I will focus today on two aspects of Wilde\u2019s fairy tales. \u00a0<\/strong>First, I want to take up the cult of beauty promoted in them\u2014<\/strong>the auratic objects that participate in\u00a0<\/strong>a decorative regime of fin-de-siecle aesthetics. \u00a0<\/strong>Then I will turn to the grotesque aesthetic that competes with\u00a0<\/strong>and in some cases annihilates the floral and metallic beauty on display. <\/strong>Wilde\u2019s<\/span><\/strong> fairy tales remind us that aesthetics , even in fin-de-siecle art,\u00a0<\/strong>is deeply implicated with ethical questions.\u00a0<\/strong>The cult of beauty begins to crumble in Wilde\u2019s work\u00a0<\/strong>under the pressure of economic realities in which abject misery becomes a moving picture with its own aesthetic power. <\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/strong>Barnett Newman once told us that\u00a0<\/strong>\u201cthe impulse of modern art is to destroy beauty,\u201d\u00a0<\/strong>and Wilde\u2019s fairy tales, while not destroying beauty,\u00a0<\/strong>insist on hollowing out its power by investing its opposite with a powerful emotional and empathetic charge.<\/strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Empathy and compassion have their own pleasures,\u00a0<\/strong> and it was to Wilde\u2019s credit that he recognized their short-lived value and understood that we need not only to \u201cthink more\u201d\u00a0<\/strong>(and his fairy tales made that possible) but also do more in order to effect lasting social change.<\/strong><\/p>\n
![\"Oscar_Wilde_portrait\"](\"https:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/tatar\/files\/2015\/05\/Oscar_Wilde_portrait.jpg\")
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