On The Aestheticism In The Picture Of Dorian Gray

Oscar Wilde, the outstanding proponent of the Aesthetic Movement in thenineteenth century, was a Victorian author talented for creating dramas, and his literaryworks are fairly vital in the history of English literature. As an Aesthete, he experiencedups and downs in his short life. Wilde was one of the most talked-about people in Londonin the Victorian period, but he was also an outcast excluded by the social mainstream atthat time because of his personal life and some of his “immoral” works. After Wilde diedin despondency, he was ignored because of the indifference of critics for a certain periodof time, in which there were few critiques about his works.Since the middle of the twentieth century, Oscar Wilde and his works have beenaffirmed again by critics regarding him as honorable and contributive to literature. Alarge amount of analysis and research paper about his works, theories and the authorhimself has been finished. New critic essays，collections and different versions of hisbiography have appeared in succession. Pieces of analysis are devoted to elucidating hisAesthetic theory with various focus points, bringing a new start to study on Oscar Wilde.The Picture of Dorian Gray is the only novel of Oscar Wilde, and it is considered tobe his master piece which exposes most of his Aesthetic theories comprehensively. Thisthesis, divided into three parts, mainly focuses on how Aestheticism is embodied in thenovel. Many instances are put forward to expound his Aesthetic theories between lines.This thesis consists of three parts.The first part is Introduction, which gives a brief summary about other researches onThe Picture of Dorian Gray with brief information about Wilde and his literary works. Itgives a summary of study especially on The Picture of Dorian Gray, which is highlypraised by critics all over the world for its inestimable value in literature. ModernChinese critiques focuses on the contradictions of Wilde’s Aesthetic theories, usingpostmodern methods of analysis in researching, which are beneficial to betterunderstanding of Wilde and lucubrating of his works. However, study on the specificembodiments of his theory in The Picture of Dorian Gray can still go further.The main body of the thesis expounds its focus in there chapters:Chapter gives a specific definition about Aestheticism and summarizes its literaryfeatures. Analysis on the family and education background of Oscar Wilde works on succedent research on his Aesthetic theories. The Picture of Dorian Gray, as the peak ofAesthetic literature, tells a story about a male beauty, Dorian Gary, who sells his soul to aportrait for evergreen appearance. It gives a description of hypocrisy and insincerity ofthe Victorians, showing the conflicts between Dorian and his desires to expose therelationships between art and reality. Relationships among Dorian, Basil (a devoted artist)and Henry (a voluble, noble dandy) are ingeniously unfolded in this novel, suggesting amain idea of the supreme of art. Devoting his emotions and ideas into the story, OscarWilde expresses his Aesthetic pursuit to beauty and art through using symbols andsuggestions in this novel. As a veritable representative work of Aestheticism, there is aconcentration of Wildean values towards art and life in the novel, which brings Aestheticfeatures to the plot and narration of the story.Chapter Ⅱ exposes Wilde’s Aesthetic theories which are embodied in The Pictureof Dorian Gray, including “art for art’s sake”, life’s imitation to art and non-utilitarian art,and it also gives examples of the embodiment of those specific theories above withanalysis. Young actress dies in despair after returning to reality, while the artist was killedby his Muse of art because of his pursuit to beauty in reality. Young man tries to keepeternal youth and beauty through the deal he shared with the portrait at the cost of hissoul, looking for great pleasure and bliss in imitating plots of a book. The old actressspeaks and lives in a drama way in real life. A hedonist experiments his theory byinfluencing others with no concern of morality. Through death of two characters Wildeexposes his value of art. In narration of different behaviors of imitation to art embodiedby characters, Wilde suggests his attitude towards life. Experienced an experiment in thenovel together with the characters, Wilde shows his abandon of morality. In The Pictureof Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde puts forward his opinion that art is autonomic with itssupreme outmatching to life, reality and morality.Chapter Ⅲ further explores about Aesthetic themes, settings, plots, characters andlanguage in the novel with instances. In The Picture of Dorian Gray, Wilde chooses hisAesthetic pursuit to beauty and art as the theme of the novel. He tells the story ofsuspense and surprise in a fantastic way to make it mysterious and beautiful, which is farfrom reality. He tries to abandon reality absolutely, also based on his Aesthetic theory, toadd untruthfulness of the novel. Wilde combines many different styles in one to enrich plots of his story. He breathes characters with a marvelous command of language,making them symbols to explain his theory about art and life.Finally the thesis draws a conclusion summarizing all above. The Picture ofDorian Gray is an important novel to understand Wilde and his Aesthetic theories.Dorian’s behaviors and psychological changes after realizing immortality display an ideathat art, which for art’s sake only, will always beat life. It is an excellent novel of twistsand turns telling a story of unique characters. It is strong smacked of Aestheticism writtenwith exquisite command of language. The beauty-oriented content and its perfectlanguage form with rhythm and rhetoric make The Picture of Dorian Gray arepresentative masterpiece of Aestheticism.