【浅谈《快乐王子》的美学价值】浅谈美学对人生的价值

　　摘 要：王尔德的《快乐王子》是世界上最优美的童话之一，可以同时为孩子和大人所欣赏。它具有极高的美学价值。这种价值正在于它的“美”。本文从三个不同角度探讨了这篇童话的美学价值：第一，情节上反映了童话的悲剧美；第二，语言上表现了童话的诗意美；第三，主旨上体现了童话的艺术美。
　　Abstract：The Happy Prince by Oscar Wilde is one of the most beautiful fairy tales in the world, which can be appreciated by both children and adults. It is of high aesthetic value. Its value lies in its “beauty”. This paper explores the aesthetic value of this fairy tale from three different perspectives: Firstly, the story of the fairy tale reflects a kind of tragic beauty; Secondly, the language of the fairy tale presents a kind of poetic beauty; Thirdly, the theme of the fairy tale embodies a kind of artistic beauty.
　　关键词：美学价值 悲剧美 诗意美 艺术美
　　Keywords： aesthetic value, tragic beauty, poetic beauty, artistic beauty
　　
　　1. Introduction
　　Fairy tales, especially those stemming from folk legends, are of great value to us in different aspects such as anthropology, psychology, aesthetics, artistry and so on. The explanation given by Andersen can be regarded as another way of interpreting fairy tales. The great master of fairy tales once said that he was writing not only for the children but also for the adults around them. He hoped that the adults could find some illumination and enjoyment in the fairy tales as well.
　　The Happy Prince just serves as another example. It is written by Oscar Wilde, a master of aestheticism. The Happy Prince and Other Tales was published in 1888 and contained five stories: The Happy Prince, The Nightingale and the Rose, The Selfish Giant, The Devoted Friend, and The Remarkable Rocket. Wilde wrote to a friend that the tales were “meant partly for children, and partly for those who have kept the childlike faculties of wonder and joy, and who find in simplicity a subtle strangeness” (Wilde, 2005：29，Varty). His readers could be naïve or sophisticated, young or old, their pleasures shaped by different features of the texts; but, in common with Wilde, they were to have an aesthetic sensibility, the capacity to experience “wonder and joy” or to delight in strange “simplicity” (Varty, 2005：88).
　　The Happy Prince is more of an elegant philosophical prose than of an ordinary fairy tale. The words and the phrases in the tale are like sparkling pearls and jades dizzying your eyes, so splendid but so vulnerable. They resemble the bubbles of happiness chased by the heroes in the tale, and gain their eternal beauty because of their insecure existence.
　　The Happy Prince is of high aesthetic value. Its value lies in its “beauty”, and its “beauty” delights all, touches all, and conquers all our hearts. This paper explores the aesthetic value of this fairy tale from three different perspectives: Firstly, the story of the fairy tale reflects a kind of tragic beauty; Secondly, the language of the fairy tale presents a kind of poetic beauty; Thirdly, the theme of the fairy tale embodies a kind of artistic beauty.
　　2. The Tragic Beauty in the Story
　　2.1 The Definition of Tragedy
　　Here, in the tale of The Happy Prince, beauty comes into life through the technique of tragedy. What is a tragedy? Tragedy is a serious matter in human life. It is not equivalent to sadness, sorrow, misery, pessimism, misfortune or death. It is much more than a sad thing. Tragedy, as an object in aesthetics, bears a sense of beauty in itself. Such kind of beauty wears a gown of striking magnificence, with a power that could capture one’s heart. For example, the ancient Greek classic Prometheus Bound is a typical tragedy, in which Prometheus was willing to endure excruciation for upholding justice. His dauntless and unyielding spirits embodied in the works exhibit an honorable and lamentable beauty of sublimity and solemnity. Lu Xun, a great Chinese writer in the early half of the twentieth century, once came up with a definition for tragedy. He said, Tragedy is to tear the most beautiful and valuable things in human life to pieces for one to appreciate. The characteristics of the art of tragedy revealed here is that a tragedy possesses the most beautiful and valuable things in life rather than anything merely sad, sorrowful or miserable. The means of expression a tragedy applies is to tear something beautiful and valuable to pieces. What a smashing blow upon one’s heart! Watching the beautiful and valuable things being torn into pieces bit by bit in your face, you are stunned, overwhelmed, and haunted by fear of losing the most precious thing in life. What’s more, you could do nothing helpful to reserve it but watch it being ruined little by little. At that time, tears of sorrow gush from your eyes. You just can’t help crying for the bitter scene of losing the most beautiful and valuable things in life. Meanwhile, a sense of artistic beauty wells up in your heart. In other words, you taste the bitter sweetness of beauty when undergoing pains. So in this way, tragedy gives birth to beauty.
