This post is concerned with the novel The Picture of Dorian Gray. I've made an attempt to present the controversial hedonistic philosophy of Lord Henry Wotton by compiling all his epigrams and dialogues.
First published as a short novel in a British magazine in 1890, The Picture of Dorian Gray contained elements of hedonism, homoeroticism and everything sinful that could make any Victorian era critic shudder with contempt. After being forced to remove all references to homosexuality, Oscar Wilde extended and published the story as a book in 1891. It is one of those classics that challenges conventional definitions of morality and whose value is recognized only decades after being publicly criticized and censored.
In order to address the accusations of having written an immoral book, Oscar Wilde published one of the finest aphorisms on art based on the aesthetic movement, as a preface to the novel -
"The artist is the creator of beautiful things.
To reveal art and conceal the artist is art's aim.
The critic is he who can translate into another manner or a new material his impression of beautiful things.
The highest, as the lowest, form of criticism is a mode of autobiography.
Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming. This is a fault.
Those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are the cultivated. For these there is hope. They are the elect to whom beautiful things mean only Beauty.
There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book.
Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.
The nineteenth century dislike of Realism is the rage of Caliban seeing his own face in glass.
The nineteenth century dislike of Romanticism is the rage of Caliban not seeing his own face in a glass.
The moral life of man forms a part of the subject-matter of the artist, but the morality of the art consists in the perfect use of an imperfect meduim. No artist desires to prove anything. Even things that are true can be proved.
No artist has ethical sympathies. An ethical sympathy in an artist is an unpardonable mannerism of style.
No artist is ever morbid. The artist can express everything.
Thought and language are to the artist instruments of an art.
Vice and virtue are to the artist materials for an art.
From the point of view of form, the type of all the arts is the art of the musician. From the point of view of feeling, the actor's craft is the type.
All art is at once surface and symbol.
Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril.
Those who read the symbol do so at their peril.
It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors.
Diversity of opinion about a work of art shows that the work is new, complex and vital.
When the critics disagree the artist is in accord with himself.
We can forgive a man for making a useful thing as long as he does not admire it. The only excuse for making a useless thing is that one admires it intensely.
All art is quite useless."
The entire text of the novel is replete with epigrams and unconventional wisdom delivered by a radical character Lord Henry Wotton who glorifies a hedonistic viewpoint of life. As I read through the book, I felt it worthwhile to compile all those witty, satirical and poisonous dialogues and monologues (The list is not complete and I will keep updating it).