The Picture of Dorian Gray
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Classic Characters in English and American Literature The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde (1890) R.Baena 15.XI.2013 Facultad de Filosofía y Letras
Transcript of The Picture of Dorian Gray
Classic Characters in English and American Literature
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde (1890)
R.Baena15.XI.2013
Facultad de Filosofía y Letras
Life and work of Oscar Wilde
1. Genre. Reading pact
2. Plot and structure
3. Characters
4. Symbols and Themes
5. Ethics and Aesthetics
Facultad de Filosofía y Letras
LifeOscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde (Dublin 1854, Paris 1900)
Trinity College, Dublin and Magdalen College, OxfordAestheticism: English poet and critic, English essayist Walter Pater.Frank Miles, painter, and aesthete Lord Ronald Gower 1882, Lecture tour in America1884, Marriage to Constance Lloyd1895-1897, imprisonment with hard labour1897-1900, Paris
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Work
1881, first book of Poems1888, The Happy Prince and Other Tales1889, The Decay of Lying1890, The Picture of Dorian Gray1892, Lady Windermere’s Fan1893, A Woman of No Importance1895, An Ideal Husband1895, The Importance of Being Earnest
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1. Genre
NovelGothic RealismTragedy
R.L. Stevenson’s Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, 1886Myth of NarcissusMyth of Faust
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2. Plot and structure
Dramatic elements. Settings. Dialogues. Disquisitions.
1st part: 10 chapters (Lord Henry’s influence?2nd part: 10 chapters (18 years later, his life as an adult)
Turning point:
“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!” (49, chapter II).
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3. Characters
Dorian Gray. Extremely handsome, impressionable, and wealthy young gentleman. Sells his soul to the devil. Obssesed with beauty and youth.
Lord Henry Wotton. Flat character. Corruption. New Hedonism.
“You never say a moral thing and you never do a wrong thing. Your cynicism is simply a pose” (Basil on Lord Henry 26).
Basil Hallward. Round character. Friendship. Artist. Fatalism. Moral concerns.
“Basil Hallwards is what I think I am: Lord Henry is what the world thinks of me; Dorian is what I would like to be!” (Oscar Wilde)
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Def. literary terms:
Character: a verbal representation of a human being. Through action, speech, description, and commentary authors portray characters. Flat character undergo no change, they are like human types. Round characters do change during the story.
Symbol: something (a thing, an idea or an object) that represents an abstract idea.
Theme: central or dominating idea in a literary work, often an abstract concept which is made concrete through character and actions.
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4. Symbols:The portraitThe yellow bookThe opium densTheatre
Themes:The purpose of artAstheticism. Double life. Evil in human nature. Ambition (other classic characters?)Minor themes: friendship, life as drama…
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5. Ethics and Aesthetics
“Words! Mere words! How terrible they were! How clear, and vivid and cruel! One could not escape from them. And yet what a subtle magic there was in them! They seemed to be able to give a plastic form to formless things, and to have a music of their own… Was there anything so real as words?” (The Picture of DG 42).
“The artist is the creator of beautiful things… No artist has ethical sympathies… All art is quite useless”(Preface to The Picture of DG)““My work will ultimately be recognized as a real work of art with a strong ethical lesson inherent in it” (Oscar Wilde).
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