Wilde's Intentions

What were Wilde''s intentions? They had always been suspect from the time of Poems when the charge was plagiarism to his trials when the charge was sodomy. In Intentions (1891) and in two related essays The Portrait of Mr W. H. and The Soul of Man Under Socialism Wilde''s epigrammatic dazzle and paradoxical subversions both reveal and mask his designs upon fin-de-siécle society. In the first extended study of Wilde''s criticism Lawrence Danson examines these essays/dialogues/fictions and assesses their achievement. He sets Wilde''s criticism in context showing how the son of an Irish patriot sought to create a new ideal of English culture by elevating lies above history leveling the distinction between artist and critic and ending the sway of natureu over liberated human desire.