On Wilde’s Paradoxical Aestheticism from The Picture of Dorian Gray.doc

On Wilde’s Paradoxical Aestheticism from The Picture of Dorian Gray.doc On Wilde’s Paradoxical Aestheticism from The Picture of Dorian Gray 从《道连?格雷的画像》看王尔德的悖论式唯美主义 摘 要 19 世纪末在欧洲出现的唯美主义思潮是最直接提倡 “为艺术而艺术” 的文艺思潮。奥斯卡?王尔德是唯美主义的最积极鼓吹者, 也是唯美主义文学的身体力行者。奥斯卡?王尔德的长篇小说《道连?格雷的画像》从故事情节、人物塑造和叙事手法等方面,反映出王尔德唯美主义文艺观的丰富内涵。王尔德并不是一个彻底的唯美主义者,一方面他希望建立美的乌托邦,使美独立于功利和道德说教,希望人们通过对至高无上的美的膜拜得到救赎。另一方面他的大部分作品中自始至终蕴含对社会人生的思考与关怀以及对当时维多利亚虚伪道德的揭露与批判。他的美学思想与创作实践中的确存在着矛盾性,然而并不能说因此而削弱了其艺术思想及作品的价值。通过对其美学探索历程的深入分析,我们可以更为准确了解及和评价王尔德及当时的唯美主义。 关键词:王尔德;唯美主义;道连?格雷的画像 i Abstract The trend of thought in aestheticism that advocated the idea of ―art for art‘s sake‖ which appeared at the end of the 19th century .Wilde was the most active advocator and also the earnest practitioner of aestheticism, based on textual analysis of the plot, characterization, and narrative method of Wilde‘s novel The Picture of Dorian Gray, explores the connotative meaning and implications of Aestheticism advocated by Wilde for literary creation. Wilde is not a downright aesthete. While making his effort to separate art from utilitarianism and preaching of morality and help people seek redemption by paying homage to the ultimate beauty, he also made attempts to discuss life and morality and reminded people of the hypocrisy of Victorian morality and the flimsy illusion of decent virtues in most of his literary creation. Although there are contradictions in his aesthetic theory and artworks, we can not say the value of his exploration and creation is hereby impaired. Through the analysis of his pursuit of aestheticism in depth, we will understand and evaluate Wilde and the contemporary aestheticism. Key words: Wilde; aestheticism; The Picture of Dorian Gray ii Contents 摘 要 …………………………………………………………………. i Abstract …………………………………………….……….…………. ii Introduction ……………………………………...……………………. 1 Chapter 1 The Biography of Oscar Wilde …....................................... 3 1.1 The Life of Oscar Wilde …………………………….…..………… 3 1.2 Social and Culture Background ….………………….…………..... 5 Chapter 2 Detailed Analysis of The Picture of Dorian Gray ………... 7 2.1 An Introduction of the Novel …………………………………….. 7 2.2 Symbolism of Characters………………………………………… 10 Chapter 3 Wilde’s Philosophy on Morality ………………………… 15 3.1 Aestheticism Embodied in Wilde‘s Work ………………………... 15 3.2 The Paradoxical Aestheticism ………………………………….... 17 Conclusion…………………….………………………………………. 22 Bibliography…………………………………..……………………… 24 Acknowledgements iii B.A. Thesis Introduction Introduction As one of the greatest writers in Victorian Age, Wilde also is the famous spokesman of English Aesthetic Movement. His aestheticism plays an important role in English literature. That was undoubtedly better known in his lifetime for his scandalous lifestyle than for his literary theories and their execution in his dramas. Oscar Wilde believes that ―art is supreme‖ in his pure artistic theory, thinking that art is higher than nature and life, not related to ultra morals, but a pure ―form‖. For him, reality means falsehood, ugliness and vulgarness. Therefore, he advocates the transformation of life into art to create an independent and pure aesthetic world outside reality. Opposed to his contemporary realist ideas, he uses his aesthetic beauty of individuality love to fight against the ugly world. Aestheticism has always been criticized for its inconsistency between the practice and theory. The problem was originated from the contradiction with in its idea. This contradiction, however, was not because of the writers' lack of logicality but an unconscious reflection of its contemporary society. The Picture of Dorian Gray is the only published novel written by Oscar Wilde .It is also a highly symbolic novel. From the perspective of the character-portraying and the plots-developing, this thesis explores 1 B.A. Thesis Introduction how Wilde‘s aesthetic art is embodied, and probes into the implied viewpoints on morality, art and lifestyle in the novel. The three main characters in the novel respectively symbolize the various aspects of aestheticism. In the masks of Henry, Hallward and the once innocent Grey whose values are conflicting, Wilde conduct a sober analysis of himself and the social surroundings, which show his moral concerns and his seriousness in discussion of moral anarchy. So it might be helpful and necessary that we re-evaluate