Oscar Wilde and Decadence

Biography and bibliography

Born Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie in Dublin, 16 October 1854, to William and Jane Wilde.

William was knighted in 1864 for his medical work; Jane published Irish revolutionary poetry under the name of “Speranza.”

Excelled at Trinity College, Dublin.

1881: Published his first book of poetry; travelled to USA and Canada to present a lecture series on aesthetics

1884: Married Constance Lloyd; Cyril born 1885; Vyvyan born 1886

1888: Happy Prince and Other Tales

1889: The Decay of Lying

1890: The Picture of Dorian Gray; Vera; or, The Nihilists

1891: Met Lord Alfred Douglas
Salome (in French); Lord Arthur Saville’s Crimes and Other Stories; Intentions

1892: The House of Pomegranates; Lady Windermere’s Fan

1893: A Woman of No Importance; The Duchess of Padua

1894: The Sphinx

1895: An Ideal Husband; The Importance of Being Ernest
Sued the Marquess of Queensbury (Douglas’s father) for libel; subsequently tried and convicted of “gross indecency”; 
sentenced to 2 years’ hard labour

1897: After release from Reading Gaol, moved to Europe

1898: The Ballad of Reading Gaol

1900: Died in Paris of meningitis, 30 November, aged 47.

Victorian social response to decadence

A little bit of history regarding Wilde’s London.

Donald L. Lawler—who edited what turns out to be a much more critically adept edition of the novel for Norton—describes the social atmosphere just previous to Wilde’s publication of The Picture of Dorian Gray in Lippincott’s magazine (July 1890), during which the “Cleveland Affair” led to high-level scandal and rumours of political corruption and cover-up. (329-31)

In addition to this, Lawler notes, Wilde himself had published “The Portrait of Mr. W. H.” a few months before the scandal broke.  In this fictitious critical analysis, Wilde “creates and disposes of” the notion that Shakespeare dedicated some of his work to Willie Hughes (the real dedication reads “W.H.”), his lover.

“But it was not the perverse cleverness of Wilde’s argument that put his critics on notice as much as it was Wilde’s espousal of a view that implied that England’s greatest poet was gay and, what was worse, has plenty of company among the world’s geniuses.” (Lawler 330)

Wilde and Decadence

Wilde’s creed(s)—a short list

• “Art for art’s sake” (Swinburne)
• “Evil is done effortlessly and naturally; good is always the product of art” (Baudelaire)
• “There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.”
• “All art is at once surface and symbol.”
• “No artist is ever morbid. An artist can express anything.”
• “All art is quite useless.”

How do these function in conjunction with his literary production and his social self-presentation?

Wilde seems to have lived the life he expounded, to some degree, but as &&& points out, his literary forays into the underworld of London are based on hearsay, not personal experience, and thus reiterate and reinforce existing stereotypes.

Wilde and the fin de siècle

Where does Wilde—and especially Dorian Gray—fit into the fin-de-siècle ethos in a broader sense?

We have discussed the increase in scientific knowledge, and the social instability caused by Darwin and subsequent natural theorists, so where do Wilde, and Decadence, and artistry, fit into all this.

I think you will hear more on this topic when Arpan presents on the 19^th, but for now, here’s an overview.

The crux is articulated by W. B. Yeats…

“I think that had we been challenged, we might have argued something after this fashion: ‘Science through much ridicule and some persecution has won its right to explore whatever passes …’” (qtd. in Thornton 191)

So The Island of Dr. Moreau presents the scientist’s “art,” for which scientists have claimed the right to “explore whatever passes”—including vivisection and eugenics.  And here we have another parallel with contemporary post-human literature: the scientists are usually the ones who support a progressive ideology; the literati usually represent a, if not conservative, at least more considerate conceptualization of future potentialities.

The exception, seemingly, but we will consider this later, are the Decadents.

One further aside: Wells himself noted that in writing Dr. Moreau, he actually was responding, not to The Picture of Dorian Gray, but to Wilde’s trial:

“There was a scandalous trial about that time, the graceless and pitiful downfall of a man of genius, and this story was but the response of an imaginative mind to the reminder that humanity is but animal, rough-hewn to a reasonable shape and in perpetual internal conflict between instinct and injunction.  The story embodies this ideal, but apart from this embodiment it has no allegorical quality.  It is written just to give the utmost possible vividness to that conception of men as hewn and confused and tormented beasts.” (qtd. in Showalter 178)

So Yeats’s comment then, speaks strongly to The Picture of Dorian Gray, and I think with a similarly cautionary message—whether or not Wilde intended this we can discuss later.

Thornton points out that

Decadence literature is a literature of failure: of a failure to provide a literary synthesis for the disintegration of life; of an expression of that disintegration and failure in elegant cadences; of a fleeing into an artificial world of an ideal world to escape from the consciousness and consequences of that disintegration; of a somewhat indulgent melancholy at the contemplation of that failure; and if a wistfully gay self mockery at the beauty and vanity of the attempt to escape that failure. (Thornton 188)

As such, The Picture of Dorian Gray—or rather, Dorian Gray’s life—stands as evidence of the degree of failure possible: but is Wilde denouncing his own creed?  Is he denouncing anything? How do the characters correspond to Wilde’s artistic ideals?  We will return to these questions; first, let’s look at the book.

