Modernist Aesthetics and Consumer Culture in the Writings of Oscar Wilde

<p>Oscar Wilde was a consumer modernist. His modernist aesthetics drove him into the heart of the mass culture industries of 1890s London particularly the journalism and popular theatre industries. </p><p>Wilde was extremely active in these industries: as a journalist at the Pall Mall Gazette; as magazine editor of the Women’s World; as commentator on dress and design through both of these; and finally as a fabulously popular playwright.</p><p>Because of his desire to impact a mass audience the primary elements of Wilde’s consumer aesthetic were superficial ornament and ephemeral public image – both of which he linked to the theatrical. This concern with the surface and with the ephemeral was ironically a foundational element of what became twentieth-century modernism – thus we can call Wilde’s aesthetic a consumer modernism a root and branch of modernism that was largely erased. </p>