ABSTRACT
The aestheticism is a trend of bourgeois literary thoughts which appeared in the nineteenth century in Europe. People who believed in aestheticism advocated the belief "Art for art's sake", they believed that the Art transcended life, and had its eternity. In England, the representative of aestheticism is Oscar Wilde, who is the also practitioner of aesthetic writing. Wilde's fairy tales are full of fantastic imaginations, fine composition, florid words and have a kind of poetic flavour. Through analyzing Wild’s fairy tales, this thesis probes both the features of his tales and the aesthetic ideas these tales reflect.
Keywords：Wilde; aestheticism; fairy tale
Contents
1. Introduction 1
1.1 Wilde and His Works 1
1.2 Wilde's Aesthetic Intention 1
2. The Aestheticism in Wilde's Fairy Tales 5
2.1 The Beauty of Image 5
2.2 The Beauty of Spirit 7
2.3 The Beauty of the Tragic Ending 11
3. The Main Feature of Wilde's Tales: The Aesthetic Idea 14
3.1 Wilde's tales: No Magic in the Real World 14
3.2 Wilde's tales: Perfect Ending 14
4. Conclusion 15
Acknowledgements 16
References 17
