E

NGLISCH

-S

PEZIALFRAGE

AUSGEARBEITET VON

D

AVID

B

AUM

, 2001

O

SCAR

W

ILDE

(Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde)

born,

http://www.britannica.com/bcom/eb/article/8/0,5716,79028+1+76981,00.html

Oct. 16,

1854, Dublin, Ireland
died, Nov. 30, 1900, Paris, France

Irish wit, poet, and dramatist whose reputation rests on his comic masterpieces Lady
Windermere's Fan (1892) and The Importance of Being Earnest (1895). He was a spokesman for
the late 19th-century

http://www.britannica.com/bcom/eb/article/2/0,5716,3932+1+3885,00.html

Aesthetic

movement in England, which advocated art for art's sake; and he was the object of
celebrated civil and criminal suits involving homosexuality and ending in his
imprisonment (1895-97).

16. October 1854: Osacr Wilde was born of professional and literary parents. His father,
Sir William Wilde, was Ireland's leading ear and eye surgeon, who also published books

on archaeology, folklore, and the satirist Jonathan Swift; his mother was a revolutionary
poet and an authority on Celtic myth and folklore.

26. April 1855: Wilde is baptized in Dublin

1864-1871: Wilde attends the Portora Royal School, in Enniskillen.

1871-1874: He steps into the Trinity College, Dublin. During his time in Dublin he wins
a Scholarship for the Magdalen College in Oxford in the height of 95 Pound. In Oxford
the college awardes him a degree with honours.

1874-1880: In 1874 and 1877 he travells to Italy two times with John Pentland Mahaffy
and William Goulding. During his first stay he also writes the Graffiti d’Italia. But also
other things happen during these six years: He distinguishes himself not only as a classical
scholar, a poseur, and a wit but also as a poet by winning the coveted Newdigate Prize in
1878 with a long poem, Ravenna; On the 19. April 1876 his father died. He was deeply
impressed by the teachings of the English writers John Ruskin and Walter Pater on the

central importance of art in life and particularly by the latter's stress on the aesthetic
intensity by which life should be lived. Like many in his generation, Wilde is determined
to follow Pater's urging "to burn always with [a] hard, gemlike flame." But Wilde also
delightes in affecting an aesthetic pose; this, combined with rooms at Oxford decorated
with objets d'art, resulted in his famous remark: "Oh, would that I could live up to my
blue china!"

1880-1881: In the summer of 1880, he goes together with his friend Frank Miles to
Chelsea. In September his first play for the stage, Vera; or, The Nihilists is published. In
this time Aestheticism is the rage and despair of literary London, an Wilde suceeds in
establishing himself in social and artistic circles by his wit and flamboyance. Soon the
periodical Punch makes him the satiric object of its antagonism to the Aesthetes for what

was considered their unmasculine devotion to art; and in their comic opera Patience,
Gilbert and Sullivan based the character Bunthorne, a "fleshly poet," partly on Wilde.
Wishing to reinforce the association, Wilde publishes, at his own expense, Poems (1881),
which echoes, too faithfully, his discipleship to the poets Algernon Swinburne, Dante
Gabriel Rossetti, and John Keats.

1882: Eager for further acclaim, Wilde agrees to lecture in the United States and Canada
in January, announcing on his arrival in New York City that he has "nothing to declare
but his genius." Despite widespreas hostility in the press to his languid poses and aesthetic
costume of velvet jacket, knee breeches, and black silk stockings, Wilde for 12 months
exhortes the Americans to love beauty and art; then returnes to Great Britain to lecture
on his impressions of America. In this year he also publishes two new poems, titled Le
Jardin and La Mer.

9. July 1883: The verse tragedy The Duchess of Padua appears as private printing in small
edition.

29. May 1884: Wilde marries Constance Lloyd, daughter of a prominent Irish barrister;
two children, Cyril and Vyvyan, are born, in 1885 and 1886.

1884-1888: Meanwhile, Wilde is a reviewer for the Pall Mall Gazette and then becomes
editor of Woman's World (1887-89). During this period of apprenticeship as a writer, he
publishes The Canterville Ghost (1887) and The Happy Prince and Other Tales (1888), which
reveals his gift for romantic allegory in the form of the fairy tale.

1889: He stops writing for Woman's World an publishes Pen, Pencil and Poison, The Decay of
Lying, The Birthday of the Little Princess and The Portrait of Mr. W. H.

1890: In the the summer of 1890 Wilde writes and publishes nearly his only novel, The
Picture of Dorian Gray (published in Lippincott's Magazine, 1890, and in book form, revised

and expanded by six chapters, 1891). In this book Wilde combines the supernatural
elements of the Gothic novel with the unspeakable sins of French decadent fiction.
Critics charged immorality despite Dorian's self-destruction; Wilde, however, insisted on
the amoral nature of art regardless of an apparently moral ending.

1891: Intentions (1891), consisting of previously published essays, restated his aesthetic

attitude toward art by borrowing ideas from the French poets Théophile Gautier and
Charles Baudelaire and the American painter James McNeill Whistler. In the same year,
two volumes of stories and fairy tales also appeared, testifying to his extraordinary
creative inventiveness: Lord Arthur Savile's Crime, and Other Stories and A House of
Pomegranates. But in this year Wilde met a man, who should become his “fate”: Lord
Alfred Douglas, the third son of the eight Marquess of Queensbury. A passionate and
fatal friendship beginns.

1892: But Wilde's greatest successes were his society comedies. Within the conventions of
the French
"

http://www.britannica.com/bcom/eb/article/2/0,5716,78512+1+76487,00.html

well-made

play" (with its social intrigues and artificial devices to resolve conflict), he employes his
paradoxical, epigrammatic wit to create a form of comedy new to the 19th-century

English theatre. His first success, Lady Windermere's Fan, demonstrates that this wit could
revitalize the rusty machinery of French drama. In the same year, rehearsals of his
macabre play Salomé, written in French and designed, as he said, to make his audience
shudder by its depiction of unnatural passion, were halted by the censor because it
contained biblical characters. A second society comedy, A Woman of No Importance (written
1892 but produced 1893), convinced the critic William Archer that Wilde's plays "must be
taken on the very highest plane of modern English drama."

1893: Salome is published, an English translation appeares in 1894 with Aubrey Beardsley's
celebrated illustrations. He beginns his work on the play An Ideal Husband.

1894: Wilde travels to Paris, where he meets again Lord Alfred Douglas. Together, they
travel to Florence. In the autumn he spends a few weeks in Brighton, one more time

together with Lord Douglas.

1895: In rapid succession, Wilde's final plays, An Ideal Husband and The Importance of Being
Earnest, were produced in the first minths of 1895. In many of his works, exposure of a
secret sin or indiscretion and consequent disgrace is a central design. If life imitated art,
as Wilde insisted in his essay The Decay of Lying (1889), he was himself approximating the

pattern in his reckless pursuit of pleasure. In addition, his close friendship with Lord
Alfred Douglas, infuriated his father, the Marquess of Queensberry. Accused, finally, by
the marquess of being a sodomite, Wilde, urged by Douglas, sued for criminal libel.
Wilde's case collapsed, however, when the evidence went against him, and he dropped
the suit. Urged to flee to France by his friends, Wilde refused, unable to believe that his
world was at an end. He was arrested and ordered to stand trial. Wilde testified brilliantly,
but the jury failed to reach a verdict. In the retrial he was found guilty and sentenced, in
May 1895, to two years at hard labour. Most of his sentence was served at Reading Gaol,

where he wrote a long letter to Douglas (published in 1905 in a drastically cut version as
De Profundis. The complete manuscript was published on the 1. January 1969) filled with
recriminations against the younger man for encouraging him in dissipation and
distracting him from his work.

1896: This year was one of the worst in the life of Wilde. On the 3. February his mother

died. His wife Constance gets awarded the guardianship for Wildes sons. But also the two
requests for grace, which had been sent by Wilde to the minister of the interior are
rejected.

1897: In May Wilde is released, a bankrupt, and immediately travels to France, hoping to
regenerate himself as a writer. His only remaining work, however, was The Ballad of Reading
Gaol (published 1898), revealing his concern for inhumane prison conditions. Despite

constant money problems he maintaines, as George Bernard Shaw said, "an
unconquerable gaiety of soul" that sustaines him, and he is visited by such loyal friends as
Max Beerbohm and Robert Ross, later his literary executor; he is also reunited with
Douglas.

1898-1899: Wilde travels through Europe (Italy, France, Switzerland).

1900: The relationship with Lord Douglas is over. He dies suddenly of acute meningitis
brought on by an ear infection. In his semiconscious final moments, he is received into

the Roman Catholic church, which he had long admired. He is buried in Paris. The grave
sculpture (finished 1912) carries the inscription:

“And alien tears will fill for him / Pity’s long broken urn

For his mourners will be outcast men / And outcasts always mourn”

T

HE

P

ICTURE OF

D

ORIAN

G

RAY

The Picture of Dorian Gray is a book that has many different dimensions and is
continuously being interpreted and reinterpreted since it's first publishing date in 1890.
The story's main character is a young man named Dorian Gray, he is the inspiration of
Basil Hallward's art. Basil paints a picture of Dorian, which he considers a masterpiece.
Lord Henry Wotton, a friend of Basil's and then also to Dorian, is there at the time of the
last sitting that Dorian does for the painting. Dorian is fascinated by Lord Henry and his
unconventional (perhaps immoral?) ideas. Lord Henry discusses the wonders of
youthfulness and the dismay of aging. Dorian is greatly affected by Lord Henry's words.

He then after sees the picture in completion, he is extremely upset the thought of the
picture retaining youth and splendor versus the aging of himself in reality that he says,
"...If it were only the other way! If it were I who was to be always young and the picture
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!". At this point Dorian's
looks stay the same as the day he proclaims the phrase above. Although his physical
features are not changing, he is changing. Under the influence of Lord Henry, Dorian
starts exploring life in new ways. While this developmet begins, Basil Hallward is afraid of

the fact that Lord Henry becomes more and more important for Dorian with every single
day. He thinks, that Lord Henrys influence over Dorian will end in a desaster. For him
the way how Lord Henry lives his life is nothing, that should inspire a young man. And as
the plot continues we can see this fear was entitled. At the beginning of this new step in
Dorian's life he meets a young actress named Sybil Vane, with whom he "fall's in love
with". He also wants to merry her. One evening he wants, that Lord Henry and Basil
come with him to the theater where Sybil performs. But the evening ends in a
catastrophe, because Sybil plays very badly and Dorian has only loved her because she has

been a fantastic actress. As it soon appears to him, he was not actually in love with her,
and so he then breaks off their hasty engagement and in turn she commits suicide. This is
the point in which we discover that there is a change in the picture of Dorain.. In one
chapter of the book Basil comes to see after him after Sybils death but the suicide does
not affect Dorian at all. Also Dorian starts to realize, that something happens with him.
He also tells Basil that he wants that their friendship will never be over. At this time we
can find a few good feelings and thouts in Dorians personality. Dorian hides the picture
in a always locked room of his house, as he beginns to see the first changes on the canvas.

At this time Lord Henry sends Dorian a book that soon becomes his “bible”. The book
narrates the story of a french lord that lives hid life in decadence and disdain for the
people around him. Then as time goes on the painting changes to represent Dorian's soul,
the grotesque thing that has become of it. After years and years of living with reckless
abandon does Dorian Gray truly consider what his life has become. On the evening
before Dorians 38

th

Birthday Basil comes to him because he wants to talk to him before

he travelles to Paris with his pictures. Dorian showes him what the picture as become.
While Basil is looking at the picture, Dorian takes a knife and kills him. On the next

morning he forces an old firend to help him destroying the corpse. He then decides that
he want's a "new life" and wants to talk with Lord Henry about it during a party, but Lord
Henry laughs at him. At home Dorian starts to slash at his picture with a knife in a brief
moment of passion. This turns the painting back to the original form, when Dorian was
much younger on the day Basil finished it and Dorian made his wish for youth. And now
Dorian Gray physically aged and turned into what his painting had been which signifies
the end of his painful existence.

T

HE TWO

"

ARCHETYPAL

"

SITES OF

D

ORIAN

G

RAY

’

S

CHARACTER

The Picture of Dorian Gray revolves around Dorian's dual nature. On the one hand, he is the
young hero whose adventures the novel records; on the other, he is a painted image of
"extraordinary personal beauty." When Lord Henry tells him that his exceptional looks
will not last, the young man prays that he be allowed to remain as he is in Basil's portrait

of him. Dorian wants to enjoy his youth for ever. His "mad wish" is a key to the
archetypal factors which condition the novel, for the quality of "eternal youth" is a
primary attribute of Dionysos. That Dorian is invested with the attributes of Dionysos is,
however, corroborated in the novel. The morning after he cold-bloodedly turns his back
on Sibyl Vane, he checks to see whether Basil's portrait has really altered. It has -- and he
immediately understands what this signifies for him:

"Eternal youth, infinite passion, pleasures subtle and secret, wild joys and
wilder sins -- he was to have all these things. The portrait was to bear the
burden of his shame: that was all."

The young man who realizes this has known only the passions of an adolescent's dreams.

In other words, he believes that, under normal circumstances, such pleasures would stain
him, not only morally, but physically. And so he prays that he may enjoy every pleasure
which life can offer him, and yet remain unmarked by his experience. Such passions as
those he wants to enjoy are associated with Dionysos. This is confirmed toward the end
of the novel, when Lord Henry, following their discussion of Basil's murder, says to
Dorian:

"You have drunk deeply of everything. You have crushed the grapes against
your palate. Nothing has been hidden from you."

The novel begins with Dorian praying that he be granted the "eternal youth" proper only
to a god. To seek to appropriate a god's attributes is an other very interesting signal for us.
Not coincidentally, central to the novel is another myth whose subject has psychological

background: It is introduced in an analogy toward the end of the novel, while Dorian is
playing the piano. Lord Henry remarks:

"What a blessing it is that there is one art left to us that is not imitative !
Don't stop. I want music tonight. It seems to me that you are the young
Apollo, and that I am Marsyas listening to you."

Not only Lord Henry, but Dorian too can be likened to Marsyas. For his portrait
gradually assumes the aspect of a "hideous old satyr". When he tries to destroy it, he
(unwillingly ?) kills himself, and the portrait reverts to its original Apollonian perfection.

By virtue of his "mad prayer," Dorian thus appropriates the attributes of both Dionysos
and Apollo. He is a symbolic personification of both Dionysian intoxication and

Apollonian form; of Dionysian involvement and Apollonian unapproachability. He is able
to enjoy the Dionysian pleasures to which he wants to abandon himself, but at an
Apollonian distance.

O

SCAR

W

ILDE AND THE

D

ANDY

D

ORIAN

G

RAY AS

S

YMBOLIC

R

EPRESENTATION OF

W

ILDE

'

S

P

ERSONALITY

The novel can thus be defined as a symbolic representation of a dialectic between two
aspects of Wilde's personality. Dorian is an archetypal image by which both aspects are
fascinated. This suggests that his behaviour symbolizes Wilde's unconscious (i.e.

unacknowledged) attitudes. Dorian is characterized by his obsession with objets d'art.
For example, when Basil comes to console him about Sibyl's death, he is unwilling to
discuss the matter. He does not want to admit the possibility that his behaviour was
reprehensible. He tells his friend: "If one doesn't talk about a thing, it has never
happened. It is simply expression, as Harry says, that gives reality to things". Later, after
murdering Basil, he again seeks to avoid acknowledging what he has done: "He felt that
the secret of the whole thing was not to realize the situation".

Dorian escapes from every unpleasant realization by turning his attention to other things.
Unwilling to admit that his actions have moral implications, he seeks refuge in art. On
hearing of Sibyl's death, he accepts an invitaton, for that very evening, to go to the opera.
He learns to see life only from an aesthetic perspective. He reflects:

"Form is absolutely essential to it. It should have the dignity of a ceremony,
as well as its unreality, and should combine the insincere character of a
romantic play with the wit and beauty that makes such plays delightful to
us. "

The consequence of this attitude is that he finds himself increasingly "stepping outside"

his experiences in order to observe them from a distance. Instead of living his experiences
more intensely, he finds himself observing them, as in a theatre. He confesses to Lord
Henry, with reference to Sibyl's suicide:

"I must admit that this thing that has happened does not affect me as it
should. It seems to me simply like a wonderful ending to a wonderful play.
It has all the terrible beauty of a Greek tragedy, a tragedy in which I took a

great part, but by which I have not been wounded."

He tells Basil: "To become the spectator of one's own life, as Harry says, is to escape the
suffering of life". Some eighteen years later, Dorian no longer even feels part of his own
drama. He has become only a spectator, and what he sees is a projection of the grotesque

shape that his own personality has assumed. He coldly watches Basil as the latter reacts to
his now hideously deformed painting:

"The young man was leaning against the mantelshelf, watching him with
that strange expression that one sees on the faces of those who are
absorbed in a play when some great artist is acting. There was neither real

sorrow in it nor real joy. There was simply the passion of the spectator,
with perhaps a flicker of triumph in his eyes."

He is no longer watching himself only. He is watching another person's reaction to the
callousness and cruelty which he does not want to recognize in himself.

Throughout the novel, the mechanism whereby involvement is translated into aesthetic
perspective is associated with fear. For example, when Dorian first meets Lord Henry, to
distract him from the latter's words, he turns to observe a bee:

"He watched it with that strange interest in trivial things that we try to

develop when things of high import make us afraid, or when we are stirred
by some new emotion for which we cannot find expression, or when some
thought that terrifies us lays sudden siege to the brain and calls on us to
yield."

He has been granted the means to enjoy life to the full, but -- paradoxically -- he is afraid
of life. Consequently, he seeks refuge in a pseudo-aestheticism. For example, when he

shows Alan Campbell into the room where Basil's murdered body lies, he is suddenly
afraid that he will have to see the consequence of what he has done: "There he stopped,
feeling afraid to turn round, and his eyes fixed themselves on the intricacies of the pattern
before him". His subsequent passion for objets d'art, so lengthily described in chapter
XI, is simply a way "by which he could escape, for a season, from the fear that seemed to
him at times to be almost too great to be borne". He is afraid of that side of his own
personality for which he is not prepared to accept responsiblity.

Dorian is the Wildean dandy par excellence. He is what both Basil and Lord Henry would
like to be. It is worth noting that Wilde wrote of the characters in his only novel: "Basil
Hallward is what I think I am: Lord Henry what the world thinks me: Dorian what I
would like to be -- in other ages, perhaps". Dorian personifies a conflict between
Dionysian and Apollonian elements particularly fascinating to his creator. He has a
passion for "the colour, the beauty, the joy of life", but avoids becoming involved with

any experience for fear of it causing him possible pain. Basil's and Lord Henry's
fascination with him represents Wilde's obsession with a young dandy whose evasiveness
and pseudo-aestheticism symbolize his own unconscious fears.

The Wildean dandy is content with philosophic contemplation. He is afraid of the power
that an individual -- any individual -- is potentially capable of exercising over him. He

does not involve himself in the worries of his friends, for worry signals suffering, and the
Wildean dandy will do everything possible to avoid suffering. He blocks off any
realization that might pain him. He is afraid of his own unacknowledged desires. He is
afraid to live the kind of life that so fascinates him. His wit is just one of his means of

defence. It is a way of evading the obligation to respond to the demands and individuality
of another person.

P

ARALLELS BETWEEN

O

SACR

W

ILDE

,

L

ORD

H

ENRY AND

B

ASIL

The Picture of Dorian Gray begins with Basil describing his fascination with Dorian, and
ends with his masterpiece reverting to its original splendour. He describes his reaction to
Dorian in these words:

"When our eyes met, I felt I was growing pale. A curious sensation of
terror came over me. I knew that I had come face to face with some one
whose mere personality was so fascinating that, if I allowed it to do so, it
would absorb my whole nature, my whole soul, my very art itself."

Such a reaction is not a reaction to another human being. It signals an intimation of
something super-human. A fascination is caused by unconscious factors. It grips us; it
holds us in its power; it acts upon us.

Basil Hallward: Basil lives only for his art. He is afraid of life, because it is capable of
exerting an influence over him. This influence he feels as threatening. He is afraid of

Dorian, because Dorian personifies the Dionysian side of his own personality which he
has repressed. Thus he needs Dorian, because only through Dorian can he feel that he is
alive. The contrast between them is suggestive. Basil is fascinated by what he himself is
not. The attributes which he finds so fascinating stand in "compensatory" relation to him.
But, instead of seeing his fascination as symbolic of a need to develop the Dionysian side
of his own personality, he seeks to perpetuate his experience through art. He is punished
by Dorian-Dionysos for not giving expression to his Dionysian side, and by Dorian-
Apollo for thinking too highly of his art. The novel traces the consequence of his "artistic

idolatry."

Lord Henry Wotton: The novel may begin in Basil's studio, but its story is triggered by
Lord Henry, who is equally -- albeit differently -- fascinated by Dorian. Lord Henry is a
dandy who has elaborated a theory of Individualism. He advises Dorian to enjoy life to
the full, to give way to every temptation, to realize his every fantasy -- but not to allow

any experience to arrest the pursuit of his pleasure. He watches Dorian's progress closely,
half aware that he is experimenting on himself. Dorian has what he values most, and feels
he has lost: youth. In other words, Lord Henry is also fascinated by what he is not. He is

captivated by Dorian, because Dorian lives the life he would like to live. Instead of seeing
Dorian as symbolizing his need to involve himself in life, he contents himself with
"philosophic contemplation". He too represses his Dionysian side, but not as extremly as
Basil. He feels it sufficient to experience this through Dorian. The novel traces the
consequences of his desire to follow his "experiment" to its end.

Parallels: Basil and Lord Henry personify two different aspects of Wilde's personality.

Basil's fascination with Dorian anticipates Wilde's fascination with Lord Alfred Douglas.

For example, in the novel, Basil says that Dorian is "absolutely necessary" to him: "my life

as an artist depends on him". And he tells Dorian "You became to me the visible

incarnation of that unseen ideal whose memory haunts us artists like an exquisite dream".

A few years after writing this, Wilde wrote to Lord Alfred Douglas "I can't live without

you", and "you are the atmosphere of beauty through which I see life. You are the

incarnation of all lovely things". Basil confesses his idolatry of Dorian. Similarly, Wilde, in

a letter to Douglas, writes "I shall be eternally grateful to you for having always inspired

me with adoration and love". The fact that the fiction antedates life suggests that the

unconscious perceives more than consciousness. Similarly, Lord Henry never says a moral

thing, and never does a wrong thing. He lives only through his conversation. He is too

concerned with the promotion of his own views to be able to respond to those of any one

else. His relationship with his wife ends in divorce -- as Wilde's did. He is also the carrier

of Wilde's extravagant personality and wit. Basil is an artist whose best work stems from a

passion for a young man whom he sees as a "Prince of Life." Lord Henry is a

conversationalist who cuts life to pieces with his epigrams

.

A

PHORISEMS

There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being
talked about. The Picture of Dorian Gray

There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written or badly
written. The Picture of Dorian Gray

Why is it, that one runs to ones ruin, why has destruction such a fascination.
De Profundis

Men become old, but they never become good. Lady Windermere's Fan

No man is rich enough to buy back his past. An Ideal Husband

Women are meant to be loved, not to be understood. The Sphinx Without a Secret

I am sick of women who love me. Women who hate me are much more interesting. The
Picture of Dorian Gray

I prefer women with a past. They're always so damned amusing to talk to. Lady
Windermere's Fan

Life is much too important a thing ever to talk seriously about it. Vera, of The Nihilists

A man can be happy with any woman as long as he does not love her. The Picture of Dorian

Gray

America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in
between.

Always forgive your enemies - nothing annoys them so much.

Bigamy is having one wife too many. Monogamy is the same.

I´ll be a poet, a writer, a dramatist. Somehow or other, I´ll be famous, and if not famous,
I´ll be notorious.

I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read in
the train. From: The Importance of Being Earnest

Men always want to be a woman's first love - women like to be a man's last romance.

The only way to atone for being occasionally a little over-dressed is by being always
absolutely overeducated.

Men always want to be a woman's first love - women like to be a man's last romance.

The pure and simple truth is rarely pure and never simple.