OSCAR WILDE

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became a social event and his remarks appeared in the most fashionable London magazines. In the late 1880s Wilde's literary talent was revealed by a series of short stories written for his children: The Canterville Ghost, The Happy Prince and Other Tales and his only novel The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891). After this novel, he developed an interest in drama and revived the comedy of manners. In the late 1890s he produced a series of plays which were successful on the London stage: A Woman of No Importance, An Ideal Husband, and his masterpiece The Importance of Being Earnest. However, both the novel and Salomé (a tragedy written in French) damaged the writer's reputation because the former was considered immoral and obscene. Oscar Wilde's years of glory ended dramatically when, in 1891, was accused of homosexuality because of his intimate association with the young poet Lord Alfred Douglas, known as 'Bosie'. He went two years in prison (homosexuality was illegal in Britain) and, while there, he wrote De Profundis, a long letter to Bosie which was published posthumously in 1905. When he was out of prison, he was a broken man: his wife refused to see him and wanted to divorce and Wilde went into exile in France, where he was helped by some friends and lived in poverty. The Ballad of Reading Gaol, published under his prison identity 'C.3.3', was his last published work before he died of meningitis in 1900 in a hotel in Paris. The rebel and the dandy Wilde adopted the 'aesthetic ideal', as he affirmed in one of his famous conversations: 'My life is like a work of art'. He lived the double role of rebel and dandy. Wilde's dandy is an aristocrat whose elegance is a symbol of the superiority of his spirit; he demands absolute freedom. Since life was meant for pleasure, and pleasure was an indulgence in the beautiful, Wilde's interest in beauty (clothes, words..) had no moral stance. In the 'Preface' to his novel he affirmed: 'There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all'. In this way he rejected the didacticism that characterised the Victorian Age because, according to him, art doesn't have a didactic aim, there is no morals in the art production. Art for Art's Sake The concept of 'Art for Art's Sake' was not merely an aesthetic one. Wilde believe that only art as the cult of beauty could prevent the murder of the soul. He saw the artist as an alien in a materialistic world. He wrote only to please himself and wasn't concerned about communicating his theories to his fellow-beings. His pursuit of beauty was the tragic act of a superior being rejected as an outcast. Wilde's famous quotes: O O O O O O Art is the most intense form of individualism that the world has known. To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all. There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about Nothing that is worth knowing can be taught. Vulgarity is simple the conduct of other people. Experience is simply the name we give our mistakes. THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY Plot and setting: the novel is set in London the end of the 19th century. The protagonist is Dorian Gray, a young man whose beauty fascinates a painter: Basil Hallward, who decides to paint his portrait. Under the influence of Lord Henry Wotton, Dorian throws himself into a life of pleasure. All his desires are satisfied, including that of the eternal youth, but the signs of age appear not on Dorian but on the portrait. Dorian makes use of everybody, even letting people die because of his insensitivity. When the painter sees the corrupted image of the portrait, Dorian kills him. Later Dorian wants to free himself of the portrait and stabs it but, in doing so, he kills himself. In the very moment of Dorian's death, the picture returns to its original purity, and Dorian's face becomes withered. Characters: all the characters reveal themselves through what they say or what other people say about them (technique typical of drama). Dorian Grey represents the ideal of youth, beauty and innocence. He is first introduced by what the painter says, thus raising the reader's expectations. When he first appears, he is immature, but the reader is made aware of his purity and innocence. Dorian is influenced by Lord Henry, who teaches him to look for a life of pleasure and sensations. In the end his vanity ruin him, and the portrait provides a visual representation of the degradation of his soul. Lord Henry Wotton is an intellectual, a brilliant talker, considered sacred by his contemporaries. He is able to influence Dorian and as the story goes on, Dorian's speech seems to mimic Lord Henry's style. Basil Hallward is an intellectual who falls in love with Dorian's beauty and innocence. He doesn't want to exhibit the picture, even if it's his best work, because he's afraid that it reflects the strange attraction he feels for Dorian. He is killed by Dorian because his painting is considered responsible for the young man's tortured existence. Basil becomes a sad example of how a good artist can be destroyed in a sacrifice for art. Narrative technique: the story is told by an unobtrusive third-person narrator. The perspective adopted is internal, since Dorian appears in the second chapter, and this allows a process of identification between the reader and the character. The settings are vividly described with words appealing to the senses. Allegorical meaning: it is the 19th century version of the legend of Faust, a man who sells his soul to the devil in order to have a happy moment in his life. In the novel this soul is the painting. The picture represents the dark side of Dorian's personality, his double. The moral of this novel is that every excess must be punished and there is no escape from reality. When Dorian destroys the picture, he cannot avoid the punishment for all his sins, that is death. The corrupted picture could be seen as a symbol of the immorality of the Victorian middle class, while Dorian is the symbol of bourgeois hypocrisy. The picture restored to its original beauty illustrates Wilde's theory of art: art is eternal. THE PREFACE The Preface, first published as an essay in a literary magazine, appeared in the 1891 final edition of the novel. It consists of a series of aphorisms, epigrammatic sentences, considered the basic principles of Aesthetic in England. Since it is a preface, it expresses the author's intentions and gives guidelines to the reader. This first part of the novel can be considered as the manifesto of the English Aesthetic Movement because it expresses Wilde's idea of art: art doesn't have a didactic aim, but it is just for pleasure (critic to the Victorian Age). The artist, according to Wilde, is nothing more than the figure that creates beauty through techniques, thoughts and language. He's the creator of beautiful things and he's not interested in communicating his own ideas because he writes only to please himself. Oscar Wilde concludes the preface by saying that art is quite useless. O Repetitions: most relevant stylistic element used to emphasise the writer's theme The language is epigrammatic, abstract and witty The personal pronoun 'we' gives a universal value to the sentence (1.35) He praises beauty and art's service has moral purpose: it is fine to create something beautiful, as long as it isn't admired as art O O O THE PAINTER'S STUDIO This is an extract from the first pages of the novel. Two characters are portrayed: Basil Hallward, the painter, and his friend Lord Henry Wotton. They are talking about the portrait of a handsome man and the fact that the author doesn't want to exhibit it. The window is the connected element between the room and the outside Phrases linked to the 5 senses Sensual and decadent atmosphere Paradoxes made by Lord Henry O O O O O Third person narrator who is an obtrusive since he never intervenes and never addresses to the rider directly O O Basil Hallward: is a talented artist (from Lord Henry) and he disappears, but we don't know where (from the author) O Dorian Grey: before he appears, we know that he's beautiful and Lord Henry says that this beauty can be only without intelligence, so quite naïve Elements of aestheticism: O O Lord Henry: is languid and smokes opium (we learn it from the narrator), cynical (from Basil) and thinks that beauty is shallow (from himself) O O Desc of Basil's studio Dorian Grey Aesthetic isolation of the artist 'Art for art's sake' → According to Wilde the importance is in the beauty of art, not in its meaning. → John Keats is the precursor of the aesthetic movement: he exalted beauty, which can be physical (death, enjoyment, life) and spiritual (eternity). An artist, according to him, can die, but his works are forever. Keats thought that beauty and thoughts are the only things that allow us to know.