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Sharon Ruston
In the decadent world of Oscar Wildes The Picture of Dorian Gray,
Lord Henry smokes opium-tainted cigarettes a fitting detail for a
character whose intoxicating amorality seduces Dorian. Lord
Henry proved to be the most dangerous influence upon the
innocent and nave Dorian Gray and after the murder of Basil
Hallward, it is the memory of Henrys advice that persuades Gray
to seek solace in an opium den where he attempts to buy
oblivion. Gray becomes increasingly desperate to reach this
oblivion as the hideous hunger for opium began to gnaw at him,
and despite the horror of the opium den The twisted limbs, the
gaping mouths, the staring lustreless eyes he envies those who
are experiencing such new, strange heavens (ch. 16).
http://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/representationsof-drugs-in-19th-century-literature
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http://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/the-picture-ofdorian-gray-art-ethics-and-the-artist
By1891,whenhepublishedhisPictureofDorianGray,>OscarWilde
couldprojectaworldinwhichintegrationisimpossibleandwhereallof
life's paths lead to selfdestruction. As in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,
hypocritical bourgeois culture is beastly dangerous, but so is every
alternativetoit.IfStevenson'ssocietyexhibitsfragmentedselves,Wilde's
revealsafracturedplacewhereeveryoneisdoomedtountimelydeath.
Appropriately, this world of Dorian Gray is described as monstrous
throughout. Cynical and manipulative Lord Henry sees law and the
temptationsitsrepressivenessfostersas"monstrous,"(Wilde,26)while
Dorian perceives his own delight in the altering portrait of him as
"monstrous" (143) and later considers people smitten with "vice and
blood and weariness" as "monstrous," too (161). And artist Basil
Hallward,painteroftheinfamouspictureofDorianGray,feelsthesecret
ofhissoulliesinthatbeautifulportraitbutseesintheendthatitindeed
"hastheeyesofadevil"(174).
Farfrombeingarefugefrombrutalreality,then,thesphereofan
inthisbookisalsodeadlydangerous. Hallwardiscruellymurderedby
Dorian after he uncovers the secret of theportrait thatDorian has so
carefully hidden away (as Jekyll does Hyde). The living Dorian, still
looking so like the beautiful, untainted picture that Hallward loves,
[122/123] has gone rotten at the core. In worshipping and depicting
Dorian's beauty, Hallward has helped create the monster of his own
destruction.Heisanothersuicide,killedbyhisownmisjudgment.Andso
isactressSibylVane. Livinginatheatricalworldofmakebelieveand
melodrama,SibylcannotaccepttherealityofDorian'srejection.When
shedecidestogiveupactingforhislove,sheisshockedatDorian's
callous, "withoutartyouarenothing"(100), followedbyhisdesertion.
Steeped in theatrics, Sibyl commits suicide like Ophelia, not like the
JulietshesohopedshemightplaytoDorian'sRomeo.YetSibylisnota
heroineofmelodrama,forheroinesofmelodramatriumphintheend.
Sibyl,avictimofart,diesfromswallowingprussicacid,heronlytribute
being the brief record of her inquest and verdict of "death by
misadventure"(139)whichisrecordedinSt.James's.
Beautiful but deadly Dorian will drive many such admirers to
suicidebeforehedestroyshisportraitandhimself. Ayoungboyofthe
guards;AdrianSingleton;AllenCampbellDorian'svictimsaremany.
ToallofthemDorianmusthaveseemedsomethingotherthanwhathe
was.Yetforalongtimedoublelifeisa"pleasure"toDorian,whoasks,
"isinsinceritysuchaterriblething?Ithinknot.Itismerelyamethodby
whichwecanmultiplyourpersonalities"(158). Onlynearhisenddoes
hedesistfromtoyingwithothers'livesandthenprideshimselfwhenhe
leavesavillagegirlbeforedestroyinghertoo.LordHenryteaseshim
withthequery,"howdoyouknowthatHertyisn'tfloatingatthepresent
momentinsomestarlitmillpond,withlovelywaterliliesroundherlike
Ophelia?"(233).Dorian,whoatlastdiscoversinhimselfthevestigesofa
conscience, resents having any conscience at all, and so projects that
conscienceintothepicture.Whenhetearsatthepaintingwiththevery
knife that had stabbed Basil Hallward, he is determined to "kill this
monstroussoullife"(247).Insteadhetakesonthe"withered,wrinkled,
andloathsome"(240)visageoftheportrait,emblemofhiscorruptedsoul,
andhimselfdies.Dorianisthenowhideousportrait;itishisotherself.
