Decadent Literature: The Picture of Dorian Gray

I just finished reading The Picture of Dorian Gray, an 1890 philosophical fiction and Gothic horror novel by Oscar Wilde. Set in late 19th-century London, the novel follows the life of Dorian Gray, a young man enthralled by the hedonistic ideals. It stands as a classic exploration of morality and the consequences of unchecked desires and is considered a key work of the Decadent movement. 

Born in Dublin in 1854, Oscar Wilde was an Irish author, poet, and playwright. After writing in different literary styles throughout the 1880s, Wilde became very popular and influential in London in the early 1890s, and was regarded by most commentators as the greatest playwright of the Victorian era. Wilde is best remembered for his novel The Picture of Dorian Gray, as well as epigrams, plays, bedtime stories for children, and his criminal conviction in 1895 for gross indecency related to homosexual acts.

The novel was published in the July 1890 issue of the American periodical Lippincott's Monthly Magazine in a shorter novella-length version, while the novel-length version was published in April 1891. Wilde's only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray is widely regarded as a classic of Gothic literature, having been adapted for various forms of artistic performance, including a 1945 film of the same name, which earned an Academy Award for Best Black-and-White Cinematography, as well as a Best Supporting Actress nomination. However, upon its release, the novel was considered poorly written and unworthy of critical attention, largely due to its homoeroticism which offended the sensibilities (social, literary, and aesthetic) of Victorian book critics. 

Mirroring the homoerotic bonds between men that play a large role in structuring his novel, Oscar Wilde had an intimate friendship with Lord Alfred Douglas, a handsome and spoiled young man, a future English poet and journalist. This relationship resulted in a criminal prosecution against Wilde for gross indecency with other males, which, until 1861, was a capital offence in England, and Wilde was convicted and sentenced to two years' hard labour between 1895 and 1897. The blemish remained until 2017, when Wilde, along with an estimated 50,000 men, was pardoned for homosexual acts that were no longer considered offences under the Policing and Crime Act 2017.

In 2009, the Dorian Awards─named in honor of Oscar Wilde, in reference to the main character from his novel The Picture of Dorian Gray─were established. With an illustration of Wilde as its logo, the honor is purposed for general and LGBTQ-themed accolades for excellence in film, television and Broadway/Off-Broadway, as voted by the members of GALECA: The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics. 

The Picture of Dorian Gray is a representative work of Aestheticism, an art movement in the late 19th century that valued the appearance of literature, music, and the arts over their functions. According to Aestheticism, art should be produced to be beautiful, rather than to teach a lesson, create a parallel, or serve another didactic purpose, a sentiment expressed in the slogan "art for art's sake." Aestheticism flourished in the 1870s and 1880s, gaining prominence due in large part to support from notable writers including Oscar Wilde and his mentor, Walter Pater.

By the 1890s, decadence, a term with origins in common with aestheticism, was in use across Europe Decadent movement, an artistic and literary movement centered in Western Europe following an aesthetic ideology of excess and artificiality. Characterized by a belief in the superiority of human fantasy and aesthetic hedonism over logic and the natural world, the Decadent movement first flourished in France and then spread throughout Europe and to the United States. In Britain and Ireland the leading figure associated with the Decadent movement was Oscar Wilde.

The story of the novel revolves around a portrait of Dorian Gray, the protagonist, painted by Basil Hallward, a friend of Dorian's and an artist infatuated with Dorian's beauty. Through Basil, Dorian meets Lord Henry Wotton and is soon enthralled by the aristocrat's hedonistic worldview: that beauty and sensual fulfilment are the only things worth pursuing in life. 

The second main character in the novel is Lord Henry Wotton, a nobleman and a close friend of Basil Hallward. Urbane and witty, Lord Henry is perpetually armed and ready with well-phrased epigrams criticizing the moralism and hypocrisy of Victorian society. His pleasure-seeking philosophy of “new Hedonism,” which espouses garnering experiences that stimulate the senses without regard for conventional morality, plays a vital role in Dorian’s development.

The third main character is Basil Hallward, an artist and a friend of Lord Henry. Basil becomes obsessed with Dorian after meeting him at a party. He claims that Dorian possesses a beauty so rare that it has helped him realize a new kind of art; through Dorian, he finds “the lines of a fresh school.” Dorian also helps Basil realize his artistic potential, as the portrait of Dorian that Basil paints proves to be his masterpiece.

The fourth main character is Sibyl Vane, a poor, beautiful, and talented actress with whom Dorian falls in love. Sibyl’s love for Dorian compromises her ability to act, as her experience of true love in life makes her realize the falseness of affecting emotions onstage. Sibyl contributes to the novel’s dialogue around art, and her loss of talent after falling in love evokes Lord Henry’s comment that great artists are boring people because they put their souls into art instead of life. Before love changes Sibyl, Dorian observes she’s always the roles she portrays and never herself, embodying her art as if she herself were art with beauty as its only aim. 

The main theme of the novel is "the purpose of art." When The Picture of Dorian Gray was first published in 1890, it was decried as immoral. In revising the text the following year, Wilde included a preface, which serves as a useful explanation of his philosophy of art: the purpose of art is to have no purpose. This idea aligns with the phrase "art for art's sake"—the usual English rendering of "l'art pour l'art," a French slogan first fully articulated by Théophile Gautier. The slogan expresses the philosophy that "true" art is utterly independent of all social values and utilitarian functions, be they didactic, moral, or political. It contrasts with the belief during the Victorian era that art could be used as a tool for social education and moral enlightenment, as illustrated in works by writers such as Charles Dickens. The aestheticism, of which Wilde was a major proponent, sought to free art from this responsibility. The aestheticists were motivated as much by a contempt for bourgeois morality—a sensibility embodied in Dorian Gray by Lord Henry—as they were by the belief that art need not possess any other purpose than being beautiful.

Another main theme is "the supremacy of youth and beauty." The first principle of aestheticism— the philosophy of art by which Oscar Wilde lived—is that art serves no other purpose than to offer beauty. Throughout The Picture of Dorian Gray, beauty reigns. It is a means to revitalize the wearied senses. In a society that prizes beauty so highly, youth and physical attractiveness become valuable commodities. Beauty and youth remain of utmost importance through nearly the entire novel, yet at the end it suggests that the price one must pay for them is exceedingly high. Indeed, Dorian gives nothing less than his soul.

Knowing that he will lose his beauty with time, Dorian impulsively chooses to sell his soul and asks for the portrait, rather than himself, to age and fade. His wish granted, Dorian pursues a libertine life of varied immoral experiences while staying young and beautiful; all the while, his portrait ages and visually records every one of Dorian's sins. 

In March 2014, Robert McCrum of The Guardian listed The Picture of Dorian Gray among the 100 best novels ever written in English. In addition, parallels have been drawn between the novel and Doctor Faustus, an Elizabethan tragedy by Christopher Marlowe, based on German stories about a scholar who sells his soul to the devil in exchange for magical power. Likewise, in the novel Dorian “sells” his soul for eternal youth and beauty. To this end, I was inspired to read further—Christopher Marlowe's Doctor Faustus and Goethe's Faust.