Crosscut Voices and Broken Ideals in “The Happy Prince” by Oscar Wilde

Abstract

This article attempts to demonstrate the subversive qualities of “The Happy Prince,” by Oscar Wilde. The “minor voices” herein are Platonic and Neo-Platonic echoes, difficult to identify at a first reading. These echoes are studied in their dialectical relationship and also against several major voices of the Victorian era such as Pater, Ruskin, Arnold as well as Dickens, Disraeli and Andersen. Wilde seems to revisit the Victorian cultural conflict between Hellene and Hebrew to offer crossbreeding and hybridization as a way out. By so doing, his story fosters rebellion, lampoons God and discredits the Cartesian notion of a unified self, thus foreboding the era of “fragments stored against ruins” announced by Eliot. With “The Happy Prince,” as later with his drama, Wilde seems to convey meaning through a creative use of various voices favouring the discrete or indiscernible minor voices rather than the blatant major ones.