The soul of man under socialism

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German first edition Berlin 1904

The soul of man under socialism (The Soul of Man under Socialism) is an essay by the Irish writer Oscar Wilde (1854 to 1900) with a socialist libertarian worldview that is based on aesthetic ideals rather than on economic theories. The socialization of private property is only one step on the way to the real goal of socialism: the realization of individualism . The essay, which Wilde himself regarded as trend-setting, first appeared in The Fortnightly Review in February 1891 . The first German translation appeared in 1904 under the titleSocialism and the human soul .

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The essay first discusses the benefits people can expect from the introduction of "socialism, communism, or whatever you want to call it". By “converting private property into common property and by taking the place of competition through cooperation”, society will ensure the material well-being of every member of the community. The fact that socialism leads to individualism that refuses to accept any authority becomes the main theme of the essay. Wilde paints a picture of a society in which people recognize that the most important thing is not to have , but to be . In Wildes' understanding, socialism is in the service of individualism: The abolition of private property will "lead to true, beautiful and healthy individualism".

Right at the beginning, Wilde speaks out against philanthropic alleviation of poverty, because these remedies did not fight the disease, but only prolonged it. Mercy, caring and the like degrade and demoralize the poor. It is immoral to use "private property to alleviate the terrible grievances that result directly from the existence of private property".

The essay is full of utopian and anarchist reflections. The aphorism is often quoted: "A map of the world that does not show the land of Utopia does not even deserve a cursory glance, because it lacks the land that mankind has always headed for." Utopian is the expectation that there will be no more humiliating work will have to do. Man is made for better "than digging in the dirt. All work of this kind should be done by machines ”. Machines are the new slaves who do the repulsive and unpleasant work. The statement: "All forms of government are to be regarded as unsuitable." The state has the task of “creating the useful”, the individualism “creating the beautiful”.

Wilde contrasts social conformity , the submission to authority , with the artist's individual creativity. For the artist there is only one suitable form of government: “no government at all”. Only in a free society without a government is an artist able to express himself freely. The artist should never try to adapt to the taste of the audience, to appear popular; Rather, the audience should be expected to “try to develop a sense of art” themselves.

The writing is a hymn-like creed of unconditional, indomitable individualism, in which Wilde saw the ideals of Hellenism realized (the movement of “Hellenism” in Great Britain in the late 19th century corresponds roughly to the “ German Classicism ” inspired by Johann Joachim Winckelmann however, in addition to genuinely social questions). His entire aesthetic mindset was rooted in Wilde's classicist attitude: Man strives to lead “an intense, rich and perfect life. […] Without coercion or coercion on others […]. The happy person lives in harmony with himself and his environment. The new individualism, which socialism is working to realize […], will be a state of perfect harmony. ”What the Renaissance strived for and what the Greeks could only realize in spirit because they needed slaves for work would come true: that every human being reach their perfection. The essay closes emphatically with the sentence: “The new individualism is the new Hellenism”.

Importance of socialism and anarchism for savages

Through his acquaintance with George Bernard Shaw , Wilde became interested in socialism. In 1888 he attended several events of the Fabian Society , where he probably also heard a lecture by Shaw. In 1889 he reviewed the hymn book Chants of Labor: A Song-Book of the People , in which he indicated that he considered socialism to be a new mainspring of art. Shaw's unorthodox view of Fabian socialism is said to have impressed and influenced Wilde, while Shaw tried unsuccessfully to get the Fabian Society to publish his esteemed writings The Soul of Man under Socialism and William Morris ' News From Nowhere ; he doubted they were even noticed.

It has often been pointed out that Wilde wrote The Soul of Man under Socialism on the basis of the inspiring reading of Peter Kropotkin's writings. In his letter from prison (published in abridged version for the first time in 1905 under the title De Profundis ), Wilde speaks with the utmost respect of Kropotkin, who lives in exile in London and with whom he shared the experience of years in prison: “a man with the soul of that snow-white one "Beautiful Christ who appears to have emerged from Russia." The historian of anarchism, George Woodcock , rated Wilde's work in 1962 as the most ambitious contribution to literary anarchism during the 1890s. However, he attributed the dominant influence on the script to the early English anarchist William Godwin rather than Kropotkin. JD Thomas, however, points to fundamental differences between Wilde's romantic individualism and Godwin's “typical 18th century rationalism”. Wilde's writing has more in common with Morris' News From Nowhere than with Godwin's Political Justice .

