Oscar Wilde's novel, like the writer's life, caused a lot of controversy and conflicting opinions. Whatever epithets the work has been awarded, where “immoral” and “corrupting” are still quite modest.

That is why characterizing the image of Dorian Gray is a rather difficult task. This character is ambiguous, and many see only one of his sides, while others remain in the shadows.

About the novel

The work was created and published in an era that did not tolerate liberties. Immediately after its release, a flame of controversy flared up among critics and writers. Many believed that the work should be destroyed and its author punished and even imprisoned. However, the novel was understood and accepted by the reader.

The principles of aestheticism and hedonism proclaimed in the novel became a real manifesto, but also caused negativity and protest. The anger of the scientific public subsided a little when reviews and sensible thoughts began to appear here and there that the author was not praising, but condemning his hero and showing what such a lifestyle leads to.

Why is the characterization of the main character difficult?

The characterization of the image of Dorian Gray is one of the most controversial issues about Wilde's work, since the hero is very ambiguous. It intertwines the everyday and the mystical, the dark and the light. A portrait as a mirror of the soul, a portrait as a punishment, and against its fantastic background the fate of Dorian develops, who, like his creator, is entangled in his own web of erroneous judgments and imaginary values.

History of creation

The characterization of the image of Dorian Gray will not be complete without an almost mystical backstory of the creation of both the main character and the novel.

Oscar Wilde was an original creator of his works and heroes. All his images did not appear out of nowhere, but were created by life itself. This is what happened with his only published novel, the history of the conception of which is no less interesting than the work itself.

The writer was a friend of the then famous London artist Basil Ward. One day, while spending time having pleasant conversations in his workshop, the writer saw a very handsome young man. Struck by the beauty of the sitter, the writer made a whole sad speech about how inexorable time is, which will soon leave its mark on the young man’s beautiful face. To this, the artist half-jokingly said that he would paint a portrait of a boy every year so that the portraits would “grow old” instead.

Plan for characterizing the image of Dorian Gray

It will be easier for both us and the readers to recreate the image of Gray if we have a plan.

The classic scheme of characterization in literature is appearance, character, actions, and one’s opinion. But, since we are talking about an extraordinary hero, it is worth doing differently.

1. Grey, see you later and Lord Henry.
2. The Lord's Influence on Dorian.
3. Portrait and permissiveness.
4. The death of Sybil and the first changes.
5. Eternal youth and imaginary impunity.
6. Awareness of the charm of a portrait.
7. Trying to change.
8. The murder of the artist is the apogee of destruction.
9. Attempts to get rid of the portrait and the finale.

Dorian Gray - who is he?

Quoting a characterization of the image of Dorian Gray is a rather difficult task, since it is difficult to highlight the most important points. A novel is like a song - every word in it is in its place and has its own function. Therefore, we will give a description according to the created plan.

Before meeting Henry, the young man did not realize the power of his beauty and, even worse, its transience. Harry's influence poisons his soul with doubts and worries. In Hallward’s studio, he pronounces a speech filled with bitterness like a spell, which he ends with the phrase: “Oh, if only this portrait grew old instead of me!” Somehow, magically, this happens. From this moment on, the handsome young man no longer ages. But what will this eternal youth bring him?

Dorian's first offense is his rejection of the young actress Sybil who loves him. Unexpected turns are a striking feature of the novel The Picture of Dorian Gray. The characterization of the image of Dorian Gray changes seriously from this moment. He learns about the death of his former lover, but he is completely unmoved by this. And that same evening he is destined to see changes in the portrait - his face contorted into an ominous, cruel grin. Now the portrait is Dorian's judge and executioner. His life is marked by a series of broken women's hearts and tossing around brothels. There he wants to forget about the horror hidden in the ominous portrait.

When Gray realizes there is nowhere left to fall, he tries to change. But trying does not lead to salvation. In a fit of fear that his secret will be revealed, he kills the artist.

The last romance in his life with a pure, sincere girl and his demonstrably noble treatment of her gives Dorian hope that everything can still be changed. But the portrait is adamant; a soul poisoned by poison cannot be changed. In a fit of despair, Gray plunges a knife into the portrait, but falls himself with his heart pierced.

Characteristics of images (“The Picture of Dorian Gray”)

Besides Gray, the character of Lord Henry in the novel is very interesting. Many critics associate him with Wilde himself. The Lord is witty and cynical. He preaches the worship of pleasure in its purest form. However, is he happy? Most likely not, the lord is fed up with permissiveness, and little brings him true pleasure and enjoyment.

The artist Basil is also ambiguous. He lives in his creativity and only in it. His creation will kill him, but that will not make him any less brilliant. An artist-creator, a creator from whose pen a miracle appeared - this is how the author sees a real man of art.

The characterization of the image of Dorian Gray is given above, and we will not dwell on it here.