　　2.2 The Tragic Beauty of The Happy Prince
　　As tragedy is such a powerful means to express beauty, some fairy tale writers also adopt this technique to write their stories, like Andersen and Wilde. The Little Mermaid by Andersen and The Happy Prince by Wilde are two most typical tragedies in fairy tales. Both of the two fairy tales reflect a kind of rare beauty when veiled in a mist of tragic atmosphere. The Little Mermaid paid such a high price for her love, but the prince knew nothing about it at all. In the end, faced with the alternative to live or to die, the Little Mermaid sacrificed herself for the happiness of her love and turned into bubbles. It was her tragic fate that gave prominence to her unceasing pursuit of love and her pure noble spirits of self-sacrifice for love. When we are weeping for the sad ending of the Little Mermaid, we have already been deeply captivated by the artistic beauty embodied in the fairy tale, which seems to be so enduring and perpetual.
　　Similarly, The Happy Prince can be regarded as another representative of tragedy in fairy tales. The tale begins with a description of the statue of the Happy Prince: “High above the city, on a tall column, stood the statue of the Happy Prince. He was gilded all over with thin leaves of fine gold, for eyes he had two bright sapphires, and a large red ruby glowed on his sword-hilt” (Wilde,2003:144,Zhang Qin). This detailed description of the statue not only presents us a vivid picture of the Happy Prince, but also buries seeds of tragedy for the proceeding of the tale. As the tale went on, the Happy Prince first offered the “large red ruby” on his sword-hilt to a sick boy, and then he asked the Little Swallow to pluck out one of his eyes that were made of “bright Sapphires”. The tragic ending is foreshadowed when the Prince’s other eye was plucked out and he became blind. After the little Swallow made a decision that he would stay with the blind prince always, a sad ending looms ahead. Later, the fine gold covering all over the statue of the Happy Prince was picked off leaf by leaf, “till the Happy Prince looked quite dull and gray”(2003:154), thus forming a sharp contrast with the former picture which is presented at the beginning of the tale. In this way, the tragic atmosphere was intensified. Like the Little Mermaid, who sacrificed her life for her love of the prince, the Happy Prince sacrificed all his most precious things for his love of the poor people. His eyes being plucked out, his golden coat being taken off, his delicate appearance was fading away little by little, his noble spirits began to acquire a special glory, which made his image even more magnificent than before. His kindness toward the poor people became greater because of his self-sacrifice. The tale appears to be more heart-touching under the magic of tragic atmosphere. In the end, the little Swallow died at his foot because of the cold weather. “At that moment a curious crack sounded inside the statue, as if something had broken. The fact is that the leaden heart had snapped right in two” (2003:155). The tale culminated right here, and the tragic effects at the same time reached the highest point. The Happy Prince and the Little Swallow became the symbol of beauty because of their self-sacrifice for love. At the sight of the ruin of beauty, no one could help weeping. It was said that Wilde also wept when he told his children the story of the Happy Prince. He said that the real beauty would always make one shed tears. The sad ending of the Happy Prince gives our hearts a smashing blow, and left us with a sense of tragic beauty. Although the statue of the Happy Prince was pulled down and melted in a furnace, “it is through its very incompleteness that Art becomes complete in beauty”(Wilde, 2005:723, Zhang Jieming).