On the occasion of a survey by the French literary magazine L'Ermitage in 1873, Wilde described himself as an “artist and anarchist”. He was the only London writer to sign a petition initiated by George Bernard Shaw to pardon the union leaders who had been sentenced to death for the bomb explosion on May 4, 1886 in Chicago's Haymarket .

reception

Karl Kraus , who recognized Wilde as an ally against the press, praised the text in 1904 “as the deepest, noblest and most beautiful that the genius murdered by the Philistine sense created, with its unheard-of abundance of contemplation encompassing life and art, as the true gospel of modern thought ".

George Orwell , who did not consider Wilde a socialist in any active sense, called Wilde's 1948 vision of socialism utopian and anarchist. Orwell believed two assumptions in particular to be wrong: first, that the world already had an immense wealth that only needed to be redistributed, and second, that all low-level work could be done by machines.

The British philosopher and historian Peter Hugh Marshall dedicated several pages in the voluminous (840 pages) and more recent standard work on anarchism, Demanding the Impossible , to Oscar Wilde and calls him a "British Libertarian" whose libertarian socialism is ultimately the most attractive of all variants of anarchism and socialism. As Marshall further reports, according to Shaw's observation, contemporary Fabians and Marxist socialists laughed at Wilde's moral and social ideas, but, as usual, Wilde laughed last. He will be remembered when they are long forgotten.

The British literary historian Matthew Beaumont considers Wilde to be an unconvincing utopian of the late Victorian period . His utopia conceals a contradiction between ruthless criticism of the existing conditions, which called for radical change, and an evolutionary- gradualist idea of ​​the development of individual freedom, which leaves conditions at least partially unchanged.

The Swedish linguist and literary scholar Emelie Jonsson pointed out that Wilde wrote his essay at a time when industrial mass production was emerging and that industrialism and romanticism were not mutually exclusive for his utopia, but that one should serve the other. The essay, however, is above all a literary work of art, written by an artist. The British literary scholar John Sloane judges more sharply: Wilde's political radicalism can easily be dismissed as an artistic pose, as a more emotional than true political commitment.

In a recent lecture on cultural capitalism at the RSA ( Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce ), the Marxist philosopher Slavoj Žižek took up Wilde's rejection of mercy and care to alleviate poverty and damned practices such as “Fairtrade “As stabilizing capitalism.

Publication history

After it was first published in The Fortnightly Review in 1891 , the essay was published as a book while Wilde was still alive in 1895. Five days after he was sentenced to two years in prison, it was published in a modest private print with an edition of 50 by Arthur Humphrey. Humphrey is believed to be Constance Wilde's lover. As Gregory Mackie writes, Humphrey used the opportunity to combat injustice with idealism to criticize the verdict of the court.

A few years after Wilde's death, two separate publications appeared in 1904, one as a pirated print with the original title, the other edited by Arthur Humphrey under the name Sebastian Melmoth used after his release from prison with the abbreviated title The Soul of Man . In 1908, Wilde's estate administrator, Robert Ross , included the essay in the first edition of Wilde's writings.

A first German translation by Gustav Landauer and Hedwig Lachmann was published in 1904 under the title Socialism and the Soul of Man with the further essays From the Prison to Reading and Aesthetic Manifesto as the second volume in the series Verschollene Meister der Literatur by the Berlin publishing house Karl Schnabel / Junckers Bookstore. All texts in this edition have been in the public domain since 1990 and are available from de.wikisource as s: Drei Essays . For further editions and translations see below in the section Newer German Editions .

expenditure

Initial release

Historical-critical edition

  • Oscar Wilde: Criticism: Historical Criticism, Intentions, The Soul of Man . Edited by Josephine M. Guy. Oxford University Press, New York and Oxford 2007 (= Volume 4 of The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde . Ed. By Ian Small. Oxford University Press, Oxford and New York 2000–), pages 231-268.

English language edition

  • Oscar Wilde: Complete Works of Oscar Wilde . Collins, London 2003, pp. 1174-1197, ISBN 978-0-00-714436-5 . (This fifth edition of the Complete Works by Collins Publishing is based on the "Centenary Edition", which in 1999 corrected for the first time the position of a rather long paragraph that had been misplaced in all modern editions prior to 2000).

