The article analyzes two critical essays by Oscar Wilde, “The Critic as Artist” and “The Decay of Lying”, included in his collection “Concepts”, published in 1891, during the period of the most active creative work of the author. Both of these texts are written in the genre of a philosophical dialogue and represent the quintessence of Oscar Wilde's aesthetic research and the manifestation of his aesthetic worldview, which asserts the primacy of form over content and denies automatism in judgments, their deliberate seriousness. An attempt is made to clarify the features of the interpretation of the classical philosophical genre by the English writer in these essays, taking into account the specifics of their composition and plot. The author of the article comes to the conclusion that the classical philosophical dialogue in Wilde's performance, under the influence of his aesthetic worldview, ironic estrangement from the “seriousness” of reasoning and the gravitation towards dramatization of a work of art regardless of its type and genre, turns into an aesthetic dialogue, the author's genre construction, combining elements of a dramatic and essayistic work. The author believes that it is the aesthetic dialogue that largely forms Wilde's poetics and has a great influence on his artistic works, including the novel “The Picture of Dorian Gray” and fairy tales.
For citation: Plastinin P.D. Specificity of the dialogue genre in Oscar Wilde’s works, Ivanovo State University Bulletin, Series: Humanities, 2026, iss. 2, pp. 29—34.