The ending of this novel was problematical for late Victorian
readers.Wilde'soddpreface, whichreadslikeanaesthetic'sversionof
Blake's"ProverbsofHell,"warnsthat"thereisnosuchthingasamoral
oranimmoralbook"(5)andthat"thosewhoreadthesymboldosoat
theirperil"(6).Neverthelessmanydidreadthe symbolandwondered
whether the book were moral or immoral. Did it say that conscience
cannot be denied and that all people who do deny it become self
destroyingmonsters?Andifso,wassuicidethenjustifiableasakindof
selfextermination of evil) Or did it say, as a reviewer for the Daily
Chroniclesurmised,thatsensationisall?
Mr. Wilde says his book has a "moral." The "moral," so far as we can
collect it, is that man's chief end is to develop his nature to the fullest
by "always searching for new sensations," that when the soul gets sick
the way to cure it is to deny the senses nothing, for "nothing," says
one of Mr. Wilde's characters, Lord Henry Worron, "can cure the soul
but the sense, just as nothing can cure the senses but the soul." Man
is half angel and half ape, and Mr. Wilde's book has no real use if it be
not to inculcate the "moral" that when you feel yourself becoming too
angelic you cannot do better than rush out and make a beast of
yourself (DC, 7).
Allthesame,thebogeywasthereforthefrightening.ForDorianwasa
monsterquiteoppositetothebenignElephantMan;hewasbeautifulon
theoutsidebutuglywithin.And"ugliness,"Wilde'snarratortellsus,
"wastheonereality.Thecoarsebrawl,theloathsomeden,thecrude
violenceofdisorderedlife,theveryvilenessofthiefandoutcast,were
morevivid,intheirintenseactualityofimpression,thanallthegracious
shapesofart,thedreamyshadowsofsong"(2o6).LikeTennyson's
fictionalCamelot,Wilde'sportraitoffindesicleEnglandisofaland
reelingbacktothebeasts,butwithnohopeforasecondcomingofa
KingArthurtosaveit.ThefantasyofDorianGray'sportraitisnota
Faustianstoryofaherogivinguplifeforknowledge,butablackfairy
taleinwhichaspoiledboygetshisonewishendlessyouthfulnessand
sensualityandbecomesasuicidebecausehecannothandleits
implications.Wildemayhavedeservedtheharshcriticismofhis
contemporaries,butlikeotherVictoriancreatorsoffictionsandfantasies
aboutmonstrousselveswhowilltodie,hediscernedsomethingdeeply
disturbingabouthisownculture.HisHallward,Dickens'sNell,LeFanu's
Jennings,Stevenson'sDr,Jekyll,andTennyson'sBalanallhad"alittle
shadowthatwentalongwiththem."Thatshadowwasadark,distorted
otherself,"ahideoushunchback,"touseMatthewArnold'sparaphraseof
Dr.Posey,"seatedon[their]shouldersandwhichwasthemainbusiness
of[their]livestohateandoppose."(Arnold,481)Oftenthatsubversive
hunchbackwasbeckoningthemontowarddeath.
