Picturing Dorian Gray

dorian.jpg

A riveting analysis of representations of Oscar Wilde’s Dorian Gray through the years, from illustrated versions of the book, to the recent Marvel edition. Aubrey Beardsley freaks me out. Always has, always will.

It appears that it will be a nine-part essay, and there are only five parts so far. Looking forward to the rest.

Here’s a piece I wrote on Oscar Wilde, after completing the Richard Ellmann biography. Some people go through Wildean phases. Mine, so far, has lasted decades. It comes and goes in waves, but it’s always there.

Go read the whole piece (it can be a bit confusing to find the next “part” of each essay, but it’s all there, one through five.)

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6 Responses to Picturing Dorian Gray

  1. mutecypher says:

    Wilde is a source for so much wisdom and analysis. Almost a year ago I wrote a post on my blog comparing the narrator in Kazuo Ishiguru’s “An Artist of the Floating World” to a failed Wildean artist. Or as the second half of “if you can’t be a good example, be a warning.”

    If interested, the post is here: http://mutecypher.wordpress.com/2009/07/18/oscar-wilde-and-an-artist-of-the-floating-world/

  2. red says:

    Mutecypher – wow, that was really well done. Thanks for sharing the link. I agree that his themes (of surface, and aesthetics vs. reality) come up again and again – and in many ways, he still dominates that conversation, know what I mean?

    Thanks for that post – I loved it.

  3. mutecypher says:

    red – glad you liked it.

    Camille Paglia has two entire chapters devoted to Wilde in “Sexual Personae” – one for Dorian and one for Earnest. Wilde is so slippery -smooth and shiny in his thinking and expression. And as precise as I think it’s possible to be in articulating his thoughts on aesthetics. Lucid. And just delightful, like the emerald serpent in Hoffman’s “The Golden Pot,” whispering about beauty, love, and poetry.

  4. red says:

    Yeah, I love Camille on Wilde.

  5. Sharon Ferguson says:

    Beardsley always freaks me out too…horrible and beautiful at the same time….the women on the edge of beauty but their faces are harsh, mannish, and menacing. Im always unable to look away.

    Kay Nielsen, a contemporary of Beardley (I think) is my favorite illustrator…

  6. Sharon Ferguson says:

    “As Wilde said, “It has about it the seduction of strange sins.”

    I love that description. That’s it exactly…

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