Oscar Wilde Oscar Wildes life Oscar was born
Oscar Wilde
Oscar Wilde’s life Oscar was born in Dublin in 1854 and attended the Trinity College and then in Oxford. During this period he was influenced by John Ruskin – who was lecturing in art – and Walter Pater and his ideas of Aestheticism and he began to write. He became the spokesman for the school of ‘Art for Art’s sake’. He was an eccentric dandy and was famous for his wit and aphorisms. In 1882 he gave lectures in America and when he arrived in New York he said “I have nothing to declare but my genius”. In Paris he met Zola, Hugo, Balzac, Mallarmé… In 1882 he married Constance Lloyd and had 2 children and his popularity increased and culminated in 1895, when he published the play The Importance of Being Earnest. However, that year, he was accused of homosexual offence and was arrested and kept for two years at the Reading Jail. When he was released, he was a broken man. He spent the rest of his life in Italy and France and died in poverty in Paris in 1900.
Literary production • 1881 – His first volume of poems • 1891 – Essays and other stories and his most famous novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray • 1892 -5 – His greatest success was achieved through his comedies, like Salomé, An Ideal Husband The importance of being Earnest. • In prison, he wrote The Ballad of Reading Gaol and his prose confession De Profundis, a letter to his lover Alfred Douglas, that he called Bosie.
Wilde and Aestheticism: Art for Art’s sake • Wilde believed in Walter Pater’s theory of Aestheticism. This theory stated that the meaning of life was in beauty and art. • Their motto was Art for Art’s sake. This meant that a work of art is important for humankind per se, exactly because it has no other purpose than its own beauty and perfection; it didn’t have to teach or denounce anything or have other social functions. • It was in contrast with the ideas that dominated the Victorian age, age dominated by rational and scientific thought and utilitarianism.
The Picture of Dorian Gray: the plot • Lord Henry Wotton becomes the mentor for a young and beautiful boy, Dorian Gray. He teaches him how to behave in the rich London and encourages him to fall in love with his own beauty. • His friend Basil Hallward paints Dorian’s portrait and he becomes conscious of his beauty that will fade, while the painting will always be beautiful. He expresses the wish to stay beautiful forever.
• Later, he realises that the portrait begins to absorb the consequences of his terrible actions, while his own real beauty remains untouched. • Dorian begins to frequent theatre and meets an actress, called Sybil Vane, who falls in love with him. When she stops acting to be with him, he cruelly refuses her. • When he looks at his portrait, he notices that his face an expression of cruelty. He goes back to Sybil and finds out that she had killed herself.
• Henry Wotton pushes him to enjoy the different aspects of a life of vice and sensual gratification. Years later, Dorian is completely corrupted and evil, but still looks like when he was young. • He shows the older Basil the changes in the portrait and Basil warns him that he will have to pay for his moral decline. To keep the secret of the portrait, Dorian kills Basil. • Dorian also has to kill other people to keep the secret. • The portrait becomes more and more ugly and Dorian decides to start a new life and destroys the portrait. But in doing so, he kills himself. The portrait goes back to its original aspect, while Dorian becomes an old disgusting man.
From The Picture of Dorian Gray: “I would give my soul for that!” After about a quarter of an hour Hallward stopped painting, looked for a long time at Dorian Gray, and then for a long time at the picture, biting the end of one of his huge brushes and frowning. "It is quite finished, " he cried at last, and stooping down he wrote his name in long vermilion letters on the left-hand corner of the canvas. Lord Henry came over and examined the picture. It was certainly a wonderful work of art, and a wonderful likeness as well. "My dear fellow, I congratulate you most warmly, " he said. "It is the finest portrait of modern times. Mr. Gray, come over and look at yourself. " The lad started, as if awakened from some dream. "Is it really finished? " he murmured, stepping down from the platform. "Quite finished, " said the painter. "And you have sat splendidly to-day. I am awfully obliged to you. " "That is entirely due to me, " broke in Lord Henry. "Isn't it, Mr. Gray? " Dorian made no answer, but passed listlessly in front of his picture and turned towards it. When he saw it he drew back, and his cheeks flushed for a moment with pleasure. A look of joy came into his eyes, as if he had recognized himself for the first time. He stood there motionless and in wonder, dimly conscious that Hallward was speaking to him, but not catching the meaning of his words. The sense of his own beauty came on him like a revelation. He had never felt it before. Basil Hallward's compliments had seemed to him to be merely the charming exaggeration of friendship. He had listened to them, laughed at them, forgotten them. They had not influenced his nature. Then had come Lord Henry Wotton with his strange panegyric on youth, his terrible warning of its brevity. That had stirred him at the time, and now, as he stood gazing at the shadow of his own loveliness, the full reality of the description flashed across him. Yes, there would be a day when his face would be wrinkled and wizen, his eyes dim and colourless, the grace of his figure broken and deformed. The scarlet would pass away from his lips and the gold steal from his hair. The life that was to make his soul would mar his body. He would become dreadful, hideous, and uncouth.