Barbara T. Gates, Alumni Distinguished Professor of English, University of
Delaware
http://www.victorianweb.org/books/suicide/06g.html
Oscar Wilde was not a man who lived in fear, but early
reviews of The Picture of Dorian Gray must have given
him pause. The story, telling of a man who never ages while
his portrait turns decrepit, appeared in the July, 1890, issue
of Lippincotts, a Philadelphia magazine with English
distribution. The Daily Chronicle of London called the tale
unclean, poisonous, and heavy with the mephitic
odours of moral and spiritual putrefaction. The St. James
Gazette deemed it nasty and nauseous, and suggested
that the Treasury or the Vigilance Society might wish to
prosecute the author. Most ominous was a short notice in the
Scots Observer stating that although Dorian Gray was a
work of literary quality, it dealt in matters only fitted for the
Criminal Investigation Department or a hearing in camera
and would be of interest mainly to outlawed noblemen and
perverted telegraph-boysan allusion to the recent
Cleveland Street scandal, which had exposed the workings
of a male brothel in London. Within five years, Wilde found
himself convicted of committing acts of gross indecency
with certain male persons.
The furor was unsurprising: no work of mainstream Englishlanguage fiction had come so close to spelling out
homosexual desire. The opening pages leave little doubt that
Basil Hallward, the painter of Dorians portrait, is in love
with his subject. Once Dorian discovers his godlike powers,
he carries out various heinous acts, including murder; but to
the Victorian sensibility his most unspeakable deed would
have been his corruption of a series of young men. (Basil
tells Dorian, There was that wretched boy in the Guards
who committed suicide. You were his great friend. There
unattractive had the philosopher not put the idea in his head.
In this telling, Wildes ultimate humiliation came not on the
day of his arrest, on April 5, 1895, but a few weeks later,
when his library was auctioned off.
McKennas Wilde, by contrast, is a largely sexual being who
reads in order to find a language for his desire and writes in
order to speak that desire aloud. He is hailed as a martyr in
an epic struggle for the freedom of men to love men.
McKenna rejects the idea, set forth in previous biographies,
that Wilde had no gay life until his early thirties, when he
met Robert Ross, a precociously self-aware Canadian teenager, in Oxford. In fact, certain of Wildes youthful poems
drip with homoeroticismAnd he looked on me with
desire / And I know that his name was Loveand his early
friendship with the painter Frank Miles, among others, had a
sexual tinge. Yet McKenna reads too much into meagre
evidence. He is a writer of the almost certainly school, and
he withholds material that belies his thesis. (He does not
mention that Miles was notoriously attracted to very young
girls.) Later chapters rely on the dubious memoirs of
Edmund Trelawny Backhouse, a forger and a fantasist, who
claimed carnal knowledge not only of the principals in the
Wilde case but also of Paul Verlaine and the Dowager
Empress of China. McKenna, by fixating on Wildes sexual
life, arrives at an oddly unflattering portrait. Preying on
young literary fans, paying off rent boys, picking up lads as
young as fifteenWilde is stripped of his charm.
To read Wright and McKenna in succession is like seeing a
picture alter before ones eyes: a bookish fellow becomes a
sex addict. There is, however, no real contradiction;
countless literary lives have veered from monkish labor to
mindless pleasure. Wilde himself first felt this split when he
was studying at Oxford, in the eighteen-seventies. In the
poem Hlas!, published in 1881, he wistfully imagines a
The world spins only forward, Prior Walter says at the end
of Tony Kushners Angels in America, a gay fantasia
that opened in 1991, a century after the publication of
Dorian Gray. Prior goes on to say, We will be citizens.
The time has come. Seeing the Signature Theatre
production of Kushners masterpiece last spring, I thought of
how much had changed in twenty years, never mind a
hundred. When I was in college, aids cast a pall of fear over
gay life, and I struggled to summon the courage to tell my
closest friends who I was. I couldnt have imagined that gay
marriage would become legal in half a dozen states, or that I
would be married myself.
The transformation is almost dreamlike. Yet I doubt that
Wilde would recognize in our world the utopia that he
dreamed aloud in The Soul of Man Under Socialism. A
man who steeped himself in the literature of the ancient
Greeks, who modelled his being on the writing of Balzac
and Stendhal and Pater, who read Dante every day in prison,
might have seen a new kind of hell in the global triumph of
American-style pop culture. Medicine prolongs life and
slows aging, but personal satisfaction is as elusive a
commodity as it was for Dorian Gray. Prejudice wanes,
ignorance grows, the world spins forward and backward.