“The Picture of Dorian Gray” is one of O. Wilde’s most popular works. There are more than thirty adaptations of the novel. The parable component plays an important role in it, so the meaning of the work should be sought between the lines. At school, The Picture of Dorian Gray is taught in high school. The analysis of the work presented in the article will help you quickly prepare for the lesson and refresh your knowledge about the novel before the Unified State Exam. For convenience, the analysis is compiled according to plan.

Brief Analysis

Year of writing - 1891.

History of creation- Researchers believe that the creation of “The Portrait of Dorian Gray” by O. Wilde was inspired by the image of Faust, widespread in world literature and the works “Shagreen Skin” by O. Balzac and “On the contrary” by Huysmans.

Subject- The work develops themes of external and internal beauty, the true meaning of life.

Composition- O. Wilde described the life of Dorian Gray from his youth to old age. There are two versions of the novel - in 13 and 20 chapters. Each chapter is dedicated to a specific event. In one of the chapters, the author managed to contain the events that took place in the life of Dorian Gray over the past 20 years. The analyzed work is a weave of events and philosophical reflections.

Genre- Philosophical novel.

Direction- Modernism.

History of creation

Work on the novel “The Picture of Dorian Gray” lasted only three weeks. He first saw the world in the American Lippincott's Monthly Magazine in 1890. However, after some time, O. Wilde made changes to his work: he redid some chapters, added 6 new ones and a preface, which today is considered a manifesto of aestheticism. The second version of the work was published in the spring of 1891 in London as a separate book.

The publication of the novel caused a scandal in society. He was criticized by the political elite. The works were considered immoral. There were demands to ban “The Picture of Dorian Gray” and to judge its author. However, ordinary readers received it with a bang.

Subject

In The Picture of Dorian Gray, the analysis should begin with a description of the motives of the work.

In world literature beauty theme takes pride of place. It is also revealed in Wilde’s novel. In the context of this topic they raise problems of love, human vices, old age and etc.

Main characters works - Dorian Gray and Lord Henry. Also an important role in the implementation of the problem is played by the images of the artist Basil, Sybil and James Vane. At the beginning of the novel, the reader meets Dorian Gray. This is a young, very handsome man from whom the artist Basil copied a portrait. In Basil's workshop, the young man met Lord Henry. Here he admitted that he would really like the portrait to age, but for it to always remain beautiful.

Dorian Gray got his wish. Years passed, but he remained a handsome young man. At the same time, the hero knew how to appreciate only external beauty. This killed his love for Sibyl Vane. The man's pride caused the death of Sybil. This tragedy was only the beginning of Dorian Gray's vicious path. After that, he killed more than one person. With his every action, the portrait changed. Soon the young man depicted on it turned into an ugly old man.

Dorian Gray understood that the portrait was a reflection of his soul, so he hid it from everyone. When Basil discovered a new image, the former sitter killed him.

The main idea of ​​the novel- human vices and an ugly soul cannot be hidden under a beautiful appearance. You need to fight the very essence of your vices, you cannot allow pride to take over your soul, this is what O. Wilde’s novel teaches.

Composition

O. Wilde described the life of Dorian Gray from his youth to old age. There are two versions of the novel - in 13 and 20 chapters. Each chapter is dedicated to a specific event. In one of the chapters, the author managed to contain the events that took place in the life of Dorian Gray over the past 20 years. The plot of the work develops sequentially: from exposition to denouement. The close interweaving of events and philosophical reflections gives the reader the opportunity to delve into the essence of the topic.

Genre

The genre of the work is a philosophical novel, as evidenced by the following features: the main problem remains open, the instructive component plays an important role. The direction of Oscar Wilde's work “The Picture of Dorian Gray” is modernism.

Oscar Wilde(1854-1900), leader of English aestheticism, published his only novel "The Picture of Dorian Grey" in 1891. The novel tells a story that echoes the fantastic plot of Balzac's "Shagreen Skin": the handsome young Dorian Gray expresses the wish that he forever remain in appearance the same as at the time of the completion of his portrait, and from that moment, throughout the twenty years of the novel, he retains everything the charm of youth, and the portrait hidden in his house reflects his real life, accumulating traces of vice and crime. Wilde’s symbolism of a magical object is less philosophical than Balzac’s and is reduced to aesthetic issues. The portrait of Dorian, made by his friend Basil Hallward, like any true work of art, reflects his true essence; art is a true testimony, a true mirror of the hero’s life. Dorian's attempt at the end of the novel to destroy a securely hidden portrait ends in his own death, and the work of art is indestructible. The portrait in its pristine beauty will live forever:

Entering the room, the servants saw on the wall a magnificent portrait of their master in all the splendor of his wondrous youth and beauty. And on the floor with a knife in his chest lay a dead man in a tailcoat. His face was wrinkled, withered, repulsive. And only by the rings on the hands did the servants recognize who it was.

