王尔德因推崇“为艺术而艺术”的主张而被看作英国唯美主义的代言人。然而,如果仔细考察他的童话,我们可以在其充满唯美色彩的童话中窥见深刻的伦理道德内涵。实际上,王尔德的童话兼具艺术之美和道德之美,用艺术之美诠释社会伦理内涵。王尔德将现实世界的道德哲理隐藏于唯美的童话故事当中,利用童话世界中直观对照的美与丑、善与恶,传递了儿童能轻易感悟的伦理内涵。他的童话作品所蕴含的丰富伦理价值,不仅给予人们教诲,也给予人们警示。同时,童话中美丑、善恶的伦理判断并没有遵循理性、严密的论证方式,而是用代表善与恶的意象从审美的视角去呈现对社会道德的应然想象、社会道德的实然表现以及对社会道德的适然探求,用艺术的审美体验去提升读者的伦理道德意识。
Oscar Wilde has been widely accepted as the British spokesman of aestheticism, for he identifies with and advocates the aesthetic slogan "Art for art's sake". However, a careful examination of Wilde's fairy tales reveals that there is deep ethical and moral concern in his aesthetic tales. Wilde's fairy tales contain both artistic beauty and ethical beauty. Wilde subtly conveys the ethical philosophy that even the children readers can understand without difficulties through juxtaposition of beauty and ugliness, and good and evil, which manifests the ethical judgment in his aesthetic tales. He attempts to enhance his readers' moral rationality with aesthetic perception by guiding his readers to appreciate beauty and good, and reject ugliness and evil. Wilde does not represent the ethical thinking in his fairy tales in a rational and rigorous way; instead, he represents the ideal social ethics, the unsatisfactory ethic reality and the possible solution to it in terms of aesthetic appreciation, intending to enhance his readers' ethical awareness through aesthetic experience.