Scarica english' literature notes about oscar Wilde's life e più Appunti in PDF di Inglese solo su Docsity! OSCAR WILDE (1854-1900) LIFE e Born in Dublin in 1854+>Trinity College>sent to Oxford=degree in classics> distinguished himself for his eccentricity e Disciple of Walter Peter> aesthetic movement (“Art for Art's sake”) * London> fashionable DANDY= extraordinary wit and extravagant ways of dressing. *. 1881 edited “Poems” and went on a tour in US> New York= talked about aestheticism= search for the beautiful, all forms of art represent truth. * 1883 return to London, marries Constance Lloyd+> 2 children> soon tired of the marriage. * He was most noted as a great speaker and wit= very famous> tribute to his dandified aestheticism= women and young men wore lilies o Stories written for his children +" The Picture of Dorian Gray"”= considered immoral o Drama? pieces like “Salomé= prevented from appearing on stage due to his presumed obscenity = damaged his reputation e 1891= meets the handsome young nobleman Lord Alfred Douglas= homosexual affair> the boy's father forced a PUBLIC TRIAL>he was convicted of homosexual practices and sentences to two years of hard labour>”De Profundis” letter where he explains his life and condemns Alfred for abandoning him * After being freed he lived in France under a pseudonym as an outcast in poverty. * Diedin 1900 of meningitis in Paris THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY (1891) SETTING: London, end of the 19*" century. PLOT: The protagonist is Dorian Gray, a young man, whose beauty fascinates a painter, Basil Hallward. Basil decides to paint Dorian's portrait. The portrait satisfies the young man's desires, including that of eternal youth; the signs of age, experience and vice appear on the portrait. Dorian lives only for pleasure, making use of everybody and even letting people die because of his insensitivity. When the painter sees the portrait (=witness to Dorian's spiritual corruption), he is killed by Dorian. Later Dorian wants to free himself of the portrait and stabs it, but in doing so he mysteriously kills himself. In the very moment of his death, the picture returns to its original purity, and Dorian's face becomes old and wrinkled. NARRATIVE TECHNIQUE: *. third-person narrator. * The settings are vividly described with words appealing to the senses. * The characters reveal themselves through what they say or what other people say of them (typical technique of drama) MEANING AN SYMBOLS: The story is allegorical+ version of the myth of Faust, who sells his soul to the devil so that all his desires could be satisfied > this soul is the picture, which records:
