Wilde, Oscar - Life and literary works

Wilde, Oscar - Life and literary works

Oscar Wilde was raised in a racy intellectual environment that contributed to his wit and cleverness, he was enrolled in the Trinity College, where he exhibited a deep interest in Greek and he was even awarded a scholarship to Oxford. He came in touch with John Ruskin and Walter Pater, thanks to whom he started approaching the philosophy of aesthetism. In 1881 his very first collection of poems was published and controversy spread around the figure of Oscar Wilde, whose unconventionality depicted him as a dandy, he was even offered a lecturing in the USA. A dandy places particular importance to physical appearance, refined language and leisurely hobbies. He filled his works with wit and sarcasm displaying the vices of the upper classes in his "Comedies of Manners": they reveal around characters with a disgraceful past that face the hypocrisy of society. His popularity faded ad the father of another young poet, named Bosie Alfed Douglas, accused him of homosexual conduct (a serious criminal offence at the time) as Oscar Wilde was completely in love with him. Wilde was then arrested and consequently sentenced to two years of hard labour where he was inspired to write the works known as "Ballad of the Reading Grace" and "De Profundis". Oscar Wilde then died in 1900 because of meningitis alone in a hotel room in Paris.

The Picture of Dorian Gray

The novel is an extended version of a long short story printed in an American magazine, to adapt it, Wilde had to widen the plot, increase the number of characters and mitigate all the homosexual implications. The plot mirrors the myth of Faust, with a young man, giving up his save for eternal youth, in this case Dorian whose portray is being printed by his friend Basil Hallward. Dorian is persuaded by lord Henry Wotton of the priceless value of youth, his wish for eternal youth is then granted as the picture slowly transforms into an old wrinkled man, Dorian hides it in the attic and he even kills Basil in order to hide his secret. At the end Dorian surrenders and stabs the portrait, which causes his own suicide. The main themes are:

• Double life, where the dualism is represented with Dorian and the picture
• Mystery and horror
• Cult of beauty

Even though Oscar Wilde claimed in the Preface the lack of a moral, in "The Profundis" he states that a life of excesses and gluts has always a price that must be paid at all costs, sooner or later, and no one is excused by the cruel destiny.