(Part II) As he thought of it, a sharp pang of pain struck through him like a knife and made each delicate fibre of his nature quiver. His eyes deepened into amethyst, and across them came a mist of tears. He felt as if a hand of ice had been laid upon his heart. "Don't you like it? " cried Hallward at last, stung a little by the lad's silence, not understanding what it meant. "Of course he likes it, " said Lord Henry. "Who wouldn't like it? It is one of the greatest things in modern art. I will give you anything you like to ask for it. I must have it. " "It is not my property, Harry. " "Whose property is it? " "Dorian's, of course, " answered the painter. "He is a very lucky fellow. " "How sad it is!" murmured Dorian Gray with his eyes still fixed upon his own portrait. "How sad it is! I shall grow old, and horrible, and dreadful. But this picture will remain always young. It will never be older than this particular day of June. . If it were only the other way! If it were I who was to be always young, and the picture that was to grow old! For that--for that--I would give everything! Yes, there is nothing in the whole world I would not give! I would give my soul for that!"
Summary of the extract • This extract describes the moment in which Basil Hallward finished Dorian’s portrait. • Henry Wotton looked at it, congratulated with him and said that it was one of the most beautiful modern works of art. • Dorian stepped down the platform where he was posing and looked at the portrait. He blushed because he had realised how handsome he was. Then, he started thinking about the moment when he would become old, his face wrinkled and his eyes and hair colourless and tears came to his eyes. • Basil Hallward asked him if there was something wrong with the painting. Henry Wotton answered of course not and said he would pay anything to have it, but Basil answered that the painting was Dorian’s property. • Looking at the portrait, Dorian said «How sad it is» , because he would get old, while the picture would stay beautiful forever. He added he would give everything to stay beautiful while the portrait becomes old, even give his soul. In fact, this is what will happen.
Aestheticism in The Preface to The Picture of Dorian Gray • The Preface to The Picture of Dorian Gray is considered the manifesto of the Aesthetic movement and expresses Wilde’s idea of art. • It contains many reflections on art, such as: 1) The artist is creator of beautiful things. 2) There is no moral or immoral book. Books can only be well written or badly written. 3) The Artist has no ethical sympathies. 4) An artist can express everything 5) Vices or virtues are material for art 6) Diversity of opinion about a work of art demonstrates that it is new, complex and vital.
Aestheticism in The Picture of Dorian Gray • The importance of art and beauty is central in the novel because Dorian is an example of hedonism ( pleasure is the most important thing in life) because he devotes his life to the pleasure of the senses, without morality. • Dorian is similar to Faust (in Marlowe’s Dr. Faustus, the protagonist sells his soul to the Devil because he wants complete knowledge) because he sells his soul to maintain his youth and beauty. The split between appearance and reality becomes the centre of the novel. • The novel is a metaphor of the consequence of narcissism and the fact that we are all responsible for our actions. • It shows that art can make our life better, but not substitute it.
• Many dialogues in the novel express some ideas of Aestheticism, for example: 1) Basil and Wotton start the novel with a debate about beauty and appearance, which have become the ultimate values. 2) To seduce Dorian into his world, lord Henry gives him a YELLOW BOOK, probably a copy of Huysmans’s “À rebours”, a central text for Aestheticism in which the protagonist surrounds himself of precious objects, sounds and perfumes. 3) Henry says that “beauty cannot be questioned […], it is one of the great facts of the world and […] has the right of sovereignty. • Dorian considers his fascination for evil as a part of his life of pleasure. He rejects the utilitarian values of industrialised society through the cult of art and in this, he represents Wilde’s thought.
The figure of the DANDY • Oscar Wilde was a dandy, a typical artist and writer of the late 19 th century. He took the principles of Aestheticism and brought them to the extremes. He became famous for his way of dressing, his witty conversation and his life of vice and pleasure, which made him very popular. • Dandies had an aristocratic image, extravagant elegant clothes, they used refined language and lived a life of leisure. These elegant clothes and their lifestyle were the symbol of their intellectual superiority The most important thing was to stand out from the crowd and to make their lives a work of art. • For the dandies, aestheticism was a life style, a philosophy, almost a religion, and they considered the middle class inferior because they were unimaginative and pragmatic. • Charles Baudelaire was a French dandy writer. He said that dandies «cultivate the idea of beauty» and «satisfy their passions» . • They were similar to Romantic artists because they refused the rules of uniformity given by industrial society Moreover, Oscar Wilde wanted to reveal the hypocrisy of Victorian Society (see Victorian compromise).
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