This thesis examines Oscar Wilde, George Gissing and the challenges of aesthetic authorship in the literary marketplace of the 1890s. Using Pater’s formulation of the aesthetic as a basis for my understanding, I argue that the commodity-driven changes that transformed the literary marketplace at the end of the nineteenth century created insurmountable obstacles for authors working within the aesthetic ideal. I examine the conflict between the demands of the aesthetic and those of the literary market through two specific notions of ‘utility’. In the first instance, following Regenia Gagnier’s The Insatiability of Human Wants, I explore the seemingly opposed notions of economic utility and aesthetic authorship and how they appear to merge, with examples from the fictional prose of Wilde and Gissing. I then explore the public’s use of the aesthetic, which, I argue, is discernible in the celebrity-status of these authors; in particular, I focus on the growing need for authors to perform for their public—a need which signals a shift in the public’s consumption of art away from the literary work and towards the author himself. / As both forms of utility are essential aspects of literary production, yet also pose unaesthetic demands on the author, I examine how Wilde and Gissing respond to these challenges through their literary prose. Taking The Picture of Dorian Gray [1891] and New Grub Street [1891] in addition to Gissing’s The Whirlpool [1897] and Born In Exile [1892] and Wilde’s “The Remarkable Rocket” [1888] and “The Soul of Man Under Socialism” [1891], alongside both authors’ letters and contributions to journals and magazines of the day, I reveal how their aesthetic idealism shapes their writing in an oppositional manner. Despite the overt differences between Wilde and Gissing, I also find striking similarities in their positioning as aesthetic authors in the late-Victorian literary field. By doing so, my thesis comprehensively examines how both authors mediate their aesthetic ideals in the literary marketplace of the 1890s.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/276243 |
| Date | January 2009 |
| Creators | Hone, Penelope Nina |
| Source Sets | Australiasian Digital Theses Program |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Rights | Restricted Access: Abstract and Citation Only Available |
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