Attitude to art in the epistolary writings of O. Wilde

The article analyzes the problem of reflection of the theme of art in general and the writer’s aesthetic system in particular in O. Wilde’s epistolary. The study is focused on the canons of art types proposed by the writer himself: reasoning about literature, publishing, music, history of costume. It is emphasized that the writer’s epistolary is an important documentary biographical source, a special key to understanding the ideological and artistic searches of writers, the spiritual demands of the epoch in which their work developed. The thoughts about art expressed in O. Wilde’s letters fill the gaps of the author’s macrotext, define the boundaries between artistic and documentary texts, indicate his personal participation in the creative process of the era, his role in the creation of outstanding works of English and world literature.