Intentions (Annotated)

Oscar Wilde's *Intentions* (1891) gathers four dialogues and essays that constitute a brilliant manifesto for aestheticism and the autonomy of art. In "The Decay of Lying," "The Critic as Artist," "The Truth of Masks," and "The Soul of Man under Socialism," Wilde overturns Victorian assumptions about realism, morality, authorship, and social utility. His paradoxes, epigrams, and Socratic exchanges...