Thus, the very plot of the novel contains the main idea of ​​aestheticism about the unconditional superiority of art over real life.

In parallel, the stories of Dorian and his portrait are built, which have swapped places in relation to the laws of nature, to the very flow of time: a living person overcomes its flow, refusing to grow old, and a work of art begins to live a bodily life in time. The hero's stoppage in time and eternal youth are usually associated with the motives of a deal with the devil, and the role of the tempter of the initially innocent Dorian is played by a secular wit, glorifying immorality, new hedonism, but in fact leading a completely decent existence - Lord Henry Wotton. Lord Henry opens the young man's eyes to his beauty, infects him with the spirit of the pursuit of pleasure, teaches him to appreciate youth and live one day at a time. The funny cynic Lord Henry easily binds Dorian to himself, destroying his friendship with Basil Hallward, and Dorian becomes Lord Henry's student. But Lord Henry is Mephistopheles only in words, while Dorian becomes the devil in deeds, literally understanding and putting into practice all the teachings of his elder friend. He drives his lover, the young actress Sibyl Vane, to suicide, leads a double life as a social dandy and a frequenter of the East End brothels, he discredits his reputation and becomes the murderer of Basil Hallward. The portrait only records his sins, but does not control his life. Sir Henry wants to make Dorian the embodiment of his ideal of the fusion of art and secular lifestyle. He himself will never commit a crime: “Murder is always a mistake. You should never do anything that you can’t chat with people about after dinner” (Chapter 19). Dorian is too simple-minded and naive, too sensitive and narrow-minded to maintain that emotional disinterest and coldness that his friend’s ideal implies. Dorian has a living moral sense, which is why the reproaches of his former friend, Hallward, have such a strong impact on him, so he cannot allow him to leave his house alive. The beginning of Dorian's moral fall - the story of Sibyl Vane - is still depicted in sufficient detail, but as the scale of his crimes grows, the author prefers to talk about them with mysterious hints, giving the reader room for imagination to complete the pictures of evil. Of course, Wilde's moralism is not as straightforward as the moralism of the Victorian novel, however, in accordance with the tradition of the moral lesson, so strong in the English novel throughout its history, in The Picture of Dorian Gray the moral side, devoid of edification, constitutes the most important aspect of the novel:

Here is its essence: any excess, both in what a person accepts and in what he refuses, carries its own punishment.

However, this traditional task of the novel in the reader’s perception fades into the background in front of the fascinating pictures of the aesthetic-decadent environment of the end of the century. Wilde paints the spiritual and everyday appearance of new heroes - the apostles of the cult of beauty. The action of the novel takes place in artists' studios and in elegant social drawing rooms, in an atmosphere permeated with the spicy beauty of jonquils and orchids, roses and honeysuckle, oriental art and English comfort. This refined cultural atmosphere in itself awakens the sensual principle in a person. In an attempt to penetrate the secrets of human sensual life, Dorian begins to collect his collections, the description of which is not without reason given so much space in the novel: collections of incense, musical instruments, precious stones, embroidery and tapestries, paintings. The style of the novel is permeated with the fullness of sensory sensations; the author strives to convey the world in all the diversity of perceptions of all senses. This savoring of beauty, this voluptuous immersion in pleasure was already a challenge to Victorian norms, and the aesthetic program outlined by the author in the preface to the novel completely shocked the respectable public.

The preface is a collection of aphorisms, Wilde's favorite genre. Oscar Wilde was a consummate master of conversation; the fame of a wit came to him much earlier than literary fame. There are so many paradoxes put into the mouth of Lord Henry Wotton in the novel that their brilliance soon begins to tire. However, the paradoxes of the preface to the novel are perhaps the most widely quoted part of Wilde’s literary heritage, because nowhere else with such completeness did he express the essence of the aesthetic attitude to life, his conviction that art stands outside morality: “There are no moral or immoral books. There are books that are well written or poorly written. That's all... all art is completely useless." This position has already been put forward by the theory of “art for art’s sake,” but aestheticism goes even further, asserting that “life imitates art”; “art is a mirror that reflects whoever looks into it, and not life at all.” In the preface, Wilde challenges inert criticism, which strives to understand what the author wanted to say with his work, while “the artist does not seek to prove anything,” his business is “the perfect use of imperfect means.” Wilde sums up the literary development of his century in a unique way: “The nineteenth-century hatred of Realism is the rage of Caliban, who saw himself in the mirror. The nineteenth-century hatred of Romanticism is the rage of Caliban, who does not find his reflection in the mirror.”

Aestheticism and symbolism opposed themselves to the immediate literary past, as we see, equally distancing themselves from romanticism and realism; aesthetes and symbolists consciously adopted Flaubert's focus on an elite reader and considered themselves the creators of truly modern art. The reading of The Picture of Dorian Gray offered here through the prism of the Balzacian and Victorian tradition emphasizes the connections between aestheticism and the literature of the previous, 19th century, but think about this work based on what you know about Nietzscheanism and Freudianism, and you will see a different text, in in which the main features of the literature of the future 20th century will be. The story “Heart of Darkness” has the same borderline character, only in it the connections with future literature emerge much more clearly than in Wilde.

