1.2 The Definition of Adult Characteristics in Language 

    The adult characteristics in language is the features that makes the passage more difficult for children who are lack of knowledge and experience and more suitable for adults. According to Wang, fairy tales use substantial rhyme, visual words and compound sentences (Wang, 2005: 14) to make the passages easier for children to understand. On the contrary , the adult characteristics in fairy tales are the rare features which add the difficulty for readers to understand in them. In this thesis, three main features will be discussed: the low readability, the rhetorical application and the philosophical language. 

1.3 Literature Review

All of Wilde’s fairy tales are written in an erudite, aesthetic voice. As a representative figure of Aestheticism, Oscar Wilde also penetrated his fairy tales with his philosophy. Under the exterior of original fairy or fantasy, Wilde also provided his Aesthetic principles, irony toward the ugly side of society and disclosure of the ugliness of human nature. Therefore, his fairy tales are not only for children and family readers, but also for public audience especially those cognoscenti sympathetic towards his beliefs. Because of the abundant values in his fairy tales, they draw the attention from all over the world since their first publication in 1888. 

1.3.1 Studies Abroad

Before the 20th century, scholars abroad studied Wilde’s plays and short stories a lot, losing sight of his fairy tales. According to Oscar Wilde: An Annotated Bibliography of Criticism, in 1888, after the publishing of The Happy Prince and Other Tales, which is the first collection of fairy tales, there were literary criticism articles on Saturday Review, Athenaeum, Universal Review. In 1891 to 1894, there were more and more criticisms on famous magazines like Pall Mell Gazette, The Speaker, Magazine of Art, Lady’s Pictorial, New Review, Spectator, Liverpool Daily Courier and The Nation. In the first half of the following century, because of Wilde’s death, the researchers focused on Wilde’s biography and his life story, especially his prison life as a result of homosexual deeds. Wide’s friend Robert Robbie Ross compiled his manuscripts, helping future generations to study. However, some memoirs written by Wilde’s lover Lord Alfred Douglas from 1905 to 1940 such as Oscar Wilde and me are controversial. One of the most famous one about his life is The Life of Oscar Wilde, written by Hesketh Pearson in 1946. It is regarded as the most objective and complete biography about Wilde. 

Serious studies on Wilde’s fairy tales began in the 1970s. In 1974, there were two main literary criticism articles of Wilde’s fairy tales. One is David M Monaghan’s ‘The Literary Fairy-Tale: A Study of Oscar Wilde’s “The Happy Prince” and “The Star-Child”’. It is from the perspective of literature, analyzing the content and theme in the two fairy tales. The other is Jerome Griswold’s ‘Sacrifice and Mercy in Wide’s “The Happy Prince”’. It dissects the personalities of the hero, the happy prince, to show the appreciation toward the sparkle of human nature and in contrast, the sarcasm towards the uncaring society. Besides, Virian Wreaka Robinson published his doctoral thesis “Adult Symbolism in the Literary Fairy Tales of the Late Nineteenth Century”. It analyses Wilde’s fairy tales from the aspect of aesthetics thoughts and artistic characteristics.

Ever since the 1980s, there are more and more literary criticism articles about Wilde’s fairy tales，such as “Social Myth Fictional Reality: The Declining of Fairy-Tale in the Victorian Novel” written by Albert Waller Basting in 1988. Relating with the Victorian environment and the decline of fairy tales, it reveals the social factors that influence Wilde’s fairy tales. “Jesus as a Model for Selfhood in The happy Prince and Other Tales”, written by Guy Willoughby in 1993, focuses on his most famous fairy tale “The Happy Prince” and analyzes it from the religious point of view. “On the Loom of Sorrow: Eros and Logos in Oscar Wilde’s Fairy Tales”, written by Clifton Sander in 2004, shows the hidden love and logic in Wilde’s fairy tales. These articles show the higher level in the critical essays in their periods. Studying further, people become more and more aware of its literary values. In 2006, Ann Shillinglaw wrote her doctoral thesis named “Telling Beautiful Untrue Things: The Fairy Tales of Oscar Wilde” from different angles. She discusses about his Aesthetic arguments, images and themes, the suffering fairy tale heroes, his anti-fairy impulse, the race, class and gender in the fairy tales. In 2011, Justin T. Jones published an article called “Morality’s Ugly Implications in Oscar Wilde’s fairy tales”, discussing about the moral hypocrisy in his fairy tales. With time going, the study of Wilde’s fairy tales are of more and more persification. 王尔德童话中语言的成人特征(3):http://www.chuibin.com/yingyu/lunwen_206583.html