Skip to main content

"With the enthusiastic egotism of a true artist, he went over his most celebrated performances." Explain this quotation with reference to Chapter...

This quote appears in Chapter Two of "The Canterville Ghost," after the ghost has attempted to frighten the Otis family for the first time by rattling his chains along the corridor. The response to this act, however, is less than encouraging: instead of being scared, Mr Otis offers the ghost some Tammany Rising Sun Lubricator to oil his chains so that they make less noise. The ghost is dumbfounded by this response:



Never, in a brilliant and uninterrupted career of three hundred years, had he been so grossly insulted.



The ghost, therefore, is seeking a solution to overcome the scepticism of the Otis family. As he ponders this conundrum, he reflects on his past achievements. He is proud of his career thus far ("his most celebrated performances") and finds comfort in these memories. This is symbolic of the culture clash which exists between the two men: the ghost represents the traditional and sentimental British aristocracy while Mr Otis stands for the modern and rational American New World.


Furthermore, by referring to the ghost as a "true artist," Wilde makes an important reference to aestheticism, a nineteenth-century movement which emphasised "art for art's sake." In Wilde's eyes, the ghost is a "true artist" because he focuses only on the perfection of his performance, not about the moral consequences of scaring people who live in the house. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Is there a word/phrase for "unperformant"?

As a software engineer, I need to sometimes describe a piece of code as something that lacks performance or was not written with performance in mind. Example: This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. Based on my Google searches, this isn't a real word. What is the correct way to describe this? EDIT My usage of "performance" here is in regard to speed and efficiency. For example, the better the performance of code the faster the application runs. My question and example target the negative definition, which is in reference to preventing inefficient coding practices. Answer This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. In my opinion, reads more easily as: This coding style leads to unmaintainable and poorly performing code. The key to well-written documentation and reports lies in ease of understanding. Adding poorly understood words such as performant decreases that ease. In addressing the use of such a poorly ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Is 'efficate' a word in English?

I routinely hear the word "efficate" being used. For example, "The most powerful way to efficate a change in the system is to participate." I do not find entries for this word in common English dictionaries, but I do not have an unabridged dictionary. I have checked the OED (I'm not sure if it is considered unabridged), and it has no entry for "efficate". It does have an entry for "efficiate", which is used in the same way. Wordnik has an entry for "efficate" with over 1800 hits, thus providing some evidence for the frequency of use. I personally like the word and find the meaning very clear and obvious when others use it. If it's not currently an "officially documented" word, perhaps its continued use will result in it being better documented.
Post a Comment
Read more