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O. Wilde "The Picture of Dorian Gray" - Complete analysis of the work

wilde portrait gray

Now the time of Dorian Grays is coming, everyone leads a double life - from senior politicians to school teachers, double morality is returning. And in this sense, Dorian Gray is a hero of our time.

We are interested in analyzing O. Wilde’s novel from a modern point of view. Compositionally cover the contradictions that are characteristic of our time and the time of Dorian Gray. Dostoevsky also wrote about man that “God and the devil fight in him, and the battlefield is the soul.” This is precisely what should be remembered when reflecting on Wilde’s novel. We will, first of all, be interested in the secret parallel life of a person, and this is the core of his life, his true existence, often vicious, not always decent and moral.

For Wilde, humanity is behavior in an extreme situation, although his entire novel is an extreme situation. He has a human soul - something material, something that can be sold, pawned, poisoned, saved, exchanged. Nevertheless, the author does not hide the fact that the whole story with Dorian Gray is fictitious - “the transmission of beautiful fables is the true goal of art,” the more valuable for us is the meaning inherent in the fable, the more carefully we look for morality in this fable with a portrait.

Reading the novel, we very often see the opposition between Wilde’s morality and the morality of Dostoevsky, whom we quoted earlier. It seems to us that Dorian Gray is Dostoevsky’s hero, however, he is the complete opposite of all human types portrayed by the Russian writer.

It is no coincidence that Dorian Gray is in love not so much with the actress Sibyl Vane, but with the roles she plays - Juliet, Rosalind, Imogen. He himself is a musician and passionately loves everything beautiful. Collects objects of ancient art. This is a decadent version of Dostoevsky's mythology that beauty will save the world. Beauty destroys personality, because it is not real beauty, but devilish, as the portrait kept by Dorian Gray shows. You have to pay for your deal with the devil. The whole story that happened with Dorian Gray is a devilish obsession: killed, Gray becomes as ugly as he should be, and the portrait again turns into something material - balance is restored.

In general, from a plot point of view, Wilde's novel uses several myths (or mythical plots). This is, firstly, the myth of Narcissus, who died after seeing his reflection in water. This is also Goethe’s Faust, who sold his soul for eternal youth. Wilde’s devil is played by Lord Henry, a cynic and immoralist who praises the “new hedonism,” a man who “always says immoral things, but never does them.” It is in a conversation with him that Dorian says the sacramental phrase: “How sad this is! - Dorian Gray suddenly muttered, still not taking his eyes off his portrait. -- How sad! I will grow old, become a nasty freak, and my portrait will be forever young. He will never become older than on this June day... Oh, if only it could be the other way around! If only this portrait would grow old, but I would remain young forever! For this... for this I would give everything in the world. Yes, I wouldn’t regret anything! I would give my soul for this!

And so it turns out: Dorian becomes the eternally young “spawn of the Devil,” as the prostitute in the port calls him, and the portrait ages disgustingly.

Dorian Gray is in love with his “other self” portrait, looks at it for a long time and even kisses it. At the end of the novel, when the portrait replaces him, Gray falls more and more in love with his beauty and, unable to bear the beauty of his body and, in contrast, the disgustingness of his soul, which the portrait shows him, essentially commits suicide, dies, like Narcissus, from self-love. Thus, the beauty that Dostoevsky thought about when describing to us “the murderer and the harlot” could not save Dorian Gray. On the contrary, she destroyed him.

The plot line of the novel is tortuous and reminds us of Balzac’s “Shagreen Skin”; both works are philosophical and symbolic; it is difficult to imagine the action itself described by the authors. However, in addition to the similarities, there are significant differences. Wilde did not create a realistic novel, although some scenes are quite plausible. “This is a purely decorative novel! "The Picture of Dorian Gray" - brocade of gold! - the author himself argued. Wilde does not have the goal of describing the character of his hero in a multifaceted way, in his dialectics, which we encounter so often, for example, in Tolstoy; on the contrary, each of his heroes is the embodiment of one idea: Dorian is the desire for eternal youth, Lord Henry is a cult philosophy of pleasure, apologist for hedonism, Basil - sacrificial devotion to art. The main attention in the novel is paid not to the action, not to the characteristics, but to the subtle game of the mind led by Lord Henry, in whose bold paradoxes the author’s cherished thoughts are embodied. Prince Paradox involves Dorian in his intellectual game, striking his imagination with unusual and daring speeches. And words for Wilde are much more important than facts; he, and with him his heroes, completely surrender to verbal duels.

