Concetti Chiave
- The Picture of Dorian Gray explores themes of beauty and hedonism, focusing on a young man whose portrait ages instead of him.
- Dorian Gray's desire to maintain his beauty leads him to a life of evil deeds, reflected in his increasingly grotesque portrait.
- The novel examines the concept of dualism, particularly in the Victorian context, with Dorian's character reflecting the portrait's transformation.
- Critics initially censored the book, leading Wilde to republish it with a preface that argues for the autonomy of art from moral judgment.
- The preface of the republished novel is regarded as the manifesto of English aesthetics, emphasizing art for art's sake.
Wilde - Picture of Dorian Gray, plot and style
The Picture of Dorian Gray is about a young man named Dorian Gray who has a portrait painted of himself. The artist, Basil Hallward, thinks Dorian Gray is very beautiful, and becomes obsessed with Dorian. One day in Basil's garden, Dorian Gray meets a man named Lord Henry Wotton, who makes Dorian believe that the only thing important in life is beauty.
Dorian realizes that he will become less beautiful as he grows older, so he wishes the portrait Basil painted would become old in his place.
Dorian's wish comes true.
Dorian thinks that only a full confession will make the portrait beautiful again. However, he does not feel guilty for anything he has done. So Dorian picks up a knife and destroys the portrait.
His servant hears a scream from his room, so he calls the police. The police finds Dorian's body on the floor with a stab wound in his heart. His body has become very aged, instead the portrait has become beautiful again.
Dorian is an hedonist, who research pleasure and who thinks that life has to be live in every aspect. Furthermore in this work there the theme of dualism (Victorian age) because there’s a corrispondence between Dorian and the portatrait.
The critics said that it was a bad book, in fact it was censored; so Wilde published one other time the novel with a preface where he explained the main ideas of aesthetics and that a book can’t be moral or immoral, it could only be a work of art or not. For there reasons the preface is considered the manifesto of English aesthetics.
Domande da interrogazione
- Qual è il tema principale de "Il ritratto di Dorian Gray"?
- Come reagisce Dorian Gray alla sua crescente consapevolezza della propria immoralità?
- Qual è stata la reazione della critica al romanzo e come ha risposto Oscar Wilde?
Il tema principale è il dualismo tra bellezza e moralità, rappresentato dalla corrispondenza tra Dorian e il suo ritratto, che invecchia e si deteriora con ogni atto malvagio compiuto da Dorian.
Dorian cerca di smettere di compiere azioni malvagie nella speranza che il ritratto torni bello, ma alla fine si rende conto che solo una confessione completa potrebbe farlo. Tuttavia, non prova alcun senso di colpa e decide di distruggere il ritratto.
La critica ha considerato il libro immorale, portando alla sua censura. Wilde ha risposto pubblicando nuovamente il romanzo con una prefazione che spiegava le idee estetiche principali, affermando che un libro non può essere morale o immorale, ma solo un'opera d'arte o meno.
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