Friday 4 November 2011

C1 Literary Mayhem No.6 The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

Fellow literature lovers,

enjoy your reading for the next week, try to answer the questions for your self:
here you can find the entire short novel: http://etext.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/WilDori.html
and here it is in many formats, including audio book: http://www.manybooks.net/titles/wildeoscetext94dgray10.html

also delightful is the translation we will start with. Please take a look:


Wilde published his only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, before he reached the height of his fame. The first edition appeared in the summer of 1890in Lippincott's Monthly Magazine.It was criticized as scandalous and immoral. Disappointed with its reception, Wilde revised the novel in 1891, adding a preface and six new chapters. The Preface (as Wilde calls it) anticipates some of the criticism that might be leveled at the novel and answers critics who charge The Picture of Dorian Gray with being an immoral tale. It also succinctly sets forth the tenets of Wilde's philosophy of art. 

This attitude was revolutionary in Victorian England, where popular belief held that art was not only a function of morality but also a means of enforcing it. In the Preface, Wilde also cautioned readers against finding meanings "beneath the surface" of art. Part gothic novel, part comedy of manners, part treatise on the relationship between art and morality, The Picture of Dorian Gray continues to present its readers with a puzzle to sort out. There is as likely to be as much disagreement over its meaning now as there was among its Victorian audience, but, as Wilde notes near the end of the Preface, "Diversity of opinion about a work of art shows that the work is new, complex, and vital."
http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/doriangray/context.html

Lippincott_doriangray.jpgFile:Doriangray.jpgFile:Doriangray wardlock.jpg

Dorian Gray to play with:

Adaptations, resources:
for example

1945 version
2009 version with Collin Firth


P.S.

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