Wilde‘s aestheticism and his work The Picture of Dorian Gray. Wilde‘s theory of aestheticism, being part of his ―art‖, remotes art from life so successful that he himself can‘t separate his life from his aestheticism. Although the paradise of art momentarily provides such shelter, Wilde indulges himself too much in this world that finally he cannot tell life from art. 2 B.A. Thesis Chapter 1 The Biography of Oscar Wilde Chapter 1 The Biography of Oscar Wilde 1.1 The Life of Oscar Wilde Oscar Fingal O‘ Flahertie Wills Wilde (16 October 1854 – 30 November 1900) was an Irish wit, dramatist, and poet. The son of Dr. William Wilde, an eminent surgeon, and Jane Francesca Elgee, well known under the pen name Speranza. Wilde studied classics at Trinity College, Dublin (1871–74), and then at Magdalen College, Oxford (1874–78). As a spokesman for aestheticism, in the early 1880s he gave a lecture tour in the U.S. and established himself in London circles by his wit and flamboyance. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of London's most popular playwrights in the early 1890s. At the turn of the 1890s, he refined his ideas about the supremacy of art in a series of dialogues and essays; and incorporated themes of decadence, duplicity and beauty into his only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890). The opportunity to construct aesthetic details precisely, combined with larger social themes, and drew Wilde to writing drama. He wrote Salome (1891) in French in Paris which was later adapted as the libretto of R. Strauss‘s opera. His other plays, all successes, include Lady 3 B.A. Thesis Chapter 1 The Biography of Oscar Wilde Windermere’s Fan (1893), A Woman of No Importance (1893), and An Ideal Husband (1895). Wilde produced four society comedies in the early 1890s, which made him one of the most successful playwrights of late Victorian London. However, for he challenged the Victorian moral systems with his radical viewpoints and flamboyant lifestyle, he was severely punished for his homosexuality, which was illegal in his time and led to his imprisonment and miserable downfall of reputation. In prison he wrote De Profundis, a long letter which discusses his spiritual journey through his trials, forming a dark counterpoint to his earlier philosophy of pleasure. Upon his release he left immediately for France, never to return to Ireland or Britain. There he wrote his last work, The Ballad of Reading Gaol, a long poem commemorating the harsh rhythms of prison life. He died destitute in Paris at the age of forty-six. His quaint style of dressing, trenchant wit and eloquence, aesthetic belief of ―art for art‘s sake‖ and sexual orientation make a mystery of him. In public eyes, he belonged to ―the alternative society‖. And many years after his death, his mystic resplendent charm began to assert itself and gained increasing admiration from more open-minded generations. He was the consummate performer, that just as he brought dramatic characters into being for the stage, so he staged his own personality for various people, at various times, in a variety of ways. Like his novel‘s 4 B.A. Thesis Chapter 1 The Biography of Oscar Wilde antihero, Dorian Gray, Wilde does not understand identity ―as a thing simple, permanent, reliable, and of one essence‖ but as a succession of masks and guises to be put on and taken off as he desired. 1. 2 Social and Culture Background Every writer is definitely influenced by the time he grows up and lives in. Wilde‘s whole lifetime was spent in the Victorian Age, one of the most powerful and influential periods in English history. Although writing from different points of view and with different techniques, writers in the Victorian Period shared one thing in common, that was, they were all concerned about the fate of the common people. By this time, romanticism gradually gave way to realism. During the Victorian Age the novel gradually became the dominant form of literature. And it was characterized by strict moral rules. Therefore taking a look at the historical back ground should help us understand Wilde better. The rising capitalist who benefited from such virtues as earnestness, obedience, rationality, and self-restraint canonized them. However, when pushed to the extreme, the moral culture became cruel and inhuman. Thus the lower class turned indifferent to ―the hard and fast rules‖ while the upper class develops its own hypocritical way to cope with them. At the end of 19th century, with the Industrial Revolution and the progress of science, gradually social skepticism towards religion grew 5 B.A. Thesis Chapter 1 The Biography of Oscar Wilde and the standard of Victorian solid virtues became less convincing. The dissatisfaction with the society seeks expression in art and literature. The Victorian moral was challenged by social reformers like the Fabians, the avant-garde of artists and intellectuals. Wilde‘s aesthetic philosophy was developed in such a social surrounding. As a staunch advocate for the aesthetic movement which developed in Britain during the late nineteenth century as a protest against the prevailing industrial emphasis on ―the useful‖ or utilitarianism, and to the perceived ugliness. Aesthetic movement that centered on the doctrine that art exists for the sake of its beauty alone. J. M. Whistler, O. Wilde, and S. Mallarme raised the movement‘s ideal of the cultivation of refined sensibility to perhaps its highest point. The movement became extravagant and was doomed not to persist as it had begun, for it was approaching the evil in an unhelpful manner. And into it came Wilde, a young man with many talents and in particular a very great talent for histrionics. Wilde was the figurehead of the aesthetic movement, in which the main doctrine was ―art for art‘s sake‖. He impresses the world primarily with his amazing power of language in presenting his aesthetic thoughts and theories. He adopted various thoughts from different schools, and developed his own aesthetic philosophy and embodied successfully in part of his works. 6 B.A. Thesis Chapter 2 Detailed Analysis of The Picture of Dorian Gray Chapter 2 Detailed Analysis of The Picture of Dorian Gray 2. 1 An Introduction of the Novel Oscar Wilde as one of the most distinguished aesthetes overpowers the English world with his scintillating address and writing on aestheticism. Especially in ―the picture of Dorian Gray‖, the only novel in his lifetime, Wilde paints a picture in which his brilliant aesthetic creeds find their full expression. The Picture of Dorian Gray , sensational at its very publication, notorious once for quite a period, the first version of The Picture of Dorian Gray was published as the lead story in the July 1890 edition of Lippincott's Monthly Magazine, along with five others. The novel begins as Gray's portrait is being completed by the painter Basil Halhvard, and he talks with the libertine Lord Henry Wotton, a friend of Hallward, who has a curious influence on him. Lord Henry Wotton persuaded the youth to take up a life of sensual indulgence. When Gray, who has a ―face like ivory and rose leaves‖, sees his finished portrait he breaks down, distraught that his beauty will fade, but the portrait stay beautiful, the plot parallels the Faustus legend. Like Faustus who is controlled by curiosity for forbidden knowledge, Dorian Gray has, in effect, sold his soul to the devil for everlasting youth. 7 B.A. Thesis Chapter 2 Detailed Analysis of The Picture of Dorian Gray For the next eighteen years, pushed by Wotton‘s malign influence Dorian seeks pleasure and experience, and seeks out to satisfy his hunger for a life of sensation, and finally commits murder. However, his moral lapses and growing degeneracy leaves no trace elsewhere but on the painting. During this time the portrait, hidden from view in Dorian‘s attic, mysteriously ages and become repulsive, reflecting the effects of Dorian‘s excesses, while Dorian himself remains unchanged, which becomes more and more frightful with each evil conduct Dorian commits. He feels unrest at the thought of the revealing painting and grows to abhor it and its creator as well. In a fit of irrational rage, he killed the artist. Then to get rid of the corpse, he blackmails his former friend, a chemist, into disposing the body to conceal his crime. His ultimate attempt to destroy the painting results in his own death; the portrait then resumes its original appearance, and the hideous corpse found lying before it is only with difficulty identified as that of Dorian Gray. For Wilde, the purpose of art would guide life if beauty alone were its object. Thus Gray's portrait allows him to escape the corporeal ravages of his hedonism; Wilde sought to juxtapose the beauty he saw in art onto daily life. Reviewers immediately criticized the novel's content and decadence, and Wilde vigorously responded in print. Writing to the Editor of the Scots Observer, he clarified his stance on ethics and aesthetics in art ―If a 8 B.A. Thesis Chapter 2 Detailed Analysis of The Picture of Dorian Gray work of art is rich and vital and complete, those who have artistic instincts will see its beauty and those to whom ethics appeal more strongly will see its moral lesson.‖ He nevertheless revised it extensively for book publication in 1891: six new chapters were added, some overt decadence passages and homo-eroticism excised, and a preface consisting of twenty two epigrams, such as ―Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.‖ was included. Contemporary reviewers and modern critics have postulated numerous possible sources of the story, a search Jershua Mc Cormack argues is futile because Wilde ―has tapped a root of Western folklore so deep and ubiquitous that the story has escaped its origins and returned to the oral tradition.‖ Wilde claimed the plot was ―an idea that is as old as the history of literature but to which I have given a new form‖. Modern critics have considered the novel to be technically mediocre: the conceit of the plot has guaranteed its fame, but the device is never pushed to its full. On the other hand, there were some critics surprisingly reading it as an ethical parable and even praising it for its high moral import. In fact, Wilde felt perplexed and infuriated at the reception of the book. Actually in the novel he consciously contained a moral lesson, ―All excess, as well as all renunciation, brings its own punishment‖ (Wilde,1962:259), as he admitted in a letter to readers of The St. Tames Gazette. Moreover, he 9 B.A. Thesis Chapter 2 Detailed Analysis of The Picture of Dorian Gray wrote in the same letter, ―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.‖ (Wilde, 1962:292) So why most critics regarded the novel as immoral confused him. 2.2 Symbolism of Characters Pervading in his literary works are epigrammic wit, amusing irony and paradoxical quotes with humorous skepticism and cynical charm. Especially in ―the picture of Dorian Gray‖, Wilde instills himself and his aesthetic doctrines into the three characters involved in such a tactful way that the book has since become one of his most celebrated works, a brilliant example of his power as a storyteller and of his flamboyant wit as an aesthetic writer. For the novel, Wilde has said, ―it contained much of me in it. Basil Hallward is what I think I am: Lord Henry what the world thinks me: Dorian what I would like to be‖. (Wilde, 1962: 352) Under the mask of the three characters, Wilde freely displays his contradictory views on the subject of art and popular morality, both of which seem convincing and he does not clarify his inclination. The three characters in question, Dorian Gray, a young with heart-throbbing physical beauty; Basil Hallward, a painter devoted to art heart and soul; and Lord Henry Wotton, an aristocratic dandy who tempts 10 B.A. Thesis Chapter 2 Detailed Analysis of The Picture of Dorian Gray Dorian Gray into moral degeneration .Although the characterization of the novel to be not fully developed, the general aspect of the characters and the tenor of their conversation remind that Mr. Wilde‘s objects and philosophy are different from others. Just as Merlin Holland says in his memoir of his father, ―our view of Wilde must always be a multicolored kaleidoscope of apparent contradictions in need not of resolution but of appreciation.‖ (Raby, 1997: 16) Lord Harry plays the part of Old Harry in the story and lives to witness the destruction of every other person in it. He may be taken as an imaginative type of all that is most evil and most refined in modern civilization—a charming, gentle, witty, euphemistic Mephistopheles, who deprecates the vulgarity of goodness, regarded beauty and youth as the supreme. And also he was a man of great insight and eloquence, who could decorate his fallacies make them look like truths. Through Lord Henry, Wilde had expressed his numerous paradoxes. There was another important reason to explain why the world thinks Lord Henry is Wilde. Wilde adopted a dandical and showy pose in real life as the character Lord Henry Wotton. Henry‘s philosophy about love, marriage was considered quiet the extreme of decadence, so did Wilde‘s distance from his wife and two sons. Lord Henry kept seeking to be merely the spectator of life, yet a notorious spectator. ―…the one charm of marriage is that it makes a life of deception absolutely necessary for 11 B.A. Thesis Chapter 2 Detailed Analysis of The Picture of Dorian Gray both parties.‖ ―Men marry because they are tired; women, because they are curious; both are disappointed‖. (Wilde, 1994:168) Those cynical words uttered by Wotton were regarded as Wilde‘s own thoughts on morality. Even today, these theories would also be regarded as immoral and degenerated. Wilde was really known himself so well, just like looking into anyone else‘s life. His ―anti-convention‖ was where his charm laid, as well as his lament. Upon the whole, Lord Harry is the most ably portrayed character in the book, though not the most original in conception. Dorian Gray himself is as nearly a new idea in fiction as one has nowadays a right to expect. If he had been adequately realised and worked out, Mr. Wilde‘s first novel would have been remembered after more meritorious ones were forgotten. As stated before, in the novel, the protagonist – the pure, innocent portrait when painted – was a symbol of internal, deepest beauty that nothing could compare with. Wilde devoted his whole life in striving beauty at any price. To an aestheticism, beauty was the only in the whole universe. This philosophy might be too extreme; What‘s more, this genius also had created so many beauties, not for himself only, but for us, for the whole society. Lord Henry used to say that emotion was the obstruction for pursuing pleasure, especially organic pleasure. So Dorian‘s efficient way to get over sorrow was to forget, forget the past. The second day 12 B.A. Thesis Chapter 2 Detailed Analysis of The Picture of Dorian Gray after his first lover, Sibyl‘s death, Dorian referred that death the past. Heartless Dorian became what he himself said, ?Like the painting of a sorrow, A face without a heart.‘ from Hamlet. (Wilde, 1994:170) These words must came from someone who had too much sorrow, suffering too much. Actually, when we were sad, we would have this kind of thought too. Sensitive as Wilde, would be hurt by, be sad about too many things, so he needed a way to deal with. Dorian‘s self-destruction reveals Wilde‘s moral tendency distinctly. However, Wilde himself should shoulder responsibility to some extent. Except for the self-destruction of Dorian at the end of the story, Wilde does not specify his own moral leanings conspicuously as the contemporary audience expects. Moreover, Dorian‘s evil conducts described in detailed context seems reasonable and justifiable to some extent. It seems that the writer has sympathy for Dorian‘s wrongdoings between the lines occasionally. And Dorian‘s constant search Dorian Gray was Wilde‘s dream, a dream partly came true. They shared the same sorrowful ending, just as other geniuses. If, say, Dorian Gray is the embodiment of beauty in the story, then it is Basil Hallward the painter who converts Dorian‘s worldly existence into a heightened sphere of art. In Basil‘s appreciation of beauty and art, top priority is given to his sensibility rather than sense and reason. When he first met Dorian Gray, he gives a delicate and passionate description of 13 B.A. Thesis Chapter 2 Detailed Analysis of The Picture of Dorian Gray the psychological change he undergoes ―a curious sensation of terror came over me… it would absorb my whole nature, my whole soul, my very art itself‖. (ibid: 8) And in the same chapter, he made a confession to Lord Henry about the influence of Dorian‘s beauty upon his art as ―unconsciously he defines for me the lines of a fresh school, a school that is … and have invented a realism that is vulgar and ideality that is void‖. Here the effect of sensibility is heightened to an extent to which it can even penetrate one‘s nature and soul while realism is despised as being vulgar. Just as Basil‘s extravagant panegyrics on Dorian‘s beauty is a reflection of his emphasis upon sensibility in artistic creation, which could be further proved by his refusal to paint for somebody else despite the huge price offered to him just because ―there was something in the shape of his fingers that I hated‖. The description serves as an indicator of the artist‘s preference of sensibility to rationalism in his pursuit of art, which is in accordance with Wilde‘s theory of ―there is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. ‖. The Picture of Dorian Gray is not only a picture in which Wilde‘s aestheticism is faithfully painted, but also a picture that delineates his inner world. The novel in effect integrates different aspects of Wilde‘s social and critical thinking. This is clear in Dorian the hero, who exists both as a picture and as human. 14 B.A. Thesis Chapter 3 Wilde‘s Philosophy on Morality Chapter 3 Wilde’s Philosophy on Morality 3.1 Aestheticism Embodied in Wilde’s Work In the novel that is tinged with mythical color, Dorian, Basil and Henry are all aesthetes respectively representing Oscar Wilde‘s aestheticism in their own way. Typical of aesthetical style expression, Wilde attaches such ―split personality‖ on the three main characters, thus making the novel a strange one, a partly supernatural tale in which the characters are not individuals but symbols that move in a shadowy world of wit and terror. It is like a receptacle, where various Victorian art movements co-exist, collide, and finally are personified into the male characters, each one corresponding to different stages in the development of Victorian human nature. In Dorian Gray he is true certainly, on the whole, to the aesthetic philosophy of his Intentions; yet not infallibly, even on this point: there is a certain amount of the intrusion of real life and its sordid aspects—the low theatre, the pleasures and grief‘s, the faces of some very unrefined people, managed, of course, cleverly enough. The interlude of Jim Vane, his half-sullen but wholly faithful care for his sister‘s honour, is as good as perhaps anything of the kind, marked by a homely but real pathos, 15 B.A. Thesis Chapter 3 Wilde‘s Philosophy on Morality succulently proving versatility in the writer‘s talent, which should make his books popular. Since Dorian in many ways implies the decadent, this neat split allows us to separate decadence as an art movement from decadence as a mode of life, and to examine the two separately. ―And since The Picture of Dorian Gray is primarily an examination of the decadent movement, it is proper that Wotton should present Pater‘s doctrine as it was understood by the decadents, not as Pater meant it to be understood.‖ Wotton‘s demonic sermon destroys Dorian‘s state of innocence and plunges him into a state of experience. Wilde's aestheticism is still a morally engaged one. He firmly resists the society which seemed intent on debasing the imagination and inhibiting individual self-development with moral restricts. He is sick of the hypocritical moral standards of Victorian upper class and opposes the artwork created for political or religious purposes. However, Wilde‘s standpoint on moral and art cannot be summarized by the principles he stated in his critical essays. In his rebellion to the orthodoxy moral control, he can not help going to another extreme at times, and find it hard to make his argument consistent in his writing practice. He more or less rectifies his radical judgement about the relation between art and moral in his literary works. He adopts the masks of different roles in his artwork to air his various thoughts and display his 16 B.A. Thesis Chapter 3 Wilde‘s Philosophy on Morality multidimensional and ambiguous opinions. So if we judge his views on morality only from his critical thinking without analyzing, it will inevitably run the risk of being partial. In the following analysis, I will interpret the moral messages implied in his fairy tales, novel and social comedies which are representative of his moral views. In Dorian Gray he is true certainly, on the whole, to the aesthetic philosophy of his Intentions; yet not infallibly, even on this point: there is a certain amount of the intrusion of real life and its sordid aspects—the low theatre, the pleasures and griefs, the faces of some very unrefined people, managed, of course, cleverly enough. 3. 2 The Paradoxical Aestheticism Wilde‘s unique weapon—paradox mostly let out by Wotton, who, as Wilde says the one the world think of him, never says a moral thing but never does a wrong thing. His genial, laughter-loving sense of life and its enjoyable intercourse, goes far to obviate any crudity there may be in the paradox, with which, as with the bright and shining truth which often underlies it, Mr. Wilde, startling his ―countrymen,‖ carries on, more perhaps than any other writer, the brilliant critical work of Matthew Arnold. ―The Decay of Lying,‖ for instance, is all but unique in its half-humorous, yet wholly convinced, presentment of certain valuable 17 B.A. Thesis Chapter 3 Wilde‘s Philosophy on Morality truths of criticism. Conversational ease, the fluidity of life, felicitous expression, are qualities which have a natural alliance to the successful writing of fiction; and side by side with Mr. Wilde‘s Intentions (so he entitles his critical efforts) comes a novel, certainly original, and affording the reader a fair opportunity of comparing his practice as a creative artist with many a precept he has enounced as critic concerning it. If cynicism is only a pose of Henry, then Henry is simply a mask of Wilde, a man of outward cynicism but inward sincerity, with the latter idiosyncrasy latent in Basil the painter. As the mouthpiece of Wilde, Henry leads no actual life of himself; however, he practices his ―creed‖ on Dorian Gray instead, in that numerous paradoxes make him too cynical to live a secular life. So all the importance of his existing in the novel, in addition to the representative of the id of course, is no more than a mask, the mask of himself, of Wilde or even of the other characters, Under such mask those characters hide as much as they reveal. We say ―hide‘‘ and ―reveal‖ at the same time because Harry never chooses the usual way but instead the paradoxical to describe his ―victims‖. Either Dorian, or Basil, or Walton, all could be categorized into typification and summarizzd in just one word, as is mentioned before, yet they three combine autographically into Wilde himself. Such means of expression is like color a picture with lines, too paradoxical to be a mission possible. Wilde fulfills such mission so naturally, though not 18 B.A. Thesis Chapter 3 Wilde‘s Philosophy on Morality perfectly to be flank, that this ―picture‖ fully portraits out the stereograph of humanity, on the first place the humanity in he himself. Paradoxically, Basil has already paved the way for Wotton by excessively worshipping Dorian‘s physical beauty and making Dorian aware of this beauty. Thus he ―represents an art movement that recognizes the evil within the self and seriously with it, but can accept it only in small doses.‖ Basil‘s contradiction is revealed enough in the statement. How could his art be objective and be autobiographical at the sanle time? That is his paradox in The Picture of Dorian Gray. ―Basil represents all idealized, plalonized homosexuality, linked to a long tradition of art and philosophy.‘‘ Actually, he is in love with him less as an individual than as the embodiment of a Hellenic ideal In a sense, Dorian is reluctantly objectified by Basil, and the latter attempts to rival for Dorian with Henry, mid this is evident from his hindrance of Henry‘s meeting with Dorian in the first chapters. Even Dorian the model realizes during the process of drawing that ―you like you art better than your friends. I am no more to you than a green bronze figure. I tardly as much, I dare say.‘‘ fellingly, the idealized homosexuality that Basil represents inspires in him shame and fear, and deters him to publicize the picture. If this shows a spark of homosexuality then from the day he dares to distribute outward the portrait he becomes a mere narcissus to others. Dorian himself, though certainly a quite unsuccessful experiment in 19 B.A. Thesis Chapter 3 Wilde‘s Philosophy on Morality Epicureanism, in life as a fine art, is a beautiful creation. But his story is also a vivid, though carefully considered, exposure of the corruption of a soul, with a very plain moral, pushed home, to the effect that vice and crime make people coarse and ugly. Nevertheless, Sybil is a character who knows nothing of evil. She is the symbol of the innocence of the Victorians, both in life and in art. She represents a movement in art that knows nothing of evil and dwells in a beautiful, private world. In this respect, she suggests‘ Tennyson more than anyone else. General readers will probably care less for this moral, less for the fine, largely appreciative for displaying his singular wit. They see in Wilde‘s use of language a ―paradoxical method‖ playing off ―the convertibility of terms.‖ Critics have always addressed Wilde‘s use of language, his witticisms, puns, reversals of meaning, and his paradoxes, assessing them as proof of his genius, his art‘s shallowness, or a position somewhere between these two extremes. Le Gallienne appreciates that often Wilde‘s humor masks the underlying seriousness of his statements, and critics today often address the staking out of important ethical and aesthetic positions in many of Wilde‘s witticisms. The ability to play with the signification of language, the fact that words are not inescapably tied to definite meanings, is a very modern attitude to strike, one that students might employ to examine Wilde‘s relevance to contemporary theoretical 20 B.A. Thesis Chapter 3 Wilde‘s Philosophy on Morality approaches to language. It belongs to Mr. Wilde‘s paradoxical method that he should continually play on the convertibility of terms. Thus, the whole contention of his essays on criticism is that criticism and creation are essentially one and the same, or, at least, that they necessarily dovetail one into the other; and yet towards the end of this essay we find Gilbert saying ―it is certain that the subject-matter at the disposal of creation is always diminishing, while the subject-matter of criticism increases daily‖. Here we have the two terms crystallised once more to their hard and fast everyday meaning, while all through they have been used as convertible. This is apt to bewilder. As a rule, however, Mr. Wilde gains his effects by adhering to the concrete signification of words. This reduces some of his contentions to a mere question of terms. One often feels: Now, if that word was but changed for another, for which it really stands, there would be nothing further to say. But that, of course, would not do for Mr. Wilde, nor, indeed, for us, to whom, presumably, subject is nought and treatment is all. 21 B.A. Thesis Conclusion Conclusion In the late Victorian society, the moral culture became inhumanly rigid and repressive. People seek ways to either escape or challenge those solid Victorian virtues. Grown up in such a moral-sensitive society, Wilde could never totally abandon the moral concern as he claimed. In his claim of art-for-art‘s sake, he resented to trivialize art with life, whereas art portraits his life faithfully; he advocated to practice his preaches of art in life. It is said that for an artist, his best autobiography is his own works. The author may write a novel based on his own experience, about his outlook to the world, with his soul hiding in it. That is true. The Picture of Dorian Gray is a perfect illustration of Oscar Wilde‘s life, as well as his characteristics. Through the experience of Dorian Grey, Wilde has conducted a sober self-analysis. And the ending of the novel turns out to prove his belief that total moral anarchy lead nowhere. He is neither an amoralist nor an immoralist in essence. Moreover, as we know, he is a contradictory thinker, and even he himself realizes his prejudices and arbitrariness. ―Not that I agree with everything that I have said in this essay. There is much with which I entirely disagree. The essay simply represents an 22 B.A. Thesis Conclusion artistic standpoint, and in aesthetic criticism attitude is everything. For in art there is no such thing as a universal truth. A truth in art is that whose contradictory is also true‖. (Raby, 1997:3) So he somewhat corrected his radical standpoints in his literary creation and revealed his moral concerns in most of his masterpieces. To sum up, he does not abandon the traditional moral virtues. He opposes the traditional aesthetic principle to create art work for moral purposes. And he challenges the traditional moral standards which restraint people‘s behavior for the society‘s benefit at the cost of the freedom and happiness of the individuals. As a result his aesthetic thoughts became very influential in his time and brought forth the prosperity of aestheticism. The paradoxes and inner contradictions in Wilde‘s art and life and the different positions in his critical theory; therefore, reside ultimately in his divergent responses to his social and cultural conditions. It is he, and not anyone else, who breaks away from his aestheticism in aim of approaching it ironically. Wilde is a conformist rebel, an earnest liar, and a cynical recluse. In a word, he is the biggest paradox ever made. 23 Bibliography Ellmann, Richard. Oscar Wilde: A Biography[M]. London: Hamith Hamilton, 1987. Raby, Peter. (ed.) The Cambridge Companion to Oscar Wilde[C]. 上海:上海外语教育出版社, 1997. Varty, Anne. 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