　　3. The Poetic Beauty in the Language
　　Wilde’s fairy tales were never ordinary narration or description. They were in a style of a prose, and read like a poem. The Happy Prince undoubtedly is a typical crystallization of poem and fairy tale. Wilde was telling us a fairy tale in his poetic language, thus leaving an impression of poetic beauty upon us. His language in the fairy tale seems like currents of streams from a deep valley running smoothly all the way through. Listen carefully, every word is singing, happily, melancholically, sadly or sorrowfully. With such kind of musical language, Wilde had composed an elegant lyric on the flute of imagination, ringing on and on in our hearts. Wilde is not only a great composer, but also an excellent weaver. His language seems like silk threads of gold and silver, with the lustre of the stars. Every word is a dewdrop, sparkling in the morning sun. With such kind of picturesque language, Wilde had woven an exquisite piece of cloth on the loom of fantasy, shining as colorfully as the rainbow. In The Happy Prince, Wilde, with the magic of his poetic language, led us into a miraculous world, a world that you could see, hear, and feel. All you saw there was a picture of poetic color; all you heard there was a song of poetic lyrics; all you felt there was a world of poetic moods. As soon as you step into this wonderful world, you will be embraced by a mist of pure poetry, and drink yourself drunk heart and soul in this kind of poetic beauty.
　　This kind of poetic language, as a form of decorative art, counts a lot for the fairy tale. Wilde insisted that "the secret not of philosophy merely but of all gracious existence might be extremely hidden from any one whose youth had been passed in uncomely and vulgar surroundings, and that the beauty of form and colour even, as he says, in the meanest vessels of the house, will find its way into the inmost places of the soul and lead the boy naturally to look for that divine harmony of spiritual life of which art was to him the material symbol and warrant”(Varty, 2005:89).
　　4. The Artistic Beauty in the Theme
　　4.1 The Theme of the Tale
　　It is much easier for an average reader to appreciate the tale of The Happy Prince than the tale of Salome. The Happy Prince pities for the poor, fights against the injustice, helps others with pleasure, sacrifices himself without reservation, and seeks after true happiness. All these virtues are in sympathy with people’s simple values. I think that The Happy Prince teaches us to confront the miseries.
　　Any piece of work, if it is separated from the integrate whole of the writer’s art system, loses most of its life. Any mature writer with great achievements must possess a series of consistent theories of arts which are embodied throughout his works, so that all his works are closely connected together. Oscar Wilde, as the most typical writer of aestheticism in the nineteenth century, rather than a fighter against the dark Victorian Society or a socialist, pursues love and redemption more from religion and arts of aesthetics than from social reform. The Happy Prince, philosophically, is not the forum for moral and social reform, but for the existence of misery, self-sacrifice, redemption, and the artistic beauty of futility.
　　4.2 The Artistic Beauty of Futility
　　Wilde, as a master of aestheticism, always stuck to the theory of artistic futility. The value of the existence of arts merely lies in its reflection of beauty, and beauty comes to life during the conflict between sense and sensibility. This is the artistic theory Wilde advocates to support the theme of The Happy Prince.
　　In the real world, sense tells us that misery is bound to exist, while sensibility asks us to change this factual situation. The former is correct and reasonable; the latter is absurd and futile. The Happy Prince wanted to make everybody happy, and the Swallow wanted to help him free people from the bound of misery. But all their efforts turned out to be in vain. Sensibility has always been seeking harmony with sense, but it fails all the time. During this forever long course of exploration, a sense of futility comes out. This kind of sense of futility is mixed with the sense of honor possessed by people during their pursuing of happiness, thus leading to the experience of beauty.
　　Beauty is embodied in the comparison between the feeling and expression of arts. The prince delivered people all his treasures, but meanwhile he knew it was useless to save people with money; the little swallow stayed in the city in winter, meanwhile he knew the threat of death; Wilde had a sober understanding of the reality while presenting us a sad story. Here, the foundation of artistic feeling is passion, and that of artistic expression is reason. Beauty comes into life during the conflict between passion and reason. Reason tries its best to overwhelm the surging waves of passion, and thus it gives rise to an explosion of beauty.
