The Soul of Man Under Socialism
30 pages • 1-hour read
Oscar WildeThe Soul of Man Under Socialism
A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Background
Ideological Context: Aestheticism
Core to Wilde’s interest in socialism was his belief that Socialism Supports Aestheticism. As an artistic movement, aestheticism was committed to the idea that art should exist to be beautiful or to provide pleasure, including the enjoyment of the artist themself. Its origins are debated; in England, the mid-19th-century pre-Raphaelites—a group of artists and writers of whom Dante Gabriel Rossetti was perhaps the most emblematic—are sometimes viewed as precursors due to their emphasis on feeling rather than convention. Victorian art critic and novelist Walter Pater was a more direct influence. His 1873 collection of essays Studies in the History of the Renaissance laid out the principle that art’s only “purpose” is to be artistic, while his 1885 novel Marius the Epicurean explored the idea of living an “aesthetic life.”
Mainstream Victorian culture held that art should serve an ethical purpose or be educational, and Pater’s ideas attracted significant criticism and accusations of amorality. Nevertheless, they formed the backbone of the English aesthetic movement, which was at its height in the 1880s—the same time that Wilde was reaching the pinnacle of his fame. Wilde was an outspoken defender of aestheticism in art and in life. Indeed, the two were interrelated to the aesthetics; beyond challenging ideas of art’s function, aestheticism elevated art to a status even above nature, arguing that life should strive to copy art rather than art reflecting nature (as in Victorian Realism). This idea that art holds the key to unlocking a better and more beautiful world strongly informs “The Soul of Man Under Socialism,” where Wilde acknowledges that his ideas bear little relation to reality as it is: “It [Wilde’s argument] is unpractical, and it goes against human nature. This is why it is worth carrying out, and that is why one proposes it” (77). It is through embracing aestheticism, Wilde argues, that people can craft their own lives as artists do their work.
Socio-Historical Context: Anarchism
“The Soul of Man Under Socialism” is the only explicitly political essay Wilde wrote. Combined with Wilde’s well-known penchant for satire and embrace of the performative and extravagant, this has led some critics to argue that his socialism was at least partly tongue-in-cheek (Kamp, Peter van de and Patrick Leahy. “Some Notes on Wilde’s Socialism.” The Crane Bag, vol. 7, no. 1983, pp.141-150). Yet Wilde was not as politically disengaged as his public persona might have suggested. When four anarchists were tried and sentenced to death following an 1886 Chicago bombing (the “Haymarket Affair”), Wilde sided with the anarchists, signing fellow socialist and writer George Bernard’s Shaw petition for their release. Wilde also spent considerable time in Paris, where he was exposed to new ideas and people, including the city’s various socialist thinkers.
Perhaps the greatest influence on Wilde, however, was the anarcho-communism of Peter Kropotkin, a member of the Russian aristocracy who ultimately had to flee the country due to his anarchist beliefs:
The most ambitious contribution to literary anarchism during the 1890s was undoubtedly Oscar Wilde’s The Soul of Man Under Socialism. Wilde, as we have seen, declared himself an anarchist on at least one occasion during the 1890s, and he greatly admired Kropotkin, whom he had met (Woodcock, George. Anarchism: A History of Libertarian Ideas and Movements. The World Publishing Company, 1962).
Kropotkin differed from many socialists of the era in his rejection of centralized authority. Where Marxism imagined a transitional “dictatorship of the proletariat” that would manage the transition to socialism and Fabians like Shaw hoped to bring about socialism from within existing governmental structures, Kropotkin believed that any such government would ultimately replicate the very injustices it aimed to eradicate. Instead, Kropotkin argued in favor of voluntary, cooperative, and decentralized associations; humans, he felt, were naturally more inclined to share than to compete, and an economy based on mutual aid could provide for the needs of the population at large.
Wilde is far less interested in the mechanics of implementing socialism than Kropotkin or other thinkers of his day. However, his argument about The Danger of Authority owes much to Kropotkin and anarchism generally. Wilde even references Russia a handful of times in his essay, in indirect homage to the various socialist and anarchist movements that gained traction there over the course of the 19th century.
Unlock all 30 pages of this Study Guide
Get in-depth, chapter-by-chapter summaries and analysis from our literary experts.
- Grasp challenging concepts with clear, comprehensive explanations
- Revisit key plot points and ideas without rereading the book
- Share impressive insights in classes and book clubs