Oscar Wilde (16 October 1854 – 30 November 1900)

Four main influences

• Pre-raphaelites• Aestheticism• Hedonist philosophy• Arts for arts’ sake philosophy

PRE-RAPHAELITES

• Valued the pre-Renaissance artistic qualities of religious symbolism, lavish pictorialism and natural sensuousness

• Their paintings reflect the pre-Renaissance ideal of man, the Hellenic ideal, harmony of body and soul

• The main members of the group include Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Christina Rossetti and Walter Pater

Grail by Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Self-Portrait, 1847

Wind flowers by Christina Rosetti

Ophelia by John Walter Waterhouse, 1905

The Lady of Shalott by John Walter Waterhouse, 1888

AESTHETICISM, the British branch of French symbolism/Decadence

• Beauty will save the world• Beauty is the measure of goodness• “it was something (beautiful) in his face

that made you trust him”• One of the best manifestations of

beauty is music

HEDONIST PHILOSOPHY• Pleasure is the highest good • The ultimate goal of one’s life is to seek pleasure

and to avoid pain• Pleasure = happiness• Self-denial “mars” one’s life, leaving a person

unhappy and disappointed over the inability to experience pleasure

• In light of the Freudian theory, self-denial leads to the accumulation of negative reactions, that in their turn may lead to neurosis

Sigmund Freud’s topographical model of personality

ARTS FOR ARTS’ SAKE (Gautier) PHILOSOPHY

• Art is powerful; there is nothing art cannot express

• It has no utilitarian/moral value• It’s free of moral, political, philosophical

and social claims and made simply for its sake; art is allowed to be morally subversive

• Art is valued for its artistic value not for religious or moral ones

• Art should provide refined sensuous pleasure

• Art does no have any didactic purpose• Life should copy Art• Nature, compared to art, is crude and

lacking in design

Echo and Narcissus by John Walter Waterhouse, 1903

Metamorphosis of Narcissus by S. Dali

Why DORIAN GRAY?• = Doris (the masculine name did not exist)• The ancient Greek tribe – Dorians ( connotes an

element of danger and savagery)• The most simple of ancient architectural orders,

the unadorned Doric• Gray – a flat name for such a luminous,

inspirational young man• John Gray was a strikingly handsome young poet

and translator, who in all probability was one of Wilde’s lovers at the time of DG’s writing

USEFUL DEFINITIONS

• Paradox is a statement that is self-contradictory

• Oxymoron – a paradox reduced to two words that contradict each other (e.g. eloquent silence, inertly strong, bitter sweet)

• Aphorism – a terse (laconic) pointed statement expressing some wise or clever observation about life

• Witticism – a spontaneous witty remark