Abstract
This article examines the notebooks that Oscar Wilde kept for his Literae Humaniores studies at the University of Oxford and connects them to his maturity works to explain some of the aspects of the influence of Ancient Greek Literature on his modern conception of art criticism. Specifically, this article explains how he exploited certain ideas formulated by his precursors—such as Matthew Arnold’s idea of criticism, Walter Pater’s idea of impressionistic criticism, and John Addington Symonds’ idea of the regency of a canonical art—to substantiate a bold proposal to Victorian intelligentsia and cultural circles: namely, that, in Victorian Modernity, the critic should be raised to the condition of artist and her criticism to the condition of an art in itself.
Keywords
Oscar Wilde; British Aestheticism; classical reception; critical theory; art criticism