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    The Soul of Man
    The Soul of Man
    The Soul of Man
    Audiobook2 hours

    The Soul of Man

    Written by Oscar Wilde

    Narrated by LibriVox Community

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    About this audiobook

    “(T)he past is what man should not have been. The present is what man ought not to be. The future is what artists are.”

    Published originally as “The Soul of Man Under Socialism,” this is not so much a work of sober political analysis; rather it can be summed up as a rhapsodic manifesto on behalf of the Individual. Socialism having deployed technology to liberate the whole of humanity from soul-destroying labour, the State obligingly withers away to allow the free development of a joyful, anarchic hedonism...

    “Is this Utopian? A map of the world that does not include Utopia is not worth even glancing at, for it leaves out the one country at which Humanity is always landing.”

    Far from abandoning the epigram in favour of the slogan, Wilde wittily assails several of his favourite targets: the misguided purveyors of philanthropy; life-denying ascetics of various kinds; the army of the half-educated who constitute themselves the enemies of Art - and those venal popular journalists who cater to them...

    “Behind the barricade there may be much that is noble and heroic. But what is there behind the leading-article but prejudice, stupidity, cant, and twaddle?” (Introduction by Martin Geeson)

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherLibriVox
    Release dateAug 25, 2014
    The Soul of Man
    Author

    Oscar Wilde

    Born in Ireland in 1856, Oscar Wilde was a noted essayist, playwright, fairy tale writer and poet, as well as an early leader of the Aesthetic Movement. His plays include: An Ideal Husband, Salome, A Woman of No Importance, and Lady Windermere's Fan. Among his best known stories are The Picture of Dorian Gray and The Canterville Ghost.

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    • 5/5
      Oscar Wilde read upgrades my linguistic capacity & always pleasantly stimulating for the mind. He would love living in US where individualism thrives.
    • 5/5
      Loved it. I will re-read it again. Very Enlightening. Great