Izvan okvira: esejistička proza Oscara Wildea i Virginije Woolf
Out of the Frame: The Essay Writing of Oscar Wilde and Virginia Woolf

Summary/Abstract: The paper examines selected essays by Oscar Wilde and Virginia Woolf within the social, cultural and artistic context at the turn of the century. The essay, which implies a note of subversion, proves to be the ideal form for these two writers, who have a chameleonic ability to disguise, deceive and seduce the reader. Although apparently Wilde and Woolf had no common points of contact either in life or in literary creation, the analysis of their essays in which they clearly present their view of art and the criticism of the traditional approach to the literature of their contemporaries, in which realism served as a mirror of social reality, points to numerous similarities in understandings of art. Firstly, the influences of Walter Pater and Shakespeare on both authors are analysed, and then the viewpoints regarding the perception of art are compared. Both authors despise the photographic approach to literature, the superficial realism that relies on descriptions, and demand a turn to inner experience, contemplation and memories, looking for a new stylistic expression as well. Satire, which is more pronounced in Wilde, but also present in Woolf, serves as a means of criticizing the traditional patriarchal society, with which both authors point to social problems, and, additionally, in Woolf, to the problems of gender inequality. Both authors have utopian ideas about an ideal society, but at the same time they are aware that they are unrealistic and unachievable. Wilde and Woolf demand the noninterference of politics and morality in literature, they claim it is inappropriate to use literature for political or any similar purposes.

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