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A lush, cautionary tale of
a life of vileness and deception or a loving portrait of the
aesthetic impulse run rampant? Why not both? After Basil Hallward
paints a beautiful, young man's portrait, his subject's frivolous
wish that the picture change and he remain the same comes true.
Dorian Gray's picture grows aged and corrupt while he continues to
appear fresh and innocent. After he kills a young woman, "as surely
as if I had cut her little throat with a knife," Dorian Gray is
surprised to find no difference in his vision or surroundings. "The
roses are not less lovely for all that. The birds sing just as
happily in my garden."
As Hallward tries to make sense of his creation, his
epigram-happy friend Lord Henry Wotton encourages Dorian in his
sensual quest with any number of Wildean paradoxes, including the
delightful "When we are happy we are always good, but when we are
good we are not always happy." But despite its many languorous
pleasures, The Picture of Dorian Gray is an imperfect work.
Compared to the two (voyeuristic) older men, Dorian is a bore, and
his search for ever new sensations far less fun than the novel's
drawing-room discussions. Even more oddly, the moral message of the
novel contradicts many of Wilde's supposed aims, not least "no
artist has ethical sympathies. An ethical sympathy in an artist is
an unpardonable mannerism of style." Nonetheless, the glamour boy
gets his just deserts. And Wilde, defending Dorian Gray, had it
both ways: "All excess, as well as all renunciation, brings its own
punishment." --This text refers to an out of print or
unavailable edition of this title.
内容简介
Oscar Wilde's story of a fashionable young man who sells his
soul for eternal youth and beauty is one of his most popular works.
Written in Wilde's characteristically dazzling manner, full of
stinging epigrams and shrewd observations, the tale of Dorian
Gray's moral disintegration caused something of a scandal when it
first appeared in 1890. Wilde was attacked for his decadence and
corrupting influence, and a few years later the book and the
aesthetic/moral dilemma it presented became issues in the trials
occasioned by Wilde's homosexual liaisons, trials that resulted in
his imprisonment. Of the book's value as autobiography, Wilde noted
in a letter, "Basil Hallward is what I think I am: Lord Henry what
the world thinks me: Dorian what I would like to be--in other ages,
perhaps."
作者简介
Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) was born in Dublin. He wrote witty and
satirical plays including The Importance of Being Earnest, as well
as short stories, fairy tales, essays, and poetry.
Robert Mighall edited Stevenson's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and
Other Tales of Terror for Penguin Classics.
Peter Ackroyd is an award-winning novelist, critic, and
biographer. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.