Life goes faster than Realism, but Romanticism is always in front of Life.
 Oscar Wilde, Intentions (1891). copy citation

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Author Oscar Wilde
Source Intentions
Topic realism life
Date 1891
Language English
Reference
Note
Weblink http://www.gutenberg.org/files/887/887-h/887-h.htm

Context

“It is, to have the pleasure of quoting myself, exactly because Hecuba is nothing to us that her sorrows are so suitable a motive for a tragedy. Besides, it is only the modern that ever becomes old-fashioned. M. Zola sits down to give us a picture of the Second Empire. Who cares for the Second Empire now? It is out of date. Life goes faster than Realism, but Romanticism is always in front of Life. The third doctrine is that Life imitates Art far more than Art imitates Life. This results not merely from Life’s imitative instinct, but from the fact that the self-conscious aim of Life is to find expression, and that Art offers it certain beautiful forms through which it may realise that energy.” source