Notes on Oscar Wilde's

[Wilde, Oscar (2001) The Picture of Dorian Gray, Wordsworth Classics]

Introduction and Notes by John M. L. Drew, University of Buckingham

INTRODUCTION

p. V

devils bargain

p. VI

the novels superb ironies and complexities

given him an insight into the tensions and contradictions of good society: perhaps also
prompting his lasting artistic interest in the themes of mysterious birth and the ruin of
reputations

leader of Oxfords young Aesthetes

p. VIII

Wilde treated himself to a memorable five-month residence in Paris, during which he met and
conversed with leading exponents of the Decadent and Impressionist movements, such as
Edmond de Goncourt, Verlaine, Maurice Rolliant, Degas and the Pissarros. Their anti-
naturalism and ingenious interconnecting of art with perverse desires fascinated him,
but as yet he had not hit upon a suitable form in which he could explore his fascination.

Wildes experience of living a double or multiple life

p. X

Reviewers were insulting the author:

Beauty of the Body and the corruption of the Soul

Calling the novel corrupt, but not dangerous due to the fact that the contents of it are silly

revelations only of the singularly unpleasant minds from which they emerge

On 30 June, the Daily Chronicle the novel was introduced as:

a tale spawned from the leprous literature of the French Dcadents- a poisonous
book

Notice in the Scots Observer:

 Why go grubbing in muck-heaps, and while admitting that it had some ingenious elements
declared it false art false to human nature false to morality

p. XI

Wildes public statements about his novel were understandably skewed towards a defence
based on aesthetic principles rather than on a defence of homosexuality per se

He claimed that his accusers reactions to the unnamed vices in which his hero indulges were
reflections of their own corruption and not the books.

p. XII

Signed Preface first published in the Fortnightly Review in March1891: became a manifesto
of the Art for Arts Sake movement:

Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being
charming. This is a fault (p. 3)

All art is at once surface and symbol. Those who go beneath the surface do so at their
peril. Those who read the symbol do so at their peril.

Despite this bold statement there are discrepancies between those positions in the Preface and
in the letters to the press

Preface:

There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book

Letters:

Dorian Gray is in fact a story with a moral; All excess, as well as all renunciation,
brings its own punishment (Letters, p. 430)

In revisions he tried to make this moral that is inscribed into the lives of the three main
characters more subordinate to aesthetic considerations

Further additions made for the 1891 edition were corrections in order to suppress the moral so
that

it does not enunciate its law as a general principle, but realises itself purely in the
lives of individuals, and so becomes simply a dramatic element in a work of art, and
not the object of the work of art itself. (To the editor of the Daily Chronicle, Letters,
p. 435)
p. XIII

In Chapter 16, that was later added it was visible that Wil-de was not really purging the novel
for he added a chapter that only further amplifies Dorians guilt as in the opium dens of the
East End he instead encounters the wrecks of men and women whom he has corrupted or
ruined

In some instances he even restored phrases that were potentially risqu

ABSTRACT (sort of):

In the opening scene, a beautiful young man has a wonderfully lifelike portrait painted of him
by an artist who has fallen in love with his model. As the painting nears completion, the
young mans simple view of life is confused by the words of an onlooker, a clever aesthete,
who eloquently urges him to realise his youth fully, and explore every avenue of thought and
sensation, even (indeed, particularly) those which society oppressively forbids.

[Urged to decadence by Henrys poisonous mind]

Soul= forever young

His wish is magically granted [ANTI-REALISM ]

beauty remains undiminished

p. XIV

a life of sensation and self-expression

visual reminder of past sins

that very old themeof a double life: of Doppelgnger (The Bookman, 1891, pp. 83-86
Pater reviews the 1891 version of Dorian Gray)

Strong similarities have been noted between Dorians dedication and strange martyrdom to
the life of the senses and Huysmans Jean des Esseintes, the protagonist of Rebours (1884)

p. XV

He directs the readers attention away from the miracle by which his protagonists wish is
granted, in order to focus on the consequences

Wildes narrative refuses to clarify (the miracle)

The expected ethical superstructure is therefore cunningly collapsed and reworked as a

decorative motif in the intricate pattern of language and debate with which Wilde distances
Dorians initial prayer for eternal youth from his final catastrophic attempt to kill the past
and free himself from conscience.
This waving of ethics into aesthetics ensures that the debate in which Wildes protagonists
romantically engage canvasses not only the relationship between art and life, but between art,
life and suffering.