　　Arts gain the significance of beauty by reflecting sensibility in sense, by expressing passion in reason. The significance of beauty is not concerned with morals, kindness, justice, truth, or the real effects, but the experience.
　　The real world is what it is always like, whether in the past or at the present, full of miseries, such as starvation, coldness, poverty, disease, death, injustice and the like. “more marvelous than anything is the suffering of men and women. There is no Mystery so great as Misery”(Wilde, 2003:153,Zhang Qin). Why does the world have to be like this? Why does God create human beings together with misery? He is not fair, and not correct. Actually, it is meaningless in saying so. God, hidden behind the clouds, high above us, smiles a mysterious smile. Wilde, who catches a glimpse of God’s smile, smiles back. He has nodded in approval, and so he wrote. Whether it is fair or not, correct or not, in the real world, the existence of misery is justified. On the other hand, people are always in the pursuit of happiness. Even though they could foresee their failure sooner or later in the course of pursuing happiness, they still go on with their pursuit in spite of any frustrations. The Happy Prince knew he would be blind, but he still commanded the Little Swallow to pluck out his eyes to salve the suffering people. The Little Swallow knew he would die if he continued to stay in the city, but he insist on staying with the Happy Prince until he died. All their efforts to save people from the depth of misery proved to be futile. But this kind of vain attempts appears to be tragic and touching, solemn and stirring, when it takes place in a world flooded with miseries. When it is being appreciated by the heart, a sense of beauty comes out in the minds of the appreciator.
　　5. Conclusion
　　Fairy tales can be regarded as a magic treasure stone, sparkling on the crown of literature. Here I refer to the works with the form of a fairy tale, graceful and beautiful language, and profound and far-reaching meanings. In fact, many great classic works in the literary realm are fairy tales of philosophical and humanistic significance. Those works with several strata of philosophical meanings can be appreciated by both children and adults. We can hardly say that the children can fully understand those complicated philosophical and humanistic meanings contained in Alice in Wonderland. However, in the form of a fairy tale, it reaches the heart of the children without being blocked by fences made up of difficult connotations. These connotations are then kept as forms of senses of beauty, which will be deeply ingrained in their minds and have a profound influence on their future life.
　　Wilde has created “a simple atmosphere of all fair things” in his fairy tales, “where beauty, which is the spirit of art, will come on eye and ear like a fresh breath of wind that brings health from a clear upland, and insensibly and gradually draw the child’s soul into harmony with all knowledge and all wisdom, so that he will love what is beautiful and good, and hate what is evil and ugly long before he knows the reason why ; and then when reason comes will kiss her on the cheek as a friend”(Wilde, 2005:35, Varty).
　　The Happy Prince, as well as Alice in Wonderland, The Little Prince, and Andersen’s works in his later life, opens up another way of creating fairy tales. It is a way that aims at a higher point instead of just humbly catering for the taste of children. But it can still catch the children’s hearts with its purified beautiful language, and arouse their sympathy and sense of beauty. In fact, The Happy Prince is created as a fairy tale by the readers rather than by the author. With the support of Wilde’s philosophy of arts and his excellent language ability, the readers’ imagination extends infinitely, and reaches far into the land where it connects with the author’s philosophical intention.
　　
　　Reference:
　　[1]Declan, Kiberd. The Cambridge Companion to Oscar Wilde. Ed. Peter Raby. Shanghai: Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press, 1997.
　　[2]Hesketh, Pearson. Ed. Essays by Oscar Wilde. London: Methuen, 1950.
　　[3]Varty, Anne. A Preface to Oscar Wilde. Peking: Peking University Press, 2005.
　　[4]Wilde, Oscar. “The Happy Prince”.《奥斯卡•王尔德作品导读》. Ed. Zhang, Qin (张勤).武汉: 武汉大学出版社,2003.
　　[5]Wilde, Oscar.《唯美叙事:王尔德新论》. Zhang, Jieming (张介明).上海:上海社会科学院出版社,2005.
　　

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