Stylistic Features of Oscar Wilde’s Wrightings

“What an appalling philosophy that sounds!” (p.179)

“But I tell you that the only bitter words that ever came

from those sweet lips of hers were on your account,

and I hate to see you next her”. (p.80)

According to these examples, we can say that Epithet is a word or word combination which in its attributive use discloses the individual emotionally coloured attitude of the writer to the object he describes. It is a form of subjective evaluation. It is a description brief and compact which singles out the things described.

e.g. “Lips that have lost the note of joy, eyes that are

blinded by tears, chill hands and icy heart”. (p. 60)

“If we have enough of them, they will forgive us

everything, even our gigantic intellects”. (p. 142)

“And now tell me, what makes you leave you brilliant

Vienna for our gloomy London”. (p.180)Epithet has remained over the centuries the most widely used stylistic device, which is understandable- it offers the ample opportunities of qualifying every object from the author’s partial and subjective viewpoint, which is indispensable in creative prose, Here we can see masterly touches in rich and vivid epithets. Wilde’s language is plain and understandable, it is wonderful and interesting. Wilde resorts to the use of colourful epithets, which sometimes help him to show the difference between pretence and reality. As we know Wilde was the leader of the “aesthetic movement”. He was brilliant in literature and tried to be brilliant in life. He used abundance of epithets in his speech. In fact, everybody uses epithets in his speech; without them our speech is dry, awfully plain and not interesting.

Wilde’s epithets give a brilliant colour and wonderful witticism to his plays. With the help of epithets Wilde’s heroes are more interesting, their speech is more emotive; they involve the reader in their reality, in their life.

e.g. ”I am not in a mood to-night for silver twilights, or rose-pink dawns.”(p.190)

“Those straw-coloured women have dreadful tempers.”

(p.48)

“Cecily, ever since I first looked upon your wonderful and

incomparable beauty, I have dared to love you wildly,

passionately, devotedly, hopelessly.”(p.319)

As we can see, epithets make the speech more colourful,

vivid and interesting. Wilde uses a great amount of epithets

in his plays. His epithets are based on different sources, such

as nature, art, history, literature, mythology, everyday life, man,

etc.