Newer German editions

  • Oscar Wilde: Socialism and the human soul. Translated from the English by Gustav Landauer and Hedwig Lachmann . 7th edition. Diogenes TB (detebe 20003, Diogenes-Klassiker), Zurich 2004 (1st edition 1970), ISBN 978-3-257-20003-4 . (Text in the public domain from 1904, also available on Wikisource ).
  • Oscar Wilde: The Soul of Man under Socialism. Translated from the English by Christine Koschel and Inge von Weidenbaum . In: Oscar Wilde: Complete works in seven volumes. Vol. 7 (Essays II), pp. 211-252. Insel Verlag, Frankfurt am Main and Leipzig 2000 (1st edition 1982), ISBN 978-3-458-34344-8 .
  • Oscar Wilde: The Soul of Man under Socialism. Translated from the English by Georg Deggerich. In: Oscar Wilde: New Zurich Edition. Works in 5 volumes, Volume 3: Essays . Gerd Haffmans at Zweiausendeins, Frankfurt am Main 2004, ISBN 3-86150-517-7 , pp. 235-288. (This edition is out of print).
  • Oscar Wilde: The human soul in socialism. Translated from the English by Jörg W. Rademacher, afterword by Michael Szczekalla, 1st edition. Elsinor Verlag, Coesfeld 2019, ISBN 978-3-942788-42-7

E-texts

Wikisource: The Soul of Man Under Socialism  - Sources and full texts (English)
Wikisource: Socialism and the human soul  - sources and full texts

Secondary literature

  • Matthew Beaumont: Reinterpreting Oscar Wilde's Concept of Utopia: 'The Soul of Man under Socialism'. In: Utopian Studies 15: 1, 2004, pp. 13–29.
  • Josephine M. Guy: 'The Soul of Man under Socialism': A (con) textual History. In: Joseph Bristow (Ed.): Wilde Writings: Contextual Conditions. Toronto University Press, Toronto 2003, pp. 59-85.
  • Emelie Jonsson: 'The Soul of Man under Socialism': Oscar Wilde, Art and Individualism. In: Moderna språk 103: 1, 2009, pp. 1–11.
  • Suzette Macedo: Fernando Pessoa ’s 'O Banqueiro Anarquista' and 'The Soul of Man under Socialism'. In: Portuguese Studies 7, 1991, pp. 106-132.
  • Gregory Mackie: Textual Dissidence: The Occasions of Wilde's 'The Soul of Man under Socialism'. In: Mémoires du livre / Studies in Book Culture 4: 2, 2013.
  • Brian Nicholas: Two Nineteenth-Century Utopias: The Influence of Renan's 'L'Avenir de la Science' on Wilde's 'The Soul of Man under Socialism'. In: Modern Language Review 59: 3, 1964, pp. 361-370.
  • Aaron Noland: Oscar Wilde and Victorian Socialism. In: Robert N. Keane (Ed.): Oscar Wilde: The Man, His Writings, and His World. AMS Press, New York 2003, pp. 101-111.
  • DJ Thomas: 'The Soul of Man Under Socialism': An Essay in Context. In: Rice University Studies 51: 1, 1965, pp. 83-95.

