{"id":411,"date":"2022-04-03T22:56:22","date_gmt":"2022-04-04T02:56:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/oascarwilde\/?p=411"},"modified":"2022-04-03T22:57:39","modified_gmt":"2022-04-04T02:57:39","slug":"redemptive-nature","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/oascarwilde\/2022\/04\/03\/redemptive-nature\/","title":{"rendered":"Redemptive Nature"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

One aspect that I did not expect to see in De Profundis<\/em> is Wilde\u2019s appreciation for nature. I remember reading \u201cThe Decay of Lying\u201d earlier this semester, which featured a dialogue between Cyril and Vivian, Wilde\u2019s two sons. Wilde writes through Cyril that \u201cwhat art really reveals to us is Nature\u2019s lack of design, her curious crudities, her extraordinary monotony, her absolutely unfinished condition\u201d (970). Variety is seen through Art rather than Nature, residing in the fantastical imagination that Wilde constantly calls forth. However, we have all seen how Wilde has shifted his views toward many things in De Profundis<\/em>. And one of those things is nature.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            When living in a prison cell, confined and lacking mobility, Nature is much more sought after by Wilde. He still has books (paid for by Robbie), and even if sorrow has stolen many things from him, he still returns to his true love of Art and how imagination and self-realization feed into that. But he does not have Nature. He is much more aware of the space he is living in (a prison cell) and the physical tasks he has to complete, such as scrubbing the floor of his cell. While we once stated in class that Wilde\u2019s plays take place in some utopia setting, not quite Britain, De Profundis<\/em> undeniably grounds him in the physical location of his prison cell in Reading Gaol. Wilde plans to go to a \u201clittle seaside village\u201d after his release, where \u201cthe sea… [will wash] away the stains and wounds of the world\u201d (954). Nature takes on a redemptive quality in this light. Instead of having monotony and an unfinished condition, Wilde believes that people have forgotten the \u201cuses of any single thing\u201d and how \u201cWater can cleanse\u201d (954). Of course, this reminded me of holy water and Christianity, as De Profundis<\/em> directly concerns itself with the religion. Still, I argue that Wilde\u2019s physical confinement made him ground himself into more of the physicality of everyday life, everyday Nature. Wilde is going to come back to a society after his imprisonment that has sneered, mocked, and punished him at every turn. But he will be able to form his own society and community, and Nature will welcome him with open, cleansing arms.      <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One aspect that I did not expect to see in De Profundis is Wilde\u2019s appreciation for nature. I remember reading \u201cThe Decay of Lying\u201d earlier this semester, which featured a dialogue between Cyril and Vivian, Wilde\u2019s two sons. Wilde writes through Cyril that \u201cwhat art really reveals to us is Nature\u2019s lack of design, her … Continue reading Redemptive Nature<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4163,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[541804,33411,49804],"class_list":["post-411","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-de-profundis","tag-nature","tag-redemption"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/oascarwilde\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/411","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/oascarwilde\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/oascarwilde\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/oascarwilde\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4163"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/oascarwilde\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=411"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/oascarwilde\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/411\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":413,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/oascarwilde\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/411\/revisions\/413"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/oascarwilde\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=411"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/oascarwilde\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=411"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/oascarwilde\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=411"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}