The picture of Dorian Gray : authoritative texts, backgrounds, reviews and reactions, criticism / Oscar Wilde ; edited by Donald L. Lawler.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Wilde, Oscar, 1854-1900.

Contributor:

Lawler, Donald L.

Series:

Norton critical edition

A Norton critical edition

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Wilde, Oscar, 1854-1900. Picture of Dorian Gray.

Wilde, Oscar.

Physical Description:

xiii, 462 pages ; 22 cm.

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

New York : Norton, [1988]

Summary:

Spellbound before his own portrait, Dorian Gray utters a fateful wish. In exchange for eternal youth he gives his soul, to be corrupted by the malign influence of his mentor, the aesthete and hedonist Lord Henry Wotton. The novel was met with moral outrage by contemporary critics who, dazzled perhaps by Wilde's brilliant style, may have confused the author with his creation, Lord Henry, to whom even Dorian protests, 'You cut life to pieces with your epigrams.'. Encouraged by Lord Henry to substitute pleasure for goodness and art for reality, Dorian tries to watch impassively as he brings misery and death to those who love him. But the picture is watching him, and, made hideous by the marks of sin, it confronts Dorian with the reflection of his fall from grace, the silent bearer of what is in effect a devastating moral judgement.

Notes:

Bibliography: pages [461]-462.

ISBN:

0393955680

OCLC:

13703318