Aestheticism Entangled In Morality On Wilde's The Picture Of Dorian Gray

Irish born dramatist, essayist, novelist and poet, Oscar Wilde is an outstanding representative of aestheticism and an active advocate of the nineteenth-century"Art for Art's Sake"Movement in Britain. He has long been considered as a controversial figure, and many critics have pointed out the contradictory nature of his aesthetic theories.Although Wilde's only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, is considered the best work to embody his artistic taste, it reflects conflicts between his artistic proposition and practice. Holding the banner of"Art for Art's Sake", Wilde pursues"pure beauty"and"formal beauty". He insists that in literary creation art should be detached from reality; it is life and nature that imitate art, not art imitates life and nature; art should not be restrained by morality. Art is useless and independent. Witnessing the social and moral corruption and degradation in London, Wilde attempts to mold Dorian, an aesthetic image isolated from reality, to get comfort for his soul. Unfortunately, this is merely a utopia and Dorian can not shake off the chain of real life and morality from the very beginning on and loses his life in the end.This thesis contains five parts. Chapter I is an introduction, including literature review, the purpose and significance as well as the method of the study. Chapter II investigates the aesthetic proposition experimented in Wilde's novel. Chapter III analyses Dorian in the picture and its moral metaphor, points out in detail the relation between Dorian and the picture and discusses that the picture is the carrier of morality. Chapter IV explores Wilde's futile intention and efforts to realize his aesthetic ideal by concealing morality. The last chapter is the conclusion.Based on the above analysis and close reading of the novel, the thesis holds the idea that at the crossroad between ideal and reality, between aestheticism and morality, Wilde's hate and love and pursuit make him an individual of contradictions who bleeds upon the thorns of life and in the end a martyred artist.