A New Kind of Literary Pulse

The Irish playwright, novelist, essayist an d poet, Oscar Wilde, is considered a spokesman for the late 19th century Aesthetic movement in England. His best known work, The Picture of Dorian Gray, reflects the Aesthetic rallying call: art for art’s sake. Many of his works are designed around the exposure of a secret sin on curiosity and consequent disgrace and decadence.

Percy Bysshe Shelley, whose wife Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein, was one of the major English Romantic poets. He was not famous during his lifetime because of his radical views on poetry, but also because of his fight for social justice. His thoughts about economics and morality and his writings on non violent resistence influenced 20th century thinkers such as Karl Marx, Leo Tolstoy and Mahatma ...  [+]