Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray is endlessly reread-able, beautiful, enduring, haunting, and, despite Wilde’s contentions and theory of art, is an eminently moral book.
In today’s episode of Hardcore Literature, we’re talking about the history of this great work, the censorship trial and Wilde’s imprisonment.
We’re doing a close analysis, Talmudic style, of the beginning, ending, and that fateful Gothic turning point when Basil sees how Dorian’s soul has corrupted his painting.
We’re talking about how to read Oscar Wilde, and exploring themes of confession, art, narcissism, and hedonism vs pleasure vs meaning vs happens.
There are time stamps below the player, so feel free to jump to any part of the show that interests you.
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Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray Podcast
Time stamps:
- 2:00 – famous Wildean aphorisms
- 3:00 – obscenity trials and prison sentence
- 3:30 – publication history
- 4:30 – Wilde’s theory of art: no such thing as an immoral book
- 5:00 – Walter Pater, Keats, truth is beauty, art for art’s sake
- 6:30 – art is a mirror and Shakespeare is the ultimate mirror
- 11:00 – dissecting the famous Preface to The Picture of Dorian Gray
- 27:17 – a close reading of the beginning and ending of the book
- 37:55 – when Basil sees his painting – Gothic turning point
- 40:00 – the problem with Nobel Prize and Booker winners
- 42:00 – how to read Oscar Wilde
- 43:00 – criticism as autobiography
- 46:45 – my personal reading of The Picture of Dorian Gray
Mentioned:
- Studies in the History of the Renaissance
- A’Rebours
- The Taming of the Shrew
- Ode on a Grecian Urn and To Autumn
- Anna Karenina
- On the Origin of the Nature of the Sublime and Beautiful
- Tyger, Tyger and The Lamb
- Tintern Abbey
- The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
- Shakespeare and the Goddess of Divine Being
- The Birth of Tragedy
- The ABC of Reading
Recommended volume of Oscar Wilde’s works
Questions to consider when reading Dorian Gray:
- What do we feel when we read Dorian Gray?
- Why did Wilde write it?
- How does the book corrupt us and get into our souls?
- Are we Dorian?
- Does all art aspire to the condition of music?
- Is art ever moral?
- What is ennui?
- What is narcissism/hedonism/vanity/degeneracy/beauty?