Web links

  • The Soul of Man: Oscar Wilde and Socialism - Special edition of the e-zines Oscholars from spring 2010 with contributions by Josephine M. Guy, David Charles Rose, DRO'Connor Lysaght and many other authors, with an extensive primary and secondary bibliography.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Oscar Wilde: The soul of man under socialism. In: ders .: Essays. Volume 3 of the New Zurich Edition. Gerd Haffmans at Zweiausendeins, Frankfurt am Main 2004, p. 237.
  2. ↑ Oscar Wilde: The soul of man under socialism. In: ders .: Essays. Volume 3 of the New Zurich Edition. Gerd Haffmans at Zweiausendeins, Frankfurt am Main 2004, p. 244.
  3. ↑ Oscar Wilde: The soul of man under socialism. In: ders .: Essays. Volume 3 of the New Zurich Edition. Gerd Haffmans at Zweiausendeins, Frankfurt am Main 2004, p. 245.
  4. ↑ Oscar Wilde: The soul of man under socialism. In: ders .: Essays. Volume 3 of the New Zurich Edition. Gerd Haffmans at Zweiausendeins, Frankfurt am Main 2004, p. 236 f.
  5. ↑ Oscar Wilde: The soul of man under socialism. In: ders .: Essays. Volume 3 of the New Zurich Edition. Gerd Haffmans bei Zweiausendeins, Frankfurt am Main 2004, p. 258. Quoted for example by Konrad Farner : Foreword to: Konrad Farner / Theodor Pinkus (eds.): Der Weg des Sozialismus. Sources and documents 1891-1962. Rowohlt TB-Verlag, Reinbek bei Hamburg 1964, p. 9. Matthew Beaumont names some Anglo-Saxon authors who refer to the quote: Reinterpreting Oscar Wilde's Concept of Utopia: 'The Soul of Man under Socialism' . In: Utopian Studies 15: 1, 2004, p. 13, jstor.org
  6. ↑ Oscar Wilde: The soul of man under socialism. In: ders .: Essays. Volume 3 of the New Zurich Edition. Gerd Haffmans at Zweiausendeins, Frankfurt am Main 2004, p. 256 f.
  7. ↑ Oscar Wilde: The soul of man under socialism. In: ders .: Essays. Volume 3 of the New Zurich Edition. Gerd Haffmans at Zweiausendeins, Frankfurt am Main 2004, p. 252 f.
  8. ↑ Oscar Wilde: The soul of man under socialism. In: ders .: Essays. Volume 3 of the New Zurich Edition. Gerd Haffmans at Zweiausendeins, Frankfurt am Main 2004, p. 255.
  9. ↑ Oscar Wilde: The soul of man under socialism. In: ders .: Essays. Volume 3 of the New Zurich Edition. Gerd Haffmans at Zweiausendeins, Frankfurt am Main 2004, p. 277.
  10. ↑ Peter Marshall : Demanding the Impossible: A History of Anarchism. HarperCollins, London 1992, p. 175.
  11. ↑ Oscar Wilde: The soul of man under socialism. In: ders .: Essays. Volume 3 of the New Zurich Edition. Gerd Haffmans at Zweiausendeins, Frankfurt am Main 2004, p. 259.
  12. ↑ Wilde, Oscar: The soul of man in socialism. Retrieved October 25, 2020 .
  13. ↑ Oscar Wilde: The soul of man under socialism. In: ders .: Essays. Volume 3 of the New Zurich Edition. Gerd Haffmans at Zweiausendeins, Frankfurt am Main 2004, p. 288.
  14. ↑ Oscar Wilde: The soul of man under socialism. In: ders .: Essays. Volume 3 of the New Zurich Edition. Gerd Haffmans at Zweiausendeins, Frankfurt am Main 2004, p. 288.
  15. ↑ DJ Thomas: 'The Soul of Man Under Socialism': An Essay in Context. In: Rice University Studies 51: 1, 1965, p. 91.
  16. ^ Richard Ellmann : Oscar Wilde. Scientific Book Society, Darmstadt 1992, p. 403.
  17. ^ JD Thomas: 'The Soul of Man Under Socialism': An Essay in Context. In: Rice University Studies 51: 1, 1965, pp. 89 f.
  18. ↑ http ://www. britica.com/topic/anarchism/Anarchism-as-a-movement-1870-1940 (link not available)
  19. ↑ Oscar Wilde: Letter from prison. In: ders .: late works. Volume 5 of the New Zurich Edition. Gerd Haffmans at Zweiausendeins, Frankfurt am Main 2004, pp. 67–250, here: 201.
  20. ↑ George Woodcock: Anarchism: A History of Libertarian Ideas and Movements. The World Publishing Company, Cleveland, OH 1962, p. 448.
  21. ^ JD Thomas: 'The Soul of Man Under Socialism': An Essay in Context. In: Rice University Studies 51: 1, 1965, pp. 86 and 89.
  22. ↑ 'Autrefois, j'étais poète et tyrant. Maintenant je suis artiste et anarchiste '. Quoted from David Goodway: Anarchist Seeds Beneath the Snow. Left-Libertarian Thought and British Writers from William Morris to Colin Ward . Liverpool University Press 2005, libcom.org pdf , p. 77.See also: The Soul of Man: Oscar Wilde and Socialism (2010) oscholars.com ( memento of September 24, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) at fn. 55
  23. ^ Richard Ellmann: Oscar Wilde. Scientific Book Society, Darmstadt 1992, p. 403.
  24. ↑ Oscar Wilde: Essays Volume 3 of the New Zurich Edition. Gerd Haffmans at Zweiausendeins, Frankfurt am Main 2004, p. 268.
  25. ^ Karl Kraus : Oscar Wilde on the press. In: The torch. No. 167, October 26, 1904, p. 5.
  26. ↑ George Orwell on Oscar Wilde's anarchic genius. In: The Guardian. January 27, 2013 (First Published in Observer 1948 ). Retrieved August 6, 2015.
  27. ↑ Peter Marshall: Demanding the Impossible: A History of Anarchism. HarperCollins, London 1992, p. 180.
  28. ^ Matthew Beaumont: Reinterpreting Oscar Wilde's Concept of Utopia: 'The Soul of Man under Socialism' . In: Utopian Studies 15: 1, 2004, p. 24 f.
  29. ^ Emelie Jonsson: 'The Soul of Man under Socialism': Oscar Wilde, Art and Individualism . In: Moderna språk 103: 1, 2009, p. 2.
  30. ^ Emelie Jonsson: 'The Soul of Man under Socialism': Oscar Wilde, Art and Individualism . In: Moderna språk 103: 1, 2009, p. 11.
  31. ^ John Sloane: Authors in Context: Oscar Wilde. Oxford University Press, Oxford 2003, p. 100.
  32. ↑ Slavoj Žižek ’s animated ideas about charity are simplistic and soulless. In: The Guardian. April 22, 2011. Retrieved August 11, 2015.
  33. ^ Gregory Mackie: Textual Dissidence: The Occasions of Wilde's 'The Soul of Man under Socialism'. In: Mémoires du livre / Studies in Book Culture 4: 2, 2013, abstract.
  34. ^ Gregory Mackie: Textual Dissidence: The Occasions of Wilde's 'The Soul of Man under Socialism'. In: Mémoires du livre / Studies in Book Culture 4: 2, 2013, footnote 1.
  35. ↑ James Horrox: Socialism and the Soul of Man: Gustav Landauer's Wilde Translations . In: The Soul of Man: Oscar Wilde and Socialism , special edition of the e-zine Oscholars from spring 2010. ( Memento from September 24, 2015 in the Internet Archive )
  36. ↑ books de IT and Production: Works in 5 volumes. Zurich edition. Retrieved November 3, 2020 .
This version was added to the list of articles worth reading on September 18, 2015 .
Works by Oscar Wilde


