《星孩》和《西班牙公主的生日》中“美”的对比研究 A Comparative Study of Beauty in “The Star-child” and “The Birthday of the Infanta”开题报告

1. 研究目的与意义（文献综述）

Oscar Wilde is a famous Irish writer and the spokesman of the Aesthetic Movement in the 19th century. When it comes to Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest and The Picture of Dorian Gray, his masterpieces, will come to people’s mind. However, his fairy stories, which insinuate his diverse criticism on and ironies of the society in the Victorian Age, are hardly dug out in academic researches.There are few studies on these two fairy stories abroad. Searching on Google Scholar, we can find 6 dissertations, 38 papers and 3 monographs. These researches cover various perspectives on the two fairy stories, including aestheticism, characters and religion. For instance, the paper The Aesthetic Experiment of Oscar Wilde in A House of Pomegranates mainly concentrates on aestheticism. Another perspective is characters’ analysis in the paper The Role of Male Characters in Oscar Wilde's A House of Pomegranates. Religion is also a perspective that is frequently studied on, as is studied in the article The Building of A House of Pomegranates. Oscar Wilde is a great writer in British literature history, who boosted renaissance of drama and led the Aesthetic Movement. Critics put much attention to his masterpieces nowadays, most of which are plays. But his fairy stories are less appreciated because these works are defined as children’s books.There are abundant researches on two fairy stories respectively in China. Searching on CNKI, we can find 764 dissertations, 832 papers and 12 monographs. These studies center on the two works’ translation, religion, linguistics and feminism. For example, Li Lin’s dissertation of On the Translation of Oscar Wilde’s Fairy centers on the translation of Oscar Wilde’s fairy stories. And there are some studies focusing on religion, like Zhang Xin’s The Religious Consideration in the Star Child. At last, linguistics is a frequently researched perspective, like Liu Enhui’s A Thematic Study on The Birthday of the Infanta. In China, although there are so many kinds of study on the two fairy stories, there is no comparative study on the two works to disclose his writing style and deeper thoughts. In short, a meticulous comparative study is indispensable to unveil Wilde’s writing merits and thoughts.Wilde’s fairy stories totally differ from conventional ones, and even princes and princesses in his stories represent those people in the upper class who are always negative characters, rather than innocent and benevolent heroes and heroines. Actually, Wilde’s fairy stories are not written just for children, but also for adults, which can be ascertained by tragic endings, complex and malicious psychological activities of characters, indications of religious beliefs and thought-provoking themes. Moreover, these themes mainly express his thoughts, and convey his explanation of aestheticism and his criticism on the society in the Victorian Age. Thus, Wilde’s fairy stories are worth meticulous dissecting.The Star-Child and The Birthday of the Infanta have some similarities in characters, images and environment. Especially, the “beauty” plays a crucial role in both of them, which contributes to strengthening the thematic expressions. In addition, the “beauty” is the derivation of Wilde’s aestheticism, which is explicitly demonstrated in these two fairy stories. Therefore, a comparative study of the two works will help to discover Wilde’s writing features, his aesthetic connotations and his meditation on the social changes. Last but not least, Wilde is talented for his highly-skilled ironies, and these fairy stories imply his incisive ideas running counter to the mainstream ideas. In short, a comparative study of The Star-Child and The Birthday of the Infanta is necessary to have a better understanding of Wilde’s writing features and his thoughts.

2. 研究的基本内容与方案

Contents

1. Introduction

1.1. Writers and their works 1.2 Literature review2. Beauty in characters 2.1 Beauty in appearance descriptions 2.2 Beauty in psychological descriptions3. Beauty in images 3.1 Beauty in natural images 3.2 Beauty in abstract images4. Beauty in environment 4.1 Beauty in natural environment 4.2 Beauty in psychological environment5. Conclusion 5.1 Summary 5.2 Limitations and Further StudyReferences Research ObjectivesThe main body consists of three comparative perspectives, and they are characters, images and environment. With the comparative study of above aspects, the paper draws conclusions on Wilde’s writing features of fairy stories, his explanation of aestheticism and his thoughts.Research Methods1. Textual analysis method: read relevant dissertations, journals, monographs and other books for research.2. Comparative analysis method: compare the contexts of these to fairy stories, analyze their similar from literary aspect, and draw the conclusions on Oscar Wilde’s writing features of fairy stories and his deeper thoughts.Research MeansCollect, sort and search books, journals and data from the library and on the internet.

3. 研究计划与安排

Before 20th January : settlement of the titleBefore20th March: submission of the outlineBefore 25th April : submission of the first draftBefore 24th May: revision of the draftBefore 29th May: submission of the final version

4. 参考文献（12篇以上）

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