‘That love-enraptured tune’
‘That love-enraptured tune’
Eros and Art(ifice)
This chapter enquires into a selection of poems by Oscar Wilde, examining ways by which eros is inscribed in the decorative surface of poetry. It highlights Wilde’s borrowed idea of ‘impossible eros’ (‘l’amour de l’impossible’). Tinkering with the juxtaposition of permanence and transitoriness in descriptions of seasonal and natural beauty, Wilde frames death as taking place within a larger framework of a perpetual recycling of life. Within this framework, demonstrated by his poem ‘Panthea’ (1881), he accommodates a diffused and impersonal sensuality. The chapter then examines the ephemeral, impressionistic artificiality mostly of Wilde’s city lyrics. In the last section, the ideas explored in ‘Panthea’ inform ‘The Harlot’s House’ (1884).
Keywords: Oscar Wilde, artificiality, Beauty, ‘Panthea’, impossible eros, ‘The Harlot’s House’, eroticism, ephemerality
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