Few of us would wish for the return of Wildes London, with
its opulent surfaces and savage heart. But Wilde might have
been content to stay there, savoring his joys and sorrows. No
one lives happily ever after.
Alex Ross
http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2011/08/08/110808cr
at_atlarge_ross?currentPage=all
Epicurus
FlaubertandPaterconcernthemselveswith"wholeness"ofbeing;
bothbelievestronglythattheobjectmustbestudiedinitsentirety,orelse
itisnottheobjectthatisbeingconsidered,butafragmentthathasno
meaningfulrelationshipwiththewhole.TousetheexamplethatOscar
WildepaintsinThePictureofDorianGray,theexteriorbeautyofaman
conceals inner moral decrepitude to those who do not contemplate in
earnest.But,studentswhoaretrainedtoobserveseriouslyBasilHallward
inWilde'swork,whotriestoformacompleteportraitofGrayarenot
inclined to admire refinement of the snail because its shell forms a
pleasingpattern.
MuchofthiscomesfromEpicurus,whostatessimplythat"There
existsnothinginadditiontothetotality."Therefore,theidealtrainingfor
achildoradultis"constantactivityofthestudyofnature,"which
brings"calmtolife"byallowingthepupiltoobserveherselfandothers
asawholeunitmadeupofbothexternalitiesandsoul."Calmness"means
beingfreefromdisturbance,andtoexistinsuchastaterequiresthatthe
individual use senseperception to achieve selfsufficiency which is
mostlythecultivationofsoulnecessarytoseeobjectsandpeopleintheir
entirety.Thus,thesoulisgivenhighpriorityasthebody'smostimportant
senseperceptiontool:
There is also the part [of the body] which is much finer and because of
this is more closely in harmony with the rest of the aggregate too. All
of this is revealed by the abilities of the soul, its feelings, its ease of
motion, its thought processes and the things whose removal leads to
our death the soul is most responsible for sense-perception.
Gray'sfailuretodevelophissoulreachesitspinnaclewhenhedestroys
theonlyextensionofhimselfthatexemplifiesgoodsenseperception:the
painting, which alone responds to the body and soul as a whole.
Destroyingit,hedepriveshimselfofhopeforrecoveryofhissoulhe
haseliminatedhislastgrasponsenseperception;thepaintingwasthe
onlywayinwhichhecouldpossiblyhaveregardedhimselfasacomplete
personpossessingsoulinadditiontoface.Thedeadman'sknifepointsto
thehearttraditionallythedwellingofthesoulrevealingthesource
ofhisdestruction,andallthatremainsforotherstoidentifyhimbyall
he has ever been identified by are his rings, the superficial and
misleadingaccoutrementsofthesoul.Aharshend,perhaps,foronewho
doesnottakeaphilosopherseriouslyenough,butitisindicativeofthe
importance that Epicurus held for Aesthetes like Wilde and
illuminatingintheconfoundingworldofDorianGray.
Education
Oscar Wilde was well punished for taking popular Ancient Greek
approachestotheidealeducationtoanextreme.Hisaffectionforyounger
OxfordboysLordAlfredDouglas("Bosie")wasthemostinfamous
wasnotjustsexual.Moreso,itwasarealizationoftheideasfoundin
Plato,particularlyhisSymposium,andEpicurus.PhilippeJuilansuggests
thatthegardenofBasilHallward'shouseinThePictureofDorianGray
isbasedonWilde'sidealizedrecollectionofOxfordUniversity,where
attractive young men were affectionately tutored by older students in
pacificsurroundings. InHallward'sgarden,beautifulDorianmeetsthe
slightlyolderLordHenryWotton,whocultivateshim,andwhobeginsa
chainofdiscoverythatwillteachhimthattheacomelyfacecanhidethe
mosthaggardsoul.
ThefirstbookofPater'sMariustheEpicurean(which,incidentally,
wasaBibletoWildelongbeforehethoughtofDorianGray)isdevoted
toaneducationthatfeedsthesoulbyteachingthestudentideasofsense
perception and wholeness. Marius is most content during a childhood
which allows more time for contemplation than action, and when he
attendsaschoolwhichisdevoted"atoncetostrengthenandpurifya
certainveinofcharacterinhim.Developingtheideal,preexistentthere,
ofareligiousbeauty,"andthe"aesthetic"benefitofbodilyhealth(29).
