十九世紀末最具爭議性的天才作家王爾德在其著名的論文〈謊言的衰退〉中，針對自古被人們廣為接受的古典西方哲學柏拉圖以及亞理斯多德的主張「藝術模仿人生」提出反論，認為是人的「人生模仿藝術」。十九世紀末，王爾德與其它英國作家和詩人所參與的頹廢主義正是受到當時法國印象派畫家和象徵主義詩人其美學之影響，他們以「為藝術而藝術」作為口號，以純粹的藝術作為信仰。然而值得注意的是，王爾德「人生模仿藝術」的美學思想不但為藝術與美學立下最神聖的崇高性，同時似乎也預示了二十世紀末在歐洲興起的後現代主義對於當代擬像與虛擬實境的分析理論。
在此論文中我計畫分析研究王爾德如何將他的美學理論運用在他的詩作與他最著名且唯一的哥德式唯美小說《美少年格雷的畫像》以闡釋作品純粹的唯美性。然後探究王爾德反映其美學精神與態度的生活方式對於百年後的當代青少年流行文化的象徵性影響。同時我也將以王爾德「人生模仿藝術」的觀點與後現代美學作連結，探討後現代藝術自我戲擬的文本性，以及對照布希亞對於後現代文化為超現實所掌控，一切的表面都是擬像，而表層之內沒有任何的真實。
In “The Decay of Lying” Oscar Wilde famously said that “life imitates art,” reversing the classical Western (from Plato and Aristotle) and more or less common-sense idea that “art imitates life.” Wilde, along with other late 19th-century English writers and poets who were part of the “decadent” movement, was influenced by the French impressionist painters, symbolist poets and their aestheticism, their religion of pure art, guided by the slogan l’art pour l’art” or “art for art’s sake.” Interestingly, the idea that “life imitates art” not only gives the priority to art and aestheticism itself, but also predicts in certain ways late-20th- century European postmodernism with its simulacra and virtual realities.
In this thesis I plan to show how Wilde’s aesthetics (as described in critical works like “The Decay of Lying”) is manifested in the pure aestheticism of his poetry and in the novel The Picture of Dorian Gray, and then to explore the impact of the Wildean aesthetic lifestyle on a certain contemporary Western youth culture, a pop- culture lifestyle. I will also suggest the relevance of Wilde’s “life imitates art” to postmodernist aesthetics, to the self-parodying “textuality” of postmodern art and to Baudrillard’s view of the postmodern culture as a culture of the hyper-real, the simulacra or purely virtual surface with no material “reality” behind or beneath it.