Christian theories of sin + classical principles of action are submitted to the priorities of
style and atmosphere

p. XVI

Like Platos philosophical dialogues, Dorian Gray is composed of discussions between

differing personalities, each with clearly defined views about how best to live ones life and
reconcile the conflicting demands of the soul and the senses.

Basil- most conventional of the three, refuses to display the picture= indicates his limitations,
he lacks the true daring and emotional detachment of a true artist, model of Victorian
conformity, chained artist. Lord Henry is disappointed of him because of this. The painting
reflects his definition of moral corruption rather than Dorians. His pious attempts to make
Dorian repent provoke Dorian to murder him.

Lord Henry- irresponsible scientist, tries to submit Dorian, he only muses on his theories
rather than realising them. His views are a subtle amalgam of subversive contradictions of
comfortable bourgeois morality. Only teaches, does not act.

Dorian Gray- tries to convince himself he has not succumbed to the influence of Henry as
Basil has to his own. (pp. 63, 79, 93)

p. XVII

Dorian is seeking above all to learn how to cure the soul by means of the senses, and the
senses by means of the soul (pp. 20, 146) He loses his poise and peace of mind, and is
clearly cracking under the psychological strain of his secret and catastrophe becomes
inevitable.

Dorian easy prey to external suggestion= does he have a personality????

p. XVIII

TRIPARTITE DIVISION:

In 1894 Wilde announced: Basil Hallward is what I think I am, Lord Henry what the world
things me: Dorian what I would like to be in other ages, perhaps (Letters, p. 585)

Inconsistence:

Basil Hallward, worshipping physical beauty far too much, as most painters do, dies by the
hand of one in whose soul he has raised a monstrous and absurd vanity. Dorian Gray, having
led a life of mere sensation and pleasure, tries to kill conscience, and kills himself. Lord
Henry Wotton seeks to be merely the spectator of life. He finds that those who reject the battle
are more deeply wounded that those who take part in it. (Letters, p. 430, to the editor of St
Jamess Gazette)

Inconsistence are not surprising since Wilde possessed an anti-essentialist conception of

character/identity as something superficial and plastic, made up of appearances and styles,
rather than deriving from a deep-seated, inner nature.

This anti-essentialist conception is visible in Chapter 11 (the highlight of Dorians

necromantic vivisection of the soul and the senses):

wonder at the shallow psychology of those who conceive Ego in man as a thing
simple, permanent, reliable, and of one essence. To him, man was a being with myriad
lives (p. 113)

Insincerity and artifice, lying and disguise, are thus method[s] by which we can
multiply our personalities (p. 113)

p. XIX

what is real in art and life

Narcissus- shows the power of surfaces to trick those who gaze into them, and subvert their
egotism

The picture possesses a power of art to alter the lies of both painter and sitter.

Dorian is insanely jealous of his own image, of its resistance to time and decay.

Art overcomes boundaries of time and space

p. XX

For the domain of the painter iswidely different from that of the poet. To the latter belongs
life in its full and absolute entirety the whole sphere of feeling, the whole circle of thought.
(Complete Works, pp. 1124, 1128)

It is the language itself then, the least limited of the arts, which works the magic of the
paintings transformation.

We do not know much about the content of the picture other than that it is the full-length
image of a man in modern dress which morphs into the image of a hideous, bloody monster
The picture is the diary of my life day to day, and it never leaves the room in which it is
written (p. 122) The picture is a linguistic construct from the start to finish = evoked by
words
The book of such strangeness and fascination that it can influence the readers life
permanently, for better or worse.
Chapter 2: Lord Henry recalls a book which was a revelation to him in his youth
Chapter 10: Lord Henry gives to Dorian a/the book bound in yellow paper (p. 102)
p. XX/XXI
Lord Henry denies the possibility of being poisoned by a book because Art is superbly
sterile and has no influence upon action (p. 172)
p. XXI
Dorians reading of the yellow book encourages him to emulate its unnamed hero in his
efforts to realise in the nineteenth century all the passions and modes of thought that
belonged to every century except his own. Inspired, he dreams himself into a pageant of
historical passions and personalities, colours, scents and sins, which seems designed to
illustrate Wildes claim in the Preface that Vice and virtue are to the artist materials for art.
Chapter 11- no dialogue, only authorial narration and free indirect speech:
The worship of the senses has often, and with much justice, been decried But it
appeared to Dorian Gray that the true nature of the senses had never been understood,
and that they remained savage and animal merely because the world had sought to
starve them into submission or to kill them by pain. (p. 104)
p. XXII
Wilde removes his mask for an instant, only to instantly put it on again:
Is insincerity such a terrible thing? I think not. It is merely a method by which we can
multiply our personalities. Such, at any rate, was Dorian Grays opinion.
First- person plural = helping readers to form an emotional bond with a hero who, at other
times, can seem both objectionable and absurd:
There are few of us who have not sometimes wakened before dawn. Veil after veil of
thin dusky gauze is lifted, and by degrees the forms and colours of things are restored
to them, and we watch the dawn remaking the world in its antique pattern. () Out of
the unreal shadows of the night comes back the real life that we had known. (p. 105)
Dawn= real life, night= unreal
The whole chapter 11 gives some substance at last to Dorians personality, but it is
deliberately left ambiguous whether the book wickedly perverts his otherwise natural artistic
curiosity in the direction of sin and vice, or whether sin and vice themselves are genuinely
being held up as modes through which we may realise [a true] conception of the beautiful.
The yellow book works as a double agent capable of working both good and evil.
In a letter of 1894 he confided that the book that poisoned, or made perfect, Dorian Gray
does not exist, it is a fancy of mine merely. (Letters, p. 585)
During the libel trial in 1895, Wilde stated under cross-examination that the book was
Huysmans Rebours, which has accordingly frequently been cited as the original
Letter:
the book is one of the many I have never written, but it is partialy suggested by
Huysmans Rebours it is a fantastic variation on Huysmans over-realistic study (Letters,
p.524

In Rebours, the young hero, Jean des Esseintes, is the last son oof an ancient house
fallen into dcadence, in whom the gradual effmination of the family is notable.
He sells his chteau and lands in order to buy an isolated house where he dedicates
himself to the artistic stimulation of his senses.
p. XXIII
When the Daily Chronicle labelled the Lippincotts version of Dorian Gray poisonous,
Wilde replied: My story is an essay on decorative art it is poisonous if you like, buy you
cannot deny that is is also perfect, and perfection is what we artists aim at. (Letters, p. 436)
Wilde believed that style outweighed sincerity and substance, so he paid great attention to the
form and nuances of wording in his novel.
essay on decorative art but also a piece of decorative art, composed of carefully selected
phrases.
In the novel it was obvious that he selected words with (excessive) preference for words in
themselves sensuous or evocative of the senses.
In the opening two paragraphs alone, we have references to strong and delicate smells, to
sweet and sour tastes, to music, soft and low, into which atmosphere Wilde introduces his
careful selection of objective correlatives from the world of art and interior design: the
Persian saddlebags, tussore-silk curtains, Japanese-effect painting. The detailed descriptions
of Basils studio and, later, of Dorians luxuriously decorated apartments read like fine-art
catalogues, and it is not surprising to discover that Wilde consulted various specialist
handbooks to assist him in choosing the precise names of objects whose correlative emotions
in the reader would recreate the morbidly beautiful atmosphere he wished the novel would
convey.
Style often described as gamey: flavours appealed to Renaissance palates but may be too rich
and cloying for modern tastes.
p. XXIII-XXIV
When not dedicated to creating the decadent mood through description, Wildes style was
unashamedly conversational:
Rather like my own life the book is all conversation and no action my people sit in
chairs and chatter (Letters, p. 425)
But Wilde would convince us that conversation is harder than action, and closer to reality:
It is very much more difficult to talk about a thing than to do it (Complete Works, p.
1121)
Mere words! Was there anything so real as words? (p. 19)
Wilde seems to be striving in his works for a synaesthesia of the visual, plastic and musical
arts through language.
Uses paradox: the daring subversion of conventional wisdom in epigrammatic form. Wildes
genius for making paradox the substance of intellectual argument. (XXV)
Ernest Newman on paradoxes:
A paradox is simply the truth of the minority, just as a commonplace is the truth of the
majority. The function of paradox is to illuminate light places, to explain just those things that
everyone understands
Holbrook Jackson: what he seemed to be doing all the time was translating life into art
through himself
Fin-de-sicle mood and decadence of the 1890 offer a clearer picture of Wilde.