The world occupied with Flavianwho, like Wilde's Lord Wotton, is
slightly more mature and an intellectual superiorallows Marius true
happinessashecultivateswholenessbyimprovingsimultaneouslyhis
soulandhispowersofperception.
TheAesthetesfollowEpicurusnotonlyabstractlyinthesubjectmatterof
MariusandDorianGray'seducations,butliterallyinthemasterdisciple
relationshipthatPaterandWildeusetoenlightentheirfictionalstudents.
Likemostphilosophers,afamousteacherwhomaintainedthat"Nooneis
eithertooyoungortoooldforthehealthofthesoul,"Epicurushimself
establishedaschoolofphilosophyinabeautifulgardeninwhicholder
mentaughtyoungerasFlavianinstructedhispupil.Muchimitatedin
Epicurus'stimeandafter,thisformatalsoclearlytakesshapeinWilde's
idealizedOxford,inHallward'sgarden,andinMarius'sRomanjuvenile
paradise.
WilliamTerpening
http://www.victorianweb.org/decadence/epicurus.html#sense
gods give they quickly take away (39). Dorian resolves that Youth is the
only thing worth having, and that if it were he who was to be always
young, and the picture that was to grow old he would give everything!
(43). Dorians cry is answered. He remains forever youthful, while his
portrait grows decrepit and old as an expression of his decaying soul. He
sold his consciousness, now embodied in the changing portrait, for the
vanity of youth. Wilde, in this way, characterizes youthful beauty as a
juxtaposition of both good and evil: the gods grant it but only the devil
can maintain it. Youth is a democratic concept, for all individuals to have
and for all time to be dying: Every month as it wanes brings you nearer
to something dreadful (39). The only way to maintain it is to replace the
mind the consciousness for the body. The painting, at first hollow,
becomes filled with Dorians spirit, and Dorian becomes but a beautiful
shell of a man, like a finely brushed canvass, never changing.
After the deal is made, the portrait functions to exhibit (as
artwork is characteristically intended, to exhibit) the subsequent
allegories of the novel: the fall from grace of the once-chimerical, now
stained and ruined Dorian, the doppelganger paradigm of a mans saintlike appearance animated, paralyzed by his dark, sordid spirit manifest,
and finally, the youth entrapment, like Grimms Hans and Gretel, of an
older man (Lord Henry) intent on killing the innocent (Dorian Gray), in
this case, with devilish ideas of immorality and excess.
Nevertheless, Oscar Wilde intended his novel to be much more
than a fable; in his preface, he says that those who go beneath the
surface do so at their peril, daring his reader to take up the challenge.
Beneath the surface, the function of the portrait the picture of Dorian
gray can be seen as highly serious meditation the role of the artist in
society. As a commentary on the obligations of a painter, the
circumstances of the portraits creation can be seen to foreshadow the
circumstances of its destruction. Basil Hallward, at the beginning of the
novel, understands Wildes conception of the artists obligation. Hallward
echoes Wildes assertion in the preface that To reveal art and conceal the
artist is arts aim with his statement that An artist should create
beautiful things, but should put nothing of his own life into them (29).
Aesthetics, to Wilde and Hallward, are intended for the simple enjoyment
of an abstract sense of beauty (29).
However, when Basil Hallward meets Dorian, he violates this
understanding of art. Rather than merely as beautiful (for Wilde tells the
reader that those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are
cultivated), Hallward sees Dorian as a divine embodiment of an entirely
new manner in art, an entirely new mode of style (27). His presence no
longer inspires art, but is art itself. Basil remarks that Some subtle
influence passed from him to me allowing him, for the first time, so see
the wonder I had always looked for and always missed (28). Basil
becomes enchanted utterly dominated by Dorians aesthetic beauty,
which he sees as an artistic apotheosis that he cannot escape. Basil does
not reveal art, but the art Dorian reveals Basil, exposing his soul for
the world to see. I really can't exhibit [the portrait]. I have put too much
of myself into it (20). The portrait, at its birth, thus represents the
obscured line between art and reality, where beauty has an inescapable
influence, constructing the artist rather than the artist constructing the
beauty.
