I think he would have written more novels - not just one -  HAD HE BEEN alive now, because today’s people could support his works more than the end of XIX Century's society could do.

Nowadays, young adults love those who come up with new ideas that stand out from the crowd: teenagers admire people who want to buck the trend. 
As everyone knows, Oscar Wilde was a dandy, his eccentricity would have inspired many of us.

Moreover, HAD WILDE BEEN ALIVE NOWADAYS, he would have influenced our lives from the point of view of the physical appearance. I am thinking about something that has become fundamental for us: fashion. He would have posted thousands pictures of himself in extravagant clothes. He would not have used Instagram only,  but also other social media, for example Twitter. This platform is vital for those who express themselves  with words. He would have written lots of thought-provoking tweets about Art and its meaning. He would have favoured Synaesthesia to communicate in an effective way with his followers. Maybe one of his Instagram caption would might have been: “There are perfumes fresh like the skin of infants” (verse 9, “Correspondances”, Baudelaire).

Even though two hundred years have passed, Beauty is still a current issue: Wilde would have written “The Picture of Dorian Gray” if he had been alive nowadays anyway.
In 2019, the authour would have felt even more the connection between painter and painting because nowadays lots of artist “listen” to their feelings and transfer them on a canvas exactly how Basil did: “I really can’t exhibit it. I have put too much of myself in it” (lines 39-40 from the excerpt “Basil’s studio”).

Finally, I can state that Wilde is a modern author because he would have succeeded in the XXI century too.

                               Silvia S. 5AL

BUT if Oscar Wilde had lived nowadays, he would…

Firstly, he would certainly HAVE BEEN a street-artist. 

I am convinced that HAD HE BEEN ALIVE NOWADAYS, Wilde would HAVE BEEN a street-artist because of his personality. We know that he liked to dress in an extravagant way. In fact, he liked to be “unique”, to be recognisable by everyone. Moreover, he liked to be different from the others, just like some street-artists nowadays, who often dress in an extravagant way to be more visible by passers-by and to attract more people to see what they do.

Secondly, he would HAVE BEEN like the protagonist of his novel: Dorian Gray.

Dorian Gray is an eccentric person who becomes obsessed with his appearance after discovering to be extremely beautiful. More specifically, it is a “revelation” that comes from a speech made by Lord Henry Wotton, a friend of his. This speech can be read in the extract “I would give my soul”. In fact, the first part of the text is a long speech that Wotton gives to try to explain to Mr. Gray how beautiful he is and that he doesn’t have to waste the short time of his youth. He says that “you have only a few years in which to live really, perfectly, and fully. When your youth goes, your beauty will go with it”. We can also notice that he is explaining the theme of the “carpe diem”, that means, to live fully without worrying about anything. As I mentioned in the introduction, this is also one of the main ideas of the Aesthetic Movement.

Moreover, HAD HE BEEN ALIVE, Wilde would have also beeen an “antisocial person”.

I would define him as an “antisocial person” because of his strange attitude towards the world. On one hand, I imagine him as a silent person, who always sees everything but who doesn’t intervene in any conversation; on the other hand, I imagine a person that, as soon as he gets home, takes inspiration from what he had seen during the day to write down novels. So, in simple words, I imagine him as a snobbish v.i.p. who doesn’t care about his fans and who pretends that they don’t exist when they ask him to take a selfie with them.

In conclusion...

This is how I would imagine Oscar Wilde if he had lived nowadays. I am convinced that his personality would HAVE BEEN highly influenced by his novels and that he would HAVE PROVED a very interesting, but somehow creepy person.

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If Oscar Wilde had lived nowadays, he would have probably been that kind of figure, who manages to influence other people’s ideas because of his strong values, which do not always coincide with the moral of his time. In my opinion, as far as Wilde is concerned, nowadays he would have probably been a famous photographer, because of his attention to details, which can be noticed also in the descriptions that he uses in his first and only novel, “The Picture of Dorian Grey”. 

“The Picture of Dorian Grey” is an extremly intriguing novel, because it helps the readers to understand what were the ideas related to Beauty and individuals behind Wilde’s works. Wilde shared the aesthetic idea of “Art for Art’s sake”, and he considered the Artist as the only one who had the capability of feeling sensations, but he also used his art to denounce the corruption, the bad conscience and the immorality of the Victorian middle class, showing that Art is, in fact, the only thing that survives in the end. 

From my point of view, Wilde’s ideas about Art and society - such as “nowadays people know the price of everything and the value of nothing” ('The Picture of Dorian Grey') - can be considered very actual issues, which could be perfectly handeld by an eclectic personality such as Wilde’s one also in the current reality and with other forms of Art, such as photography, which can be perfectly used to describe and denounce certain aspects of modern society. 

Moreover he would not have left the society change his personality even though his choices could be considered immoral. In my opinion he would have lived a life full of parties, pleasures and excesses without regrets. He would have been a courageous man without the fear of saying what he thought. He would have had all the social networks with which he would have worked in order to spread his own message of freedom and happiness. With his photos, he would have shared the importance of Beauty represented by painting, sculpture and poetry, which are simply different forms of the same truth. 

He would have persuaded a lot of people, with his charming speeches, to follow him and his new way of seeing things. The secret of his success would have been his own beauty because as he said in his book NOVEL “The Picture of Dorian Gray ”Beauty is a form of genius - IT is higher, indeed, than genius, as it needs no explanation (...) it cannot be questioned".

