THE PREFACE

It is organized into a series of statements where Oscar Wilde expounds his ideas about art. Art, according to the author, is the creation of beautiful things. He goes on saying that the idea of morality is in no way connected or to be connected to art. What matters is how art is produced: it can be well or badly produced.

The instruments of the artist are thought snd language.

Art does not mirror life and all art is quite useless.

The style of the Preface can give no ideas about its function.

The writer seems to be dictating a code. This happens because the ideas about art were different in previous age. (Art should be useful and teach morals) Previous literature for example was Victorian literature and according to its standards even art should be useful because whatever was not useful was sinful.

Wilde rejects all that: the very short line at the end of the Preface reinforces the concept stylistically.

So it can be said that the first function of the Preface is to expand his ideas about art in the form of a provocation hurled against the exsisting standard.

At the same time the Preface introdices a motif revelant to the all novel: the atmosphere typical of the period contemporary to Wilde.  It also gives hints at some of the characteristics of the protagonist's personality.

It is not art that has to mirror life, but the life of the individual should become a world of art. It is the so-called motor of the doctrine of art for art's sake.  It is not the artist he who matters but art.