But that notorious hedonism of Lord Henry is not so vicious. It somewhat echoes the ideas of Nietzsche. The path of a hedonist is illuminated by a dream of beauty, of that beauty of Dostoevsky, which was supposed to save the world, but, as if inappropriately, destroyed it. “The purpose of life is self-expression. To manifest our essence in its entirety - that’s what we live for... If every person could live a full life, giving free rein to every feeling and every thought, realizing every dream, the world would again feel such a powerful impulse to joy, that all the diseases of the Middle Ages would be forgotten, and we would return to the ideals of Hellenism, and perhaps to something even more valuable and beautiful,” Lord Henry preaches to us, and it is simply impossible to disagree with him. And no one in the novel, except Basil, tries to contradict him! “You are lovely, but a real demon-tempter. Be sure to come and dine with us,” exclaims the venerable duchess. People like Lord Henry were held in high esteem in the society of that time.

Oscar Wilde often refused to call a spade a spade. Literature, in his opinion, is not an inventory list. He had little sympathy for the sufferers. He believed that those who care for the suffering show off only ulcers and wounds, refusing to perceive a person’s life as a whole, with its defeats and victories. In this “suffering” approach, he saw a certain asymmetry, inferiority, and lack of aesthetics (that is, harmony). He instinctively believed that everything living, no matter how ugly and immoral it may seem to the average person, has the right to exist when it is embodied, takes on a form, that is, its own aesthetics. A new ethics arises when the viewer, thanks to the artist-creator, perceives as beautiful something that previously seemed immoral, that is, ugly.

This, in fact, is the essence of the philosophy of Sir Henry, the spiritual provocateur and seducer of Dorian Gray from the novel. Life is just a material, clay in our hands, the hands of artist-experimenters of life. You have to try everything in life. And Dorian, fascinated by this idea, boldly tries it. He experiments with his own life. But not only with my own. And this, apparently, is the difference between the positions of Sir Henry and Dorian. “Every crime is vulgar,” says Sir Henry, “and every vulgarity is criminal.” According to Sir Henry, for vulgar people, unimaginative, crime is what art is for the sophisticated mind, that is, a source of unusual sensations. According to Wilde himself, crime as an act of individualism can sometimes resemble a work of art in its impeccability of execution (Thomas De Quincey spoke about this in his essay “Murder as a Form of Art”); however, the individualism and freedom of the criminal are apparent: the criminal, and the murderer in particular, always deals with other people, with society, while at this time, as a true artist, he does not depend on anyone in his creation and is therefore absolutely free. From this it follows that the criminal and murderer Dorian did not pass the exam: he is, after all, a vulgar mind, devoid of imagination, imprisoned by his sensual instincts.

The Picture of Dorian Gray is a portrait of his soul, an inventory of this sinner's crimes. Wilde believed that there is Someone in the world who watches over us and writes everything down (or sketches it, as in some portrait in heaven). However, this method of re-educating Dorian Gray is very questionable, because it raises even more questions in us about the ways of possible repentance for the crimes committed. At the first stage, Dorian Gray is not particularly tormented by pangs of conscience. He, however, is still concerned about his reputation (his portrait) in the eyes of others. But gradually he begins to not give a damn about this either - just to remain undetected. The main spiritual flaw (sin) of Dorian as a person is that he, devoid of imagination, needed actions, deeds (good or evil) in order to experience the excitement of contact with life. But actions, unlike mental games, from a certain moment begin to repeat themselves, that is, to cause boredom and irritation primarily in the one who performs these actions.

Actually, Dorian Gray is suppressed by the very fact that his inner content (which is the portrait) is embodied in the face of an old man. Thought (like meaningful feeling) ages, that is certain. Adam was expelled from Paradise (that is, he became mortal, that is, he began to grow old) when he ate the fruit from the tree of Good and Evil, that is, he began to think. Idiots are known to have the face of a child. Dorian Gray does not age because he does not think about his actions, about his portrait. He didn't think about his own crimes because he never really loved his victims (no matter how much he swore it to himself).

Thus, we see that in O. Wilde’s novel everything is built on contradictions. On the one hand, this is the permissibility of crimes (Dostoevsky comes to mind again), on the other, a ban on them, their rejection. This, in our opinion, is the essence of the creative intent of the author of The Picture of Dorian Gray.

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Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine

Lugansk National University named after T.G. Shevchenko

Stakhanov Faculty

Course work

Oscar Wilde "The Picture of Dorian Gray"

Performed by student Davydova A.V.

