.

В Дориане Грее, главном герое романа, угадываются черты нового Фауста. В роли Мефистофеля выступает лорд Генри, именно он на протяжении всего романа соблазняет Дориана Грея идеями нового гедонизма, превращает невинного и талантливого юношу в порочное чудовище. Под роль Маргариты попадает Сибилла Вейн, новый Валентин — Джеймс Вейн. Интересно, что в сюжете романа есть значительные сходства с легендой о Фаусте. Например, Фауст также получил от Мефистофеля вечную молодость. Есть аллюзии и на другие произведения мировой литературы.

The Happy Prince and Other Tales (sometimes called The Happy Prince and Other Stories) is a collection of stories for children by Oscar Wilde first published in May 1888. It contains five stories, "The Happy Prince", "The Nightingale and the Rose", "The Selfish Giant", "The Devoted Friend", and "The Remarkable Rocket". It is most famous for its title story, "The Happy Prince".

28. The drama of the beginning of the 20^th century. B. Shaw. “Pygmalion”.

In Pygmalion by B. Shaw it is Professor Higgins who creates a new person. But he does not make it of ivory. He takes an ordinary poor girl from the gutter, and makes her look like a duchess, act like a duchess, and, what is more important, speak like a duchess.He is a professor of phonetics and made his living teaching English people how to speak English. Some people make money and become rich. They can wear expensive cloths, have limousines, and eat in famous restaurants. But they can't enter the Society because of their accent. Low class accent betray them. So Professor Higgins teaches them speak proper English, English of high society.Eliza Doolittle is a cockney girl. It means that she lives in the poor part of London where working people live. She sells flowers in the street and wants to be an assistant in a flower shop. But she knows that it is impossible because of her cockney accent. She can't pay for lessons: they are too expensive for her.But things happen. One rainy night the professor and the poor girl come for shelter under the portico of St. Paul's church in Covent Garden.

The play is about a professor of Phonetics, his companion, a colonel who is also interested in language, and a flower girl.

Higgins A quite rude professor of phonetics. He can not behave himself in the company of other people and is still single. He does not care much about marriage and falls only in love with woman over forty-five. He is very intelligent and knows how to place a person in a part of London when he hears him speak.

Pickering He is a Colonel and also a specialist of phonetics. He comes from India to meet Mr. Higgins. He is amazed about what Higgins can do and makes a bet with him that he can not teach a flower girl how to speak properly English in six months. Pickering is a polite and very gentle person who has respect to everybody, even for the flower girl. He is very rich and he can pay for the expensive lessons Higgins is giving to the flower girl.

Liza Doolittle She is the flower girl who gets lessons of Higgins. She first wanted to pay for them, but she did not know that they would cost more than a shilling. For her luck Pickering and Higgins make a bet that Higgins would not be able to teach her speak like a lady and she gets free lessons.

Higgins occurs to be a rude person and is treating her like if she were his property.

Father Doolittle comes to visit Mr. Higgins and asks him five shilling for his being father of the girl and goes away.