novel

The Picture of Dorian Gray ( The Picture of Dorian Gray , 1890)

Collections
  • Lord Arthur Saviles Crime and Other Stories  (1887)
Lord Arthur Savile crimes ( Lord Arthur Savile's Crime ) | The Canterville Ghost ( The Canterville Ghost ) | The Sphinx without a Secret ( The Sphinx without a Secret ) | The Model Millionaire ( The Model Millionaire )
The Happy Prince ( The Happy Prince ) | The Nightingale and the Rose ( The Nightingale and the Rose ) | The Selfish Giant ( The Selfish Giant ) | The devoted friend ( The Devoted Friend ) | The remarkable rocket ( The Remarkable Rocket )
The boy king ( The Young King ) | The Birthday of the Infanta ( The Birthday of the Infanta ) | The fisherman and his soul ( The Fisherman and his Soul ) | The Star Child ( The Star-Child )
Short stories

The portrait of Mr. WH ( The Portrait of Mr. W. H. , 1889) |

Poems

Ravenna (1878) | Poems (1881) | The Sphinx (1894) | Poems in Prose (1894) | The Ballad of Reading Gaol (1898)

Stage works

Vera, or the Nihilists ( Vera, or the Nihilists , 1880) | Lady Windermeres Fan ( Lady Windermere's Fan , 1892) | The Duchess of Padua ( The Duchess of Padua , 1893) | A Woman of No Importance ( A Woman of No Importance , 1893) | An Ideal Husband ( An Ideal Husband , 1894) | Salomé (1891) | Bunbury or the importance of being serious / being serious is everything ( The Importance of Being Earnest , circa 1895) | The pious courtesan ( La Sainte Courtisane , fragment) | A Florentine Tragedy ( A Florentine Tragedy , fragment)

Essays

The beginnings of historical criticism ( The Rise of Historical Criticism , 1878/79) | The Truth of Masks ( The Truth of Masks , 1885) | The Decay of Lying ( The Decay of Lying , 1889) | Pen, Brush and Poison ( Pen, Pencil and Poison , 1889) | The Critic As Artist ( The Critic as Artist , 1890) | The soul of man under socialism ( The Soul of Man under Socialism , 1891) | De Profundis (1897)