Beautiful Things


"'An artist should create beautiful things, but should put nothing of his own life into them.
We live in an age when men treat art as if it were meant to be a form of autobiography.
We have lost the abstract sense of beauty’” (14).
Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890)



Points for Reflection

O. Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890) Preface & chps. 1-6

  1. do any of the epigrams in Wilde’s Preface sound more witty than true? Deliberate closely on a few of these and test their logic, their practicality, and their accuracy.
  2. how would the poets we have read thus far respond to the various claims in Wilde's Preface? Does Wilde directly echo, or counter, the poetic theories of any particular Romantic and/or Victorian poets?
  3. what about Dorian Gray has caused Basil’s obsession with the younger man?  What does Basil mean when he says he is so immediately struck by Dorian Gray’s “personality,” when they have yet to exchange a single word of dialogue (10)?
  4. what is Basil’s rationale for not displaying his painting of Dorian?  Do his claims echo those of any Romantic poets we have read?
  5. take the attention to diction and detail which you have practiced in our analysis of poetry, and turn it to Wilde’s prose.  How does his careful deployment of modifiers (adjectives and adverbs) help shape character?
  6. do Lord Henry Wotton’s numerous ironic, often paradoxical aphorisms echo or deviate from the epigrams of Wilde’s Preface?
  7. compare Lord Wotton’s maxims with Basil Hallward’s.  Do the words of one character make more intuitive sense than the other’s?  Would you agree with Mr Erskine that Lord Henry’s “‘paradoxes [are] the way of truth” (40)?  Mr. Erksine maintains that “To test Reality we must see it on the tight-rope. When the Verities become acrobats we can judge them’” (40).
  8. are Lord Henry’s cynical observations about life hypocritical?  Does he practice what he preaches?  Does he mean what he says?
  9. Basil says at the conclusion of chapter one that Dorian Gray has a “‘simple and beautiful nature’” (16).  Does anything which he has admitted to earlier in the chapter complicate this view of Dorian?
  10. does Lord Henry discover in Dorian Gray the same attributes that attracted Basil?  Why does this wealthy man find himself so interested in Dorian?
  11. is Dorian in control of the changes that begin coursing through his mind in chapter two? [Genesis L]
  12. are beauty and intellect blessings or curses according to Basil?  Does Lord Henry concur? [Joy R]
  13. what is holding humanity back from complete self-actualization, according to Lord Henry?
  14. after completing today’s reading, look back at the first page of chapter one (5). Why might Wilde begin this novel with two paragraphs so completely filled with sensuous descriptions of stimuli taken in by nose, eyes, and ears? [Isabelle F]
  15. consider the significance of the word “oppressive” towards the end of paragraph two (5).  Does this word surprise you, given what it follows?  If so, why?
  16. why does Lord Henry label his wife “sentimental” after she leaves the little library (in her house) where she has just met Dorian Gray for the first time?
  17. why does Lord Henry think it normal that Dorian should not initially have been interested in getting to know Sybil Vane (53)?  He says he will explain his comment later—can we explain it now?
  18. does Lord Henry view Dorian more as a piece of art or as an experiment? [Rachel K]
  19. are Basil and Lord Henry Cartesian dualists?  Does they believe in a rigid separation of the body from the soul?  What of the emotions and the intellect—are they mutually exclusive?
  20. do Lord Henry's opinions on art, aesthetics, and pleasure fit nicely into his predilection for psychological analysis and experimentation?
  21. Lord Henry states that “‘acting . . . is so much more real than life’” (77).  Does what we learn of Mrs. Vane in chapter five suggest that her preoccupation with acting and the stage brings her more in touch with “reality” than her non-acting son?
  22. is Dorian Gray correct about Sibyl Vane—is she always inhabiting another character and never quite herself (54)? Does she live in a world of fantasy?
  23. do Lord Henry’s cynical comments about women dovetail with or deviate from his general attitude towards love?
  24. does it surprise you that the author of "The Happy Prince" also wrote The Picture of Dorian Gray? What attitude towards philanthropy is Lord Henry advancing thus far?


naked man helps turn a great wheel larger than himiself
detail from The Wheel of Fortune (1875-83)
Edward Burne Jones

Dr. Paul Marchbanks
pmarchba@calpoly.edu