Oscar Wilde Religion Analysis

Oscar Wilde’s conversion to Catholicism was a slow—if not incomplete—change of heart. Indeed, it seemed to be the “form, rather than the content” (Ellman 34) that began the author’s dalliance with the religion, as he seemed instinctively drawn to the maryr-happy, scarlet-toned atmosphere of piety due to its artistic implications. It was Catholicism’s deviancy from the normative values of Victorian Anglicanism, not the specificities of its dogma, which attracted Wilde, as its contrast with religious traditionalism paired harmoniously with the mantra of “l’art pour l’art.” Both the texts “De Profundis” and “The Soul of Man under Socialism” present Jesus Christ as the ultimate aesthetic prophet, with Wilde not only rendering the Aesthetic movement
Instead of achieving a respectable level of profitable skill, as should be encouraged by government, or attaining spiritual fulfilment, as should be addressed by religious hierarchies, the working classes are forced instead to fixate on the social issues perpetuated by these same all-encompassing structures. Wilde seems to address poverty in both body and soul, as much of a critique of Anglican Church as it is of Parliament’s insufficiencies. It is essential to note that much of his work strives to distinguish between Christianity and the vehicles through which it is dispersed. To denounce charity as a virtue is a bold statement in its Victorian context, yet Wilde demands attention be given the “hypocrites” of the nation, whose attempts to provide a temporary curative for the inescapable consequences of the free market and the deficient spiritual
Jarlath Killeen’s novel, The Fairy Tales of Oscar Wilde—which serves to provide supplemental literary contexts and criticisms for the aesthete’s multifaceted fairy tales—picks up on this same strain of discourse within “The Happy Prince” as “The Soul of Man,” as both texts relay a similar message concerning the dilemma of working class alienation, as well as its subsequent repercussions, not the least of which being moral degradation. Catholicism, which was seen as a break away from the “Protestant work ethic” that dominated social decorum, can be determined as one of Wilde’s solutions for the disparaging souls of the working class. Killeen goes as far as to determine that “Wilde [saw] Catholicism as a means of combating the spiritual slavery of the people, as it eschewed predestination and good works rather than work” (34). On the surface, Killeen’s thesis may seem contradictory to Wilde relays an inherent distrust of “good works,” as the aesthete denounces charity as the merely serving the selfish whims of the upper classes. To give freely in the classist Victorian system, as he argues, “[…]creates a multitude of sins” (Soul of Man, 1174). However, Wilde delivers the message that the Church is at blame for the perpetuation of sinful giving, as it indoctrinates the people into complacency,