Stakhanov 2011

INTRODUCTION

SECTION I. THE BEGINNING OF THE WAY

SECTION II. AESTHETIC THEORY OF O. WILD

2 Beauty is above all

SECTION III. "THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GREY"

2 Character system

3 Analysis of the climax of the novel. The motive of dual worlds in the novel

INTRODUCTION

There are probably few people in the world who have never heard anything about Oscar Wilde. Some remember him from school as the author of brilliant paradoxes and vivid epigrams; for others, he is Europe's first esthete and "apostle of Beauty", with a weakness for blue porcelain, peacock feathers and handmade French tapestries; some recognize in him, perhaps, the author of the magnificent fairy tales “The Nightingale and the Rose” and “The Star Boy”, even fewer - the author of the imperishable “Dorian Gray”, a catechism of decadent philosophy. But, unfortunately, for the vast majority, the name of Oscar Wilde has become a kind of symbol of depravity, and it is almost impossible to break this orally transmitted reputation. A long trail of gossip followed him during his lifetime, and even after death the gossip did not leave him alone.

We do not set ourselves the goal of dispelling the existing myth; moreover, apparently, this is simply impossible.

The relevance of the work lies in the fact that O. Wilde’s work is very multifaceted, but has not been sufficiently studied. The purpose of the work is to study in more detail the problems of O. Wilde’s work, to try to formulate the main provisions of Oscar Wilde’s aesthetic theory and to find its reflection in the brilliant fragments of his paradoxes, which are so rich in the novel “The Picture of Dorian Gray”, as well as to pay special attention on the novel “The Picture of Dorian Gray”, highlighting the main problems revealed by the writer.

The object of the study is the work of Oscar Wilde (in this case, the novel “The Picture of Dorian Gray”). The subject of the research is the problems of the writer’s creativity. The material for the work was fairy tales and the novel “The Picture of Dorian Gray”. The theoretical significance is determined by the fact that the work analyzes the problems of the works and argues for the existence of the concept of aestheticism in a literary context. The practical significance of the work lies in the possibility of using it in literature lessons when studying the works of Oscar Wilde, when studying foreign literature in higher educational institutions, as well as when writing term papers. Maybe in the end we will come to the conclusion that his philosophy did not have as its ultimate goal to shock the bourgeois society of the 19th century, and that the daring epigrams conceal a deeper meaning. In addition, the fact that Victorian England did not forgive Wilde for his views, turning a dreamer into a criminal, already makes our research interesting.

SECTION 1. BEGINNING OF THE JOURNEY

“Do you want to know what the greatest drama of my life is? - asked Oscar Wilde in the fateful year 1895. “It’s that I put my genius into my life, and only my talent into my works.” But the fact is that life, along with literature, was perceived by him as the highest and most difficult form of art, in which one can fully express oneself only by finding the appropriate form and style. He saw the task of the artist, and of every person, to become the creator of his own life; and the biography of Oscar Wilde himself is truly like a novel that actually happened, a novel with an intriguing plot and a stunning denouement that casts an unexpected light on the entire narrative that at times seemed frivolous, raising it to the level of high drama.

The chronological framework of the novel is the second half of the 19th century. The setting is predominantly the capital of England. The prologue takes place in Dublin, where Oscar Fingal O was born on October 16, 1854. Flaherty Wills Wilde.

Although he worked in the language of Shakespeare, and his talent developed in line with the English cultural tradition, Wilde always remained true to his roots and remained “a very Irish Irishman,” as his fellow countryman and almost contemporary Bernard Shaw put it. His parents instilled in him a deep love for Ireland. Father, Sir William Wilde, a very remarkable personality in Dublin, an experienced surgeon and an excellent ophthalmologist, published fundamental works, not only on medicine, was passionate about archeology and ethnography, described the masterpieces of ancient Irish architecture and art, and collected folklore. And her mother, Lady Francesca, better known by the eloquent pseudonym “Speranza” (Hope), claimed that her maiden name Algie came directly from Alighieri and the creator of the Divine Comedy was her distant ancestor.

When Oscar turned eleven years old, he was sent to the same royal school of Portora. There Oscar discovered the charm of the ancient world and reveled in studying ancient Greek authors.

At the end of school, he received the highest honors for his knowledge of classical philology and the right to enter Trinity College Dublin as a scholarship student. During his three years at college, Wilde established himself as one of the most promising students, which gave him the right to continue his education at the privileged University of Oxford.

Oxford opens a new chapter in his life. He listened to lectures by popular professors, experts in European painting, philosophy and poetry, talented writers, whose treatises and public appearances left no one indifferent, shocking some and causing unbridled delight in others. This had a great influence on the formation of the tastes and views of the young Oscar Wilde.

His first poetic experiments date back to the Oxford period. The earliest of his publications dates back to 1875: a translation of the choir of maidens from Aristophanes’ comedy “Clouds,” and in 1881 the first collection of poems was published. Despite the fact that Wilde's poetry of that period is largely imitative, it already reveals the bewitching power of imagination, exquisite decorativeness and precision of style, the ability for virtuosic stylization, the ability to convey the subtlest shades of feelings - all those qualities that determined the highest triumphs of his muse from "The Sphinx" (1884) to "The Ballad of Reading Gaol".

