The Apparatus for Turning out “Oscarisms”

Though the operation of Wilde’s wit may not be quite as mechanical as some of his Victorian contemporaries claimed, it is characterized by a number of common features that give it its unique quality. Virtually all of Wilde’s epigrams, for example, are structured so that they rely on a carefully constructed matrix of two or more sets of incompatible values. In his more symmetrical aphorisms, such as the one on style and sincerity, the two matching sets of values, one of which is affirmed and the other dismissed, are made quite explicit; in many others, however, they are only implicit and sometimes even have to be inferred. This binary structure of Wilde’s value system has been observed by a number of critics, from Siegel and Bashford to Eco. It is sometimes seen as unnecessarily polarizing, but also as representative of the specifically Victorian views on morality, aesthetics, and metaphysics and as such deserves to be explored in more detail.