If Dorian is the incarnation of this new mode of style whereby
reality is art and art is morality, then his corruption represents the failure
of this ideal. And the putrefaction of the man in the painting serves to
belie the moral worth that Basil ascribed to this new understanding of
painting that without intending exposes all the artistic idolatry (28) of
beauty.
The portrait therefore functions to represent the first
consequence of Wilde aesthetic philosophy: that art cannot be life. The
novel confuses the boundaries of life and art. Dorian, like a piece of
artwork, never ages, always remaining beautiful and hollow. The portrait,
contrastingly, becomes like life and must suffer from the gyrating,
ostentatious decay of Dorians soul: The picture, changed or unchanged,
would be to him the visible emblem of conscience (106-7). In this way,
very literally, the portrait aids in protagonists tragic confusion of life and
art. The portrait becomes his life and his life becomes superficial artwork.
Lord Henry tells Dorian, I love acting. It is so much more real than life
(95). Dorian heads this message, that art is more real than life. In his
preface, Wilde states that it is the spectator, and not life, that art really
mirror. Sibyl Vane, Dorians first love, understands this dichotomy. When
she finds love, an emotion that burns in her more real than any stage
scene, she realizes that art is but a reflection, (101) kaleidoscopic and
superficial, rather than a reality, and she no longer needs to pretend.
Dorian, on the other hand, is convinced that art and life are but two words
for the same thing, How little you can know of love, if you say it mars
your art! What are you without your art? (102). Wilde believes that the
cardinal sin is using art to live ones life; Dorian relishes in the sensation
of this sin: to him life itself was the first, the greatest, of the arts, and for
it all the other arts seemed to be but a preparation (143).
that spins a tale of a Parisian who spent all his life trying to realizeall
the passions and modes of thought that belonged to every century except
his own (139) whose influence Dorian could not free himself from,
(141) whose story, indeed, alludes to his own life story, of a man trapped
young who can think all the thoughts of the world and experience all the
sensations of the world, except his own. Finally, Dorian is a product,
perhaps most stultifyingly, of the still more poisonous influences that
came from his own temperamentthe mere physical admiration of beauty
that is born of the senses (133). He is a product of his own unquenched
urges for carnal sensation and pleasure. He lives his life a slave to his
appetite: The more he knew, the more he desired to know. He had mad
hungers that grew more ravenous as he fed them (143). The portrait
thus emphasizes that his soul, quite literally, is trapped outside of his
body, subject to external control. Imprisoned by the force of its presence,
its influence, Dorian knew that only through with the portraits death could
Dorians self live once more. By stabbing the painting, he knew he could
stab at the chains that shackled him and [the knife] would kill the past,
and when that was dead, he would be free (234). However, it was too
late to salvage his identity, and he died, as he stabbed the painting,
decrepit and hollow from sin.
Oscar Wilde wrote in the first stanza of his 1881 poem Helas!: To drift
with every passion till my soul / Is a stringed lute on which all winds can
play, / Is it for this that I have given away / Mine ancient wisdom, and
austere control? With his novel, Wilde examined, for the world, this
haunting question. Dorian, tragically, was willing to forgo his ancient
wisdom so that he could drift with the whims of his passions. He was
willing to sacrifice his austere control over his identity on the altar of an
aesthetic art he worshiped, that, like a god force, ultimately enslaved him.
The portrait thus functions as a cautionary tale to a world too willing to
give up itself at the prospect of the beautiful, whatever form that may be:
the morally good, the sinfully bad, the righteous, the wicked to Wilde,
these are not from art external and imaginative, these are from oneself.
Art really is quite useless.
Max Dn
http://theliberalconviction-essay.blogspot.co.uk/2007/01/picture-ofdorian-gray-and-wildes.html
http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674057920