Oscar Wilde’s Philosophy of History

Abstract

This essay considers Oscar Wilde’s philosophy of history, a synthesis of materialist evolutionary theory and Hegelian dialectical idealism, through a close reading of Historical Criticism (1879) informed by comparisons to the drafts and source materials in Wilde’s Historical Criticism Notebook (2016). Wilde wrote from an intellectual stance based upon his studies at Trinity College Dublin and Oxford. His Oxford notebooks and Historical Criticism Notebook record his studies in idealist philosophy, materialist science, social science, history, poetics, and aesthetics; they also contain notes and drafts that he used when composing Historical Criticism, in which he not only enacted his own philosophy of history, but also defined and exemplified historiographical practices and philosophies of history as reflected variously in the works of classical and modern historians.