The Beautiful, Untrue Things of the Lyric Essay

Keywords

craft essay, Oscar Wilde, critical dialogue, realism

Abstract

Oscar Wilde’s most famous critical dialogue, “The Decay of Lying,” begins with a well-meaning but uninformed man named Cyril inviting his male friend Vivian outside: “Don’t coop yourself up all day in the library,” he says. “Let us go and lie on the grass and smoke cigarettes and enjoy Nature.” Vivian, however, wants nothing to do with Nature, and complains of her “lack of design, her curious crudities, and her extraordinary monotony.” And thus Vivian and Cyril embark on a grand debate about the role of nature in art, and the problem with what Vivian calls “dull facts,” “depressing truths,” and “careless habits of accuracy.” “There is such a thing as robbing a story of its reality by trying to make it too true,” says Vivian. And “if something cannot be done to check, or at least to modify, our monstrous worship of facts, Art will become sterile, and beauty will pass away from the land.”

Original Publication Citation

""The Beautiful, Untrue Things of the Lyric Essay,"" TriQuarterly 146 (Summer/Fall 2014). httpv://www.triquarterly.org/craft-essays/beautiful-untrue-things-lyric-essay. 4 ms. pages.

Document Type

Peer-Reviewed Article

Publication Date

2014

Publisher

TriQuarterly

Language

English

College

Humanities

Department

English

University Standing at Time of Publication

Assistant Professor

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