In addition TO THAT, he would have lived every single moment of his life in the best possible way because “What the gods give they quickly take away”, and we have only a few years in which to live really, perfectly and fully. We have to realise  FULFIL our youth while we have it in order to draw the best from it.

In conclusion, HAD OSCAR WILDE BEEN ALIVE NOWADAYS, he would have been the perfect man who nowadays  has success in the world of Social Networks. 

Secondly, the Bohémien, focused on the idea of Beauty, which is the same like we perceive today. In “the Picture of Dorian Gray” the writer describes flowers in order to evocate sensations; in the first chapter you can find: ”the studio was filled with the rich odor of roses”. Put differently, Wilde celebrated every kind of sensation, filling each passing movement with intense experience. (In any case, the moral idea of the 21^st century is the same.)

Furthermore, during his life he reflected on the idea of popularity and one of his most famous mottoes WAS ”Every effect that one produces gives one an enemy. To be popular one must be a mediocrity”. In fact, this vision is in keeping with our society: many politicians, singers, you tubers  considered popular are truly undistinguished. Had Wilde been alive nowadays, he would have been a different one: he despised ignorance, that WHICH FOR ARISTOCRATIC PEOPLE WAS “like a delicate exotic fruit; touch it and the bloom is gone”.
Finally, he did not accept the strict Victorian moral code, since he was subversive and extremely different.
IN CONCLUSION, I WOULD STATE THAT THERE IS BASICALLY (At this point you can find) a great difference: nowadays people think they are free, whereas we are all the same. We live in the illusion to be free, but we are always influenced by the others.

By comparison, Oscar Wilde was unique and he knew it.

Nowadays, Oscar Wilde would surely have been an artist like in the past and a very well-known person thanks to his skill in speaking.

Moreover, he had an extravagant way of dressing and he influenced other people among which many women, who started wearing lilies like him, and also many men wore them in the buttonholes of their coats. Today he would surely have been an “influencer”.

In addiction addition, he had two children with Constance Lloyd but he soon became tired of his marriage and he had a homosexual affair. Despite this, Oscar Wilde in the present where the discussion on gay marriages is very heated, would not have been on the side of gays: This is caused by his disappointment with his previous relationships. Indeed, he regretted his homosexual relations by blaming his father for not allowing him to convert to catholicism. 

Furthermore, he would have been a man who would not have given up fun and passions as it can be seen from this quote of his: “ Follies are the only things we never regret.” Even though he had been cruelly criticized for his life of excesses, just like even today many ones are trough through social networks, he would not have been discouraged and he would have always fought for his ideals. 

To conclude, Oscar Wilde had innovative toughts thoughts: he was convinced that Beauty was the only pursuit which was worth for man Human Beings and so He lived a life marked by the search of Art, pleasure and perfection, which are the same values that we can find today in a society also based on appearance and aesthetic values.

 Firstly, he would have been such an inspiration for teenagers, who see our nowadays celebrities like gods. I think he would have had more followers than Chiara Ferragni, because it is not so usual to be a stylish man and an influencer at the same time. In my view, he would have done such interesting and captivating IGTV, because he would have spoken about his thoughts, about some modern issues like violence against women, climate change or immigrants. 

Secondly, he would have made a TV series inspired by his best seller: ‘’ The Picture Of Dorian Gray’’. I truly believe that it would have been a great success and as a result of that, he would certainly have had a sequel. 

Personally, I think he would also have been an actor of in a film inspired by his novels or in a documentary on his life, that which I find so fascinating and inspiring. This documentary would have been put on Netflix and it would’ve had more success than the one about the life of Travis Scott.

In conclusion, I strongly believe that the extracts that we have read could have been perfect for a film, because of the detailed way of Oscar Wilde made use in describing the setting and the characters. In addition, I think that the peculiar behave behaviour of the characters could have been so thought-provoking in a TV series or in a film. 

This phrase taken from the Picture of Dorian Gray is actually able to paint today’s society even if the novel was written in the late nineteenth century. Consumerism forms the basis of nowadays: it allows us to buy new products even if useless and then to get rid of them so to buy new ones. It’s a continuous loop that never sees an ending. That’s what happens with fashion: it changes so quickly without noticing it and, as Oscar Wilde writes, consumers don’t perceive the value of what they have and buy even if they know the price. Nowadays, this situation is powered by the significant role played by the technology. It has pros and cons: it simplifies our life from on hand providing new tools and facilities; however, from the other, it is really harmful because we are more vulnerable and tend to compare our life with other people’s. Considering the fact that we all are registered into the world of social networks, it’s a widespread phenomenon we cannot neglect. In this panorama, beauty is an essential element in which everyone aspires to. Furthermore, Wilde wasn’t simply a great writer, he was also a fashion icon for everyone. Indeed, if we pay attention to the paintings in which he has been portrayed, we see that he is always elegant: he usually wears sophisticated clothes made of silk and velvet. At a later time, his state-of-the-art style inspired some designers who organized fashion shows in the footsteps of the dandy from Ireland.

If the poet had lived nowadays, he would have certainly been influenced by the aspects mentioned before such as social media and technology that lead us to prefer what takes less time and what is more immediate to long descriptions and heavy texts full of adjectives. From the point of view of the style of the poet of that period, accurate words and adjectives are favoured: they make the reader imagine the detailed scene. Moreover, referring to the senses, synesthesias are used in order to ornate his piece of art (as we can see in “Basil’s studio” , the extract from the picture of Dorian Gray read, in class ). In contrast, he would have probably changed his way of communicating and made it simple but he would have certainly been a point of reference for the others as he was during his lifetime.