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 The Picture of Dorian Gray - Oscar Wilde Printed Book
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The Picture of Dorian Gray - Oscar Wilde

 

Description: ISBN 0141439572 / Author: Oscar Wilde / Genre: Classic Literature / A lush, cautionary tale of a life of vileness and deception or a ... more
The Picture of Dorian Gray - Oscar Wilde ... 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.

Newest Review: ... be considered to be a relatively short book but I feel its tale of vanity and deception will stay with me for the rest of my ... more

 ... life. The plot is simple, in fact one which could easily be for children, but Wilde incorporates moral issues, contemporary beliefs and as a centrepiece: questions creativity itself. The story is that of a narcissistic youth, who falls in love with a portrait of himself, under the influence of Lord Henry, Dorian Gray falls into a doctrine of hedonism. He regards the painting in reverence and wishes that it might age instead of him, as his painted face becomes more and more twisted, the protagonists very soul is des...more

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The Picture of Dorian Gray (Broadview Literary Texts) by Oscar Wi
A lush, cautionary tale of a life of vileness and deception or a ...
£ 4,99 Postage & Packaging: £ 2.75
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The Picture of Dorian Gray and Other Writings (Enriched Classics)
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Format: paperback, Publisher: Digireads.com, ISBN: 1420925288
Pages: 124, Paperback, Digireads.com - Books/Subjects/Fiction/Aut ...
£ 3,95 Postage & Packaging: refer to shop website
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Format: hardback, Publisher: CRW Publishing Limited, ISBN: 190463
Pages: 256, Edition: New Ed, Hardcover, Collector's Library - Boo ...
£ 3,99 Postage & Packaging: £ 2.75
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Format: Paperback, ISBN: 9780141442181
Pages: 304, Edition: New Ed, Paperback, Penguin Classics - Books/ ...
£ 4,00 Postage & Packaging: refer to shop website
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Format: paperback, Publisher: Oxford University Press, ISBN: 0194
Pages: 80, Edition: New Ed, Paperback, Oxford University Press - ...
£ 4,75 Postage & Packaging: refer to shop website
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Format: paperback, Publisher: Oxford University Press, ISBN: 0192
Pages: 272, Edition: New Ed. /, Paperback, Oxford University Pres ...
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MALU
Crowned Review The Picture of Dorian Gray - Oscar Wilde: Dorian Revisited (1146 words)
by MALU - written on 05.06.03 (Very useful, 567 readings)
Rating:

So many book, so little time. Compared with some I consider myself well-read, compared with the number of books on the market I feel I’m hardly literate. Rarely do I read a book a second time although I’ve got lots which would be worth it. Why have I decided to honour this novel with a second perusal? I read the German translation in my teens and since then Oscar Wilde has always been with me, so to speak. I’ve read his children’s stories, seen on the stage and read with my students The Importance Of Being Earnest, been to a brilliant West End performance of Lady Windermere’s Fan and have seen the film on Oscar Wilde starring ...

Lady_of_Leisure
Crowned Review Art Mirroring the Spectator (897 words)
by Lady_of_Leisure - written on 26.04.03 (Very useful, 409 readings)
Rating:

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ "It is the spectator, and not life that art really mirrors". ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ In "The Picture of Dorian Gray" the wonderful fop Oscar Wilde paints a bleak picture of the repellent side of human nature as the beautiful hero Dorian Gray ages not one jot between lewd acts and malefaction. Yet the sinister portrait of him hanging in the attic takes on all the pestilence, age and filth that befits the face of one so lost in hedonism. That portrait is an iconoclastic image of the age: it matters little if you have ever read the book but I would be surprised ...

Azurel
Premium Review The Picture of Dorian Gray - Oscar Wilde: "All art is quite useless" (657 words)
by Azurel - written on 12.04.02 (Very useful, 700 readings)
Rating:

This story first appeared in an American publication called "Lippincott's Monthly Magazine" in 1890. The novel was overwhelmingly condemned by British journals of the time because it failed to show "a single good and holy impulse in human nature" We first meet Dorian as a young man who has agreed to sit for the painter Basil Hallward. Basil is captivated by his beauty and paints him several times before attempting a huge full-length portrait of amazing quality and depth; in fact Basil thinks it's his best work ever. This painting is given to Dorian as a gift and forms the focal point of Dorian's undoing. Basil has taken ...

 
 
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