It’s hardly surprising the line has become one of Wilde’s most frequently cited: it embodies the spirit of Aestheticism, art for art’s sake, the worship of beautiful things that serve no practical purpose, in a memorable and quotable quip.īut we would do well to pay attention to its original context and meaning: namely, that all men are base and immoral, but some men are more cultured souls who are able to appreciate beauty when they see it.
In this analysis of the Lord Darlington quotation, he is saying that human beings may have nothing, but ‘some of us are looking at the stars’: in other words, some of us have the ability to appreciate the beauty, even from our rather wretched and low (literally low) position. And ‘in the gutter’ is usually glossed as a reference to the luckless and downtrodden state of humankind. This is of interest because Wilde’s line is frequently interpreted as being a reference to ‘we’ in the broadest sense: that is, all of humankind, men and women. Observe that he is talking specifically about men and their moral qualities (or rather, lack thereof) when it comes to the treatment of the women in their life: a key theme for Lady Windermere’s Fan. Note that the line in question is often slightly misinterpreted: Lord Darlington says ‘we are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars’ in response to Dumby’s line, ‘I don’t think we are bad.’ We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars? Upon my word, you are very romantic to-night, Darlington.
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