Readings Classics: The Picture of Dorian Gray

Description

Enamored by the beauty of Dorian Gray the sensitive artist Basil Hallward paints in oil a full-length portrait of the protagonist. Sitting there Gray listens to the hedonistic worldviews of Hallward s friend Lord Henry Wotton and wants to stay young forever to pursue his epicurean ideals. He wishes his portrait to age instead of himself. Later, when he dumps his actress friend Sybil Vane Gray notices a change of expression in his portrait. He knows that his wish has been granted. Now nothing will keep him from leading the life of a libertine. The Picture of Dorian Gray is a tour de force in which Wilde intricately explores the idea of “art for art’s sake” Published in 1890 it is his only novel and arguably his best work.

Author Biography

Oscar Wilde was an Irish writer, playwright, poet and essayist. He spent most of his life in London where he was a most famous writer and socialite in the late Victorian Age. He was born in Dublin on 16 October 1854. He studied at Trinity College, Dublin and Magdalen College, Oxford. He later lived in London and married Constance Lloyd there in 1884. Wilde was a leader of the Aesthetic Movement. His only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, was first published in Lippincotts Monthly Magazine in 1890. He published a revised and expanded edition in 1891 in response to negative reviews which criticised the books immorality.

Wilde became famous through of the immense success of his plays such as Lady Windemeres Fan (1892), An Ideal Husband (1895) and The Importance of Being Earnest (1895). In 1985, after a public scandal involving Wildes relationship with Lord Alfred Douglas, he was sentenced to two years hard labour in Reading Gaol for gross indecency. His poem The Ballad of Reading Gaol was based on his experiences in prison and was published in 1898. After his release, Wilde never lived in England again and died in Paris on 30 November 1900. He is buried in Pere Lachaise cemetery.