The Picture of Dorian Gray

Plot

Setting

Character

Symbolism

Climax

Denouement

Yes, this does seem like high school… but it struck me when rereading the text that Wilde presents classic examples of all of the standard narrative elements.  I just wanted you to keep that in mind as we progress.

One thing to note, again, courtesy of Lawler, is the vast difference between the 1890 edition, which caused such a furor in London, and the 1891 edition (which we all read, sadly).

What are the most important aspects of this novel, as you see it?

From here on in, the point will be a discussion of the text, and the implications of changes made, both by J. M. Stoddart, Lippincott’s editor, and by Wilde himself.

Ultimately, what we are left with is unquestionably a diluted version of what began as a homoerotic novel equating the passion of love with inspiration, à la Plato.

Dorian Gray, morality, and ethics

Larson points out that “the positive ethical potential of art, particularly narrative art, is tremendous […; however,] an aestheticising impulse can be evasive of responsibility and antithetical to ethics […] Late Victorian British aestheticism was at once a potent source of transformative energy that challenged mainstream values and an impotent and idealist retreat from life’s difficulties during a period of cultural upheaval” (94).

Lord Henry and Dorian Gray both shield themselves from reality with their aesthetic sensibilities: “Keats, one of the most influential of Wilde’s precursors in British aestheticism, marveled at great art’s capacity for ‘making all disagreeables evaporate.’  That consolatory effect of the conversion of life into art is precisely what Lord Henry and Dorian rely on to shield themselves for the ugliness and pain of Dorian’s treatment of Sibyl and from the vulgar reality of her self-destructive response” (Larson 103).

Dorian’s treatment of Sibyl stems from his idealizing of her artistic self-presentation.  Explicitly, he is not in love with her as a woman, but in her myriad aesthetic roles on stage: “She is everything to me in life.  Night after night I go to see her play. One evening she is Rosalind, and the next evening she is Imogen. I have seen her die in the gloom of an Italian tomb, sucking the poison from her lover’s lips. I have watched her wandering through the forest of Arden, disguised as a pretty boy in hose and doublet and dainty cap.  She has been mad, and has come into the presence of a guilty king, and given him rue to wear, and bitter herbs to taste of.  She has been innocent, and the black hands of jealousy have crushed her reed-like throat.  I have seen her in every age and every costume.  Ordinary women never appeal to one’s imagination. They are limited to their century. No glamour ever transfigures them.  […] There is not mystery in them.” (90)

So Sibyl’s choice of life over art—which Wilde seems to be suggesting is always the choice of women, Elfrida Bell apart—disgusts him.

Dorian Gray chooses art over life; in effect, he repudiates his moral and ethical obligation to life, in both the social and the individual sense.  This is something neither Basil Hallward, nor Lord Henry, really, do.

In the end, he attempts to redeem himself by reneging on his intent to seduce and abandon young Hetty, but his drive to redemption fails, as his motivation is not ethical, nor moral, nor compassionate, but rather self-serving—still in an artistic sense.

Larson aptly concludes that the fundamental character flaw in both Dorian Gray and Lord Henry is this evasion of responsibility: When Dorian Gray reflects on his past in the final scene, he refuses to accept responsibility for the extended consequences of his decisions and actions: (248).  And so the picture reveals, not a gentler face, but “in the mouth the curved wrinkle of the hypocrite” (249).

What has Wilde created?

In the end, “Wilde and James [in The Ambassadors] both sympathize with this revolt against the tyranny of conscience and Victorian morality, but neither is able to narrate a successful rebellion. The aesthetic impulse, then, in both its fin-de-siècle and its modernist mode, decries traditional ethical constructions without dismantling them or significantly diminishing their influence.” (Larson 111)

And Wilde’s conviction, of course, did not help…

Works Consulted

Larson, Jil.  Ethics and the Narrative in the English Novel, 1880-1914.  Cambridge, UK: Cambridge UP, 2001. Print.

Lawler, Donald L, ed. The Picture of Dorian Gray. By Oscar Wilde.  Critical ed. New York: Norton, 1988. Print.

Wilde, Oscar.  The Picture of Dorian Gray.  Ed. Norman Page.  Peterborough, ON: Broadview, 1998. Print.

McMullen, Lorraine.  An Introduction to the Æsthetic Movement in English Literature.  Ottawa, ON: Tecumseh, 1975. Print.

Showalter, Elaine.  Sexual Anarchy: Gender and Culture at the Fin de Siècle.  1990. London: Bloomsbury, 1991. Print.

Thornton, R. K. R. The Decadent Dilemma. London: Arnold, 1983. Print.

Beckson, Karl  London in the 1890s: A Cultural History.  New York: Norton, 1992. Print.

Bernheimer, Charles. Decadent Subjects: The Idea of Decadence in Art, Literature, Philosophy, and Culture of the Fin de Siècle in Europe. Ed. T. Jefferson Kline and Naomi Schor. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins UP, 2002. Print.

West, Shearer. Fin de Siècle: Art and Society in an Age of Uncertainty. London: Bloomsbury, 1993. Print.