“I made my choice: I lived my poems...” wrote Wilde in the lyrical “Flower of Love,” and he really strove to bring as much poetry into his life as possible, seeing in it, and in art in general, an antidote to the poisoned cruel practicality prosaic bourgeois way of life. To the extent of the modest funds allocated to him by his father, he begins to take special care to surround himself with beautiful things. By the end of the first academic year at Oxford, carpets, paintings, interesting trinkets, books in elegant bindings, and elegant blue porcelain begin to appear in his room, painted with paints and decorated with stucco decorations. He grows his hair long, carefully monitors his appearance, and dresses extravagantly. “Only superficial people do not judge by appearance,” Wilde believes, and his appearance serves as a daring challenge to the prim Victorian society. The costume that helped the aspiring poet conquer London looked like this: a short velvet jacket trimmed with braid, the finest silk shirt with a wide turn-down collar, a soft green tie, knee-length satin trousers, black stockings and patent leather shoes with buckles. This outfit, which attracted everyone's attention, was complemented by a beret, sometimes a free-flowing cloak, as well as a sunflower or lily in the hand. In such masquerade attire, Wilde bravely appeared in public from time to time, quite shocking the high society public. The matter, however, was not limited to external gloss - Wilde was characterized by that internal dandyism of the Byronian type, the nature of which was superbly explained by his beloved fellow poet Charles Baudelaire: “It is unreasonable to reduce dandyism to an exaggerated passion for dress and external elegance. For a true dandy, all these material attributes are just a symbol of the aristocratic superiority of his spirit... First of all, this is an irresistible attraction to originality, which takes a person to the extreme limit of accepted conventions... no matter how these people are called - dandies, dandies, socialites or dandies - they are all similar in essence. Everyone is involved in protest and rebellion, everyone embodies the best side of human pride - a very rare need these days to fight vulgarity and eradicate it... Dandyism appears mainly in transitional eras, when democracy has not yet achieved true power, and the aristocracy has only partially lost its dignity and the ground under your feet..."

This was exactly the dandyism of Oscar Wilde and this was the Victorian era in which he lived. He felt stifled in the atmosphere of this crisis era, he was burdened by its hypocritical morality, which preached the “seven mortal virtues,” and despised both the snobbery of the aristocracy, which was losing its dominant position, and the false values ​​of the bourgeois, who were raising their heads ever more proudly. Anti-bourgeois protest erupted already in his early poems (“To Milton”, “The Garden of Eros”). "He reveals the philosopher hidden beneath the dandy's exterior," as An Ideal Husband would later say of Lord Goring.

But nevertheless, this protest then resulted in Wilde mainly in the form of aestheticism - that was the name of the movement he named, an integral part of the propaganda of which was an elaborate costume. Aestheticism, in fact, embodied a naive call to worship Beauty in all its manifestations as opposed to the ugliness of soulless existence in an age imbued with utilitarianism.

SECTION 2. AESTHETIC THEORY OF O. WILD

In the lecture “The Revival of English Art” (1882), Wilde first formulated the basic principles of the aesthetic program of English decadence, which were later developed in his treatises “Brush, Pen and Poison” (1889), “The Truth of Masks”, “The Decline of the Art of Lying” ( 1889), “The Critic as an Artist” (1890), combined in 1891 into the book “Plans”.

The thoroughly idealistic philosophy of art developed by Wilde in his treatises was an expression of the deep decline of bourgeois aesthetic thought. The defense of “pure art,” the affirmation of which Wilde considered the “fundamental dogma” of his aesthetics, the definition of art as “revelation,” had a direct connection with the agnosticism characteristic of the entire reactionary bourgeois philosophy of the end of the century. Nietzsche's cult of a strong personality coexisted in Wilde's aesthetics with the ideas of Christian socialism, and the feeling of his time, characteristic of all decadence, as a period of deep crisis - with the preaching of unbridled enjoyment of life. Defending the main thesis of idealistic aesthetics - the independence of art from life - and calling for an escape from reality into the world of illusions, Wilde argued that art by its very nature is hostile to reality, hostile to any social and moral ideas. For example, he considered Zola’s work “totally wrong from beginning to end, and wrong not in terms of morality, but in terms of art”; Speaking about the strength of Maupassant’s talent, he does not accept the realistic orientation of this talent, which reveals “rotten sores and inflamed wounds of life.”

Rejecting the art of large social generalizations, Wilde defends the replacement of the realistic image with impressionistic sketches, characteristic of decadence, saying that modern art should “convey the instantaneous position, the instantaneous appearance of this or that object.” In the fight against the art of an open social trend, the herald of which Shaw acted at that time in English literature, Wilde demands “all-absorbing attention to form” as “the only highest law of art.”

The subjective-idealistic basis of Wilde’s aesthetic views is most acutely manifested in the treatise “The Decline of Lies.” Written in Wilde’s typical manner of revealing his thoughts through a dialogue colored by paradoxes, this treatise had a strongly polemical character and became one of the manifestos of Western European decadence.

Denying reality, which exists objectively, outside human consciousness, Wilde tries to prove that it is not art that reflects nature, but on the contrary, nature is a reflection of art. “Nature is not at all the great mother who gave birth to us,” he says, “she is our very creation. Only in our brain does it begin to live. Things exist because we see them...” The London fogs, Wilde argued, had never been so thick until “poets and painters showed people the mysterious charm of such effects.” "The nineteenth century, as we know it, was largely invented by Balzac." “Schopenhauer gave an analysis of the pessimism that characterizes modern thought, but Hamlet invented the pessimism.”

Proclaiming the artist’s right to complete arbitrariness, Wilde says that art “cannot be judged by an external measure of resemblance to reality. It is more like a blanket than a mirror... once you command it, the almond tree will bloom in winter, and the ripening field will be covered with snow.” Taking his thought to the extreme paradoxical point, Wilde declares that true art is based on lies and that the decline of nineteenth-century art (by decline he means realism) is explained by the fact that the “art of lying” was forgotten: “All bad art exists because that we return to life and nature and raise them to the ideal.” He stated that “life is a very caustic liquid, it destroys art, like an enemy devastates his house,” said that “realism as a method is no good, and every artist must avoid two things - modernity of form and modernity of plot.”

In contrast to the convergence of the creative process with the process of scientific research, which Zola advocated, Wilde argued that art begins not with the study of life, but with “abstract decoration, with purely inventive pleasant work on what is not real, what does not exist... it is completely indifferent to facts, it invents, fantasizes, dreams, and between itself and reality puts a high barrier of beautiful style, decorative or ideal interpretation.”

Wilde sees the tasks of literary criticism in the same subjective-idealistic spirit as the tasks of art. In the articles “The Critic as an Artist” and “The Brush, the Pen and the Poison,” he gives the critic the right to the same subjectivist arbitrariness that, according to his theory, the artist is endowed with. “The main task of an aesthetic critic is, according to Wilde, to convey his own impressions.”

Denying the social functions of art and declaring that the task of every artist “is simply to enchant, delight, give pleasure,” Wilde took the reactionary position of an opponent of literature imbued with democratic tendencies: “We do not want at all,” he wrote, - to be tormented and driven to nausea by stories about the affairs of the lower classes."

While emphasizing the anti-realistic and anti-democratic essence of Wilde’s aesthetics, one cannot help but note that his views on the essence and tasks of art were extremely contradictory. Speaking in defense of the reactionary slogan “art for art’s sake,” which objectively served to protect the bourgeois order, but, at the same time, he was clearly skeptical about many traditions of Victorian England and its culture. In his assessments of both old and modern literature, Wilde often differed decisively from official bourgeois criticism. He praised Byron as a “warrior poet,” a hero of the liberation struggle of the Greek people (“Ravenna”), welcomed his and Shelley’s rebellion against the hypocrisy of English society, followed the literary and social activities of William Morris with respect and sympathy, admired the “noble and unshakable "Whitman's faith in the triumph of goodness and justice. Speaking about the Shakespearean power of Balzac’s paintings, Wilde caustically remarked that the great writer “of course, was accused of immorality,” although “the morality of the characters in his “Human Comedy” is nothing more than the morality of the society around us.” Pointing out that the same fate befell Zola, Wilde said that “the highly moral indignation of our contemporaries against Zola” is nothing more than “Tartuffe’s indignation at being exposed.”

Wilde spoke with respect of the greatest Russian novelists, noting the perfection of Turgenev's artistic mastery, the epic breadth of Tolstoy's paintings and the depth of Dostoevsky's psychological analysis.

Reacting sharply to the contradictions of the surrounding reality, Wilde himself is entirely woven from contradictions. In his statements, he appears either as a sentimental cynic, or as an immoral moralist, or as a dreamy skeptic; encourages you to see the funny in the sad and feel the tragic shade in comedy; for him, naturalness is a difficult pose, doing nothing is the hardest activity in the world, a mask is more interesting than a face, theater is more real than life, in his opinion, life imitates art more than art imitates life. But behind the cold sparkler of his verbal escapades one feels a hot, passionate desire to explode, overturn or at least shake the inviolability of sanctimonious morality and vulgar - often rented - ideas about the world that were held by the self-righteous "masters of life" in "an age devoid of soul ". He could easily be ironic about everything, but in relation to Art, in the power of which he sacredly believed, he remained extremely serious (which did not prevent him from completing the preamble to Dorian Gray with the words: “All art is completely useless” - without this Wilde was not would be Wilde). He was nicknamed “the king of life”, “Prince Paradox”, “Scheherazade of the salons” for his incredible wit, the fireworks of paradoxes he unleashed, his inexhaustible invention and ability to charm people.

At the