Christa Giles

they see the sun. I have sapphires big like
eggs, and as blue as blue flowers. The sea
wanders within them and the moon comes
never to trouble the blue of their waves. I
have chrysolites and beryls and chrysoprases
and rubies. I have sardonyx and hyacinth
stones, and stones of chalcedony… 316
115
Wilde’s description of the gems is almost extraneous to the
linear movement of the play, engendering only a sense of
exoticism and stasis. This focus on detail and elaboration of
detail is highly self-conscious, its function purely
ornamental and superfluous. But, as in the case of
dandyism, the decadent finds that the wrought verbal
surface, like the cosmetic, is valuable in itself as well as
deeply symbolic. Indeed colour and gems function to create
a kind of symbolic network as, for example, in the dream
passage in the first chapter of En rade:
Partout grimpaient des pampres découpés
dans d’uniques pierres; partout flambait un
brasier d’incombustibles ceps, un brasier
qu’alimentaient les tisons minéraux des
feuilles taillées dans les lueurs différentes du
vert, dans les lueurs vert-lumière de
l’émeraude, prasines du péridot, glauques de
l’aiguemarine, jaunâtres du zircon,
céruléennes du béryl; partout, du haut en bas,