2. The Picture of Dorian Gray is the only
published novel by Oscar Wilde, appearing as
the lead story in Lippincott's Monthly Magazine
on 20 June 1890, printed as the July 1890 issue
of this magazine. Wilde later revised this
edition, making several alterations, and adding
new chapters; the amended version was
published by Ward, Lock, and Company in
April 1891…
3.
4. Against the Grain or Nature, by Joris-Karl Huysmans
Richard Ellmann describes the effect of the book in his
biography of Oscar Wilde:
Whistler rushed to congratulate Huysmans the next
day on his „marvellous‟ book. Bourget, at that time a
close friend of Huysmans as of Wilde, admired it
greatly; Paul Valéry called it his „Bible and his bedside
book‟ and this is what it became for Wilde. He said to
the Morning News: „This last book of Huysmans is one
of the best I have ever seen‟. It was being reviewed
everywhere as the guidebook of decadence. At the very
moment that Wilde was falling in with social
patterns, he was confronted with a book which even in
its title defied them
5. “Sunk in his easy chair, he now ruminated upon that unyielding
order which was wrecking his plans, breaking the strings of his
present life and overturning his future plans. His beatitude was
ended. He was compelled to abandon this sheltering haven and
return at full speed into the stupidity which had once attacked
him.
The physicians spoke of amusement and distraction. With
whom, and with what did they wish him to distract and amuse
himself?
Had he not banished himself from society? Did he know a single
person whose existence would approximate his in seclusion and
contemplation? Did he know a man capable of appreciating the
fineness of a phrase, the subtlety of a painting, the quintessence of
an idea,—a man whose soul was delicate and exquisite enough to
understand Mallarmé and love Verlaine?
Where and when must he search to discover a twin spirit, a soul
detached from commonplaces, blessing silence as a
benefit, ingratitude as a solace, contempt as a refuge and port?”
6. In August 1889, Wilde reveals some of his
surprise at the public reaction: “The
newspapers seem to be to be written by the
prurient for the Philistine. I cannot understand
how they can treat Dorian Gray as immoral. My
difficulty was to keep the inherent moral
subordinate to the artistic and dramatic
effect, and it still seems to me that the moral is
too obvious.”
7. The Chronicle that said:
“There is not a single good and holy impulse of human
nature, scarcely a fine feeling or instinct that civilisation, art,
and religion have developed throughout the ages as part of
the barrier between Humanity and Animalism that is not
held up to ridicule and contempt in “Dorian Gray,” if,
indeed, such strong words can be fitly applied to the actual
effect of Mr Wilde‟s airy levity and fluent impudence. His
desperate attempt to vamp up a “moral” for the book at the
end is, artistically speaking, coarse and crude because the
whole incident of Dorian Gray‟s death is, as they say on the
stage, “out of the picture.”
8. Basil Hallward says (page 96, 1890 teaching
edition, http://contentdm.library.uvic.ca/cdm/singleitem/collection/Literary/id/2521
)
Well, from the moment I met you, your personality had the most extraordinary
influence over me. I quite admit that I adored you madly,
extravagantly, absurdly. I was jealous of every one to whom you
spoke. I wanted to have you all to myself. I was only happy when I
was with you. When I was away from you, you were still present in
my art. It was all wrong and foolish. It is all wrong and foolish still.
Of course I never let you know anything about this. It would have
been impossible. You would not have understood it; I did not
understand it myself. One day I determined to paint a wonderful
portrait of you. It was to have been my masterpiece. It is my
masterpiece. But, as I worked at it, every flake and film of color
seemed to me to reveal my secret. I grew afraid that the world would
know of my idolatry…
Most of this paragraph was cut from the 1891 version, why?
9. Walter Pater‟s The Renaissance influenced
Wilde‟s aesthetic vision in The Picture of
Dorian Gray as a whole, and “flame-like”
alludes to Pater‟s famous “Conclusion” to
the book (Riquelme 621).
