The Picture of Dorian Gray Quotes Flashcards
Significance of reading
It is a disease. It is said in the novel that Dorian was poisoned by a book.
“There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written that is all.”
“No artist has ethical sympathies. An ethical sympathy in an artist is an unpardonable mannerism of style.’
“One hardly knew at times whether one was reading the spiritual ecstasies of some medieval saint or the morbid confessions of a modern sinner. It was a poisonous book. The heavy odour of incense seemed to cling about its pages and seemed to trouble the brain”
“It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors”
“Mourn for Ophelia, if you like. Put ashes on your head because Cordelia was strangled. Cry out against Heaven because the daughter of Brabantio died. But don’t waste your tears on Sibyl Vane. She was less real than they are.”
Short sentence suggests significance of reading has nothing to do with teaching you about anything, they’re either enjoyable or not. there’s no in between. Preface suggests that their purpose is to teach people morals and the context of the time would agree, particularly Nordau who claims that bad art is parallel to its ethics.
Art in The Picture of Dorian Gray is revealed to be bad because of the influence it has on Dorian but also society.
Art IS Dorian - society believes him to be good, do not want to criticise him, they talk about him, he is good to look at therefore no one looks beyond the surface. Dorian destroys society from the inside out by destroying anyone he interacts with e.g. Sibyl Vane, Alan Campbell, Basil Hallward, James Vane, as well as other characters that he has influenced to take opium.
The yellow book is bad for Dorian so is the painting as he uses it to excuse himself of any blame. Dorian bases his life on the book, so it does show that books can be moral and immoral.
Contrast to the Preface that art is immoral as you read beneath the surface you realise the novel discusses the morality of the bourgeoisie society. So, there is such thing as a moral or immoral book. Preface only praises the beauty of art.
Importance of ethics
decadence
“To reveal art and conceal the artist is art’s aim.”
“There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.”
“No artist has ethical sympathies. An ethical sympathy in an artist is an unpardonable mannerism of style.”
“Mourn for Ophelia, if you like. Put ashes on your head because Cordelia was strangled. Cry out against Heaven because the daughter of Brabantio died. But don’t waste your tears over Sibyl Vane. She was less real than they were.”
“One hardly knew at times whether one was reading the spiritual ecstasies of a medieval saints or the morbid confessions of a modern sinner. It was a poisonous book. The heavy odour of incense seemed to cling about its pages and to trouble the brain”.
“In one single ivory cell of the brain there are stored away things more marvellous and more terrible than even they have dreamed of”.
“It was true that as one watched life in its curious crucible of pain and pleasure, one could not wear over one’s face a mask of glass, or keep the sulphurous fumes from troubling the brain and making the imagination turbid with monstrous fancies and misshapen dreams”. About LH
“Ugliness that had once been hateful to him because it made things real, became dear to him now for that very reason. Ugliness was that one reality”
“It was from within, apparently, that the foulness and the horror had come”
Representation of desire
Secret
Disillusionment
“Life is a great disappointment”
“it is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors”
Theories of degeneration
Dorian’s trists
Importance to Romantic audience
Aestheticism, which found its footing in Europe in the early nineteenth century, proposed that art need not serve moral, political, or otherwise intructive ends. Whereas the romantic movement of the early and mid-nineteenth century viewed art as a product of the human creative impulse that could be used to learn more about humankind and the world, the aesthetic movement denied that art must necessarily be an instructive force in order to be valuable. Instead, the aestheticists believed, art should be valuable in and of itself.
Radical agenda
self-dest
Significance of education
Sibyl & Dorian? reading? grandfather
Distinction between perception and emotion
both Dorian and Basil have different reactions to the paintings
Representation of class politics
Sibyl Vane, LH
Façade and reality
Dorian vs painting
Dorian’s beauty attracts society, so does his dress.
“don’t deceive yourself. Life is not governed by will or intention. Life is a question of nerves, and fibres […] and slowly-builtup cells in which thought hides itself, and passion has it’s dreams.
Wider political/cultural context
bourgeoisie
Idea of grotesque and monstrous
painting
