Category: The Picture of Dorian Gray

Introduction to Gothic Elements in ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray The setting of the respective novel is essential for the overall development of the characters and the plot as it provides a foundation for the readers to visualize and understand the social as well as the psychological mindset and the typical behaviour during the era.…

Beauty – a filter for reality. The subject under analysis is the vision of beauty in Oscar Wilde’s novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray. The fin-de-siècle aesthetic sees in art a spiritual dimension that opposes the banality of daily existence: in The picture of Dorian Gray (1891), Wilde gives full expression to his conception of…

Introduction to Aesthetic Principles in “The Picture of Dorian Gray” Oscar Wilde was at grips with his novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray. Republished twice, the Victorian novel emphasizes a society full of dandies of the end of the nineteenth century. The main character is Dorian Gray who is obsessed by a painting which captures…

Aestheticism is rooted in the 18th century and spread in Western Europe and America during the late 19th century. It revolves around a devotion to art and it represents the significance of beauty compared with other values such as morality and material utility. As Robert Vincent Johnson notes, aestheticism is not one single phenomenon, but…

Oscar Wilde prefaces his novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, with a reflection on art, the artist, and the utility of both. After careful scrutiny, he concludes: All art is quite useless. In this one sentence, Wilde encapsulates the complete principles of the Aesthetic Movement popular in Victorian England. That is to say, real art…

Good novels are a window into society and take readers to interesting places, but great novels take readers where they need to go. Oscar Wildes novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, written in 1890 takes audience on a journey to Victorian England and explores the hidden sides of humanity through romanticism and further enhances the…

Virtue and vice, is it natural born within ones soul or it has to be developed by the influence of outside factors? The novel titled The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde portrays us how a pure soul of an Englishman deteriorates into a wicked evil character yet still hidden behind a beautiful innocent…

Oscar Wildes The Picture of Dorian Gray displays an interesting perception about humanity, concerning the balance between the concepts such as beauty, and narcissism. It shows both the highest and the lowest of Victorian society. Oscar Wilde focuses more on the lowest and presents a pessimistic and critical view on the Victorian era, showing the…

Looking up the word queer in the English dictionary one will find multiple definitions and meanings for the word. The most common one is probably queer(adjective) for something odd, strange, unusable or even slightly ill. However, words and their meanings change over time and in the late nineteenth century queer got a new definition. It…

Aestheticism is rooted in the 18th century and spread in Western Europe and America during the late 19th century. It revolves around a devotion to art and it represents the significance of beauty compared with other values such as morality and material utility. As Robert Vincent Johnson notes, aestheticism is not one single phenomenon, but…