Sylvie Larsen: Did you know Oscar Wilde wrote fairy tales? I didn’t. It’s an interesting peek into Wilde, since most people only know DORIAN GREY or THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING ERNEST. There are nine “children’s” stories published in two volumes. I put children’s in quotes since I doubt most children know words like anodyne, even with a fancy British education.
For this article, I read a little of both volumes for the sake of comparison. From The Happy Prince and Other Stories (1888), I read “The Happy Prince,” “The Nightingale and the Rose,” and “The Selfish Giant. From The House of Pomegranates (1891), I read “The Young King” and “Birthday of the Infanta.” I found the stories unexpectedly religious and a bit sad, but Oscar sure can turn a phrase.
I like fairy tales, and I love fairy tales that haven’t been completely co-opted by Disney. These stories are a great addition to the canon of fairy tales, and I think they should be read alongside Grimm and Aesop. The power of most fairy tales lies in the their morals and characters’ actions, but the power of Wilde’s stories lies in the writing. For instance, a character in “The Birthday of the Infanta” walks through a castle, and it’s one of the best descriptions of walking through a castle I’ve ever read.
These stories feature all the usual components of fairy tales: There are princes and princesses, talking flowers and birds, giants and dwarves. But the places in the stories aren’t usual. And the tales are sadder than our stereotype, at least, of the genre: The love stories don’t work themselves out in the end; sacrifices are made to no effect; and great changes are not always for the best.
Like true fairy tales, the stories have morals to be learned by the reader. They focus on such aspects of life as compassion, self-sacrifice, faith, and a message of anti-vanity mixed with the appreciation of aesthetic and natural beauty.
I don’t know why I was so surprised to find so much religion in these stories. Jesus is a character in “The Selfish Giant,” where faith is represented by a garden. The themes of “The Birthday of the Infanta” and “The Nightingale and the Rose” are a bit harder to pin down. There are issues of nature and beauty mixed with issues of class and disappointment. I would have loved to rip both apart for a college essay, but this blog post is the closest I’ll get.
While I wouldn’t recommend these stories for a young child looking for a nice bedtime story, I think they would be appropriate for older kids looking for something darker to read.
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