Resumen de Intenciones

Para quién es

You will enjoy this if you love witty talk, paradox and sharp opinions about books, painting and the theatre, and like to see an author defend beauty and taste with a smile.

De qué trata este libro

Would you rather spend a lovely afternoon on the grass, or indoors arguing that nature copies painters? Vivian, the speaker in the first essay of Intentions, picks the library. He says London's fogs did not exist until artists taught people to see them.

Intentions is a book of four essays by Oscar Wilde, gathered from magazine pieces in the early 1890s. Two are dialogues between friends, one is a memoir of a poisoning painter, and one is a note on staging Shakespeare. Wilde argues that art owes nothing to nature, to facts or to moral lessons. You get the whole argument, piece by piece, each idea with its scene and example.

Questions about Intenciones

What is Intentions by Oscar Wilde about?

It collects essays on art and criticism, mostly as dialogues between friends. The pieces argue that art owes nothing to nature or morals, that life copies art, and that criticism is itself a creative art.

What does The Decay of Lying mean?

Wilde means the decline of imaginative invention, the telling of beautiful untrue things. Vivian argues that modern writers copy facts and so lose the imagination that gave literature its charm and its life.

Who are Vivian, Gilbert and Ernest?

They are speakers in Wilde's dialogues. Vivian argues for lying in the first essay, while Gilbert argues for criticism and contemplation in The Critic as Artist, answering the questions and objections of his friend Ernest.

Is Pen, Pencil and Poison a true story?

It is a memoir of a real man, Thomas Griffiths Wainewright, born in 1794, who wrote about art and was tried for forgery. Wilde tells his life with irony and uses it to argue that art and morals are separate.

Is Intentions easy to read?

The dialogues move through conversation, jokes and vivid scenes, so ideas arrive one at a time in a lively voice. Each essay has a clear subject, and the dialogues reward reading aloud.