THE PICTURE OF

DORIAN GRAY
Gothic romanticism, Aesthetics and Realism
 • Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde
• Prominent and wealthy Anglo-Irish family
 Father a distinguished surgeon (knighted in 1864)
 Mother a noted poet and nationalist
OSCAR WILDE •  Trinity College, Dublin (B.A.) and Oxford (M.A.)
(1854 – 1900) • Great success as a poet and, esp, playwright
• Flamboyant, outrageous wit, dandy
• Disgraced and imprisoned by homosexuality
• Died in poverty and exile in France
HISTORICAL CONTEXT

The Victorian Age

• Progress is central to the understanding of the Victorian Age
• Science and philosophy of Positivism (reality may be rationally understood, analysed & controlled by man)
• Triumph of industry and technology, rapid urbanization, especially in the late 1800s

Often Divided into the early Victorian and late Victorian

1) general acceptance of the age's ethical and social standards
2) reaction, recognition of difficulties and problems, demand for solutions
• Beginnings of realism in literature
• Rise of labour movement, emancipation of women, etc
• LONDON

from 1 to 6 million in a
century
Overcrowding & slums
Sanitation & pollution

GOLDEN AGE OF
STEAM ST RAILWAY
FROM LONDON
BRIDGE TO
GREENWICH (1836) ●
THE GREAT
EXHIBITION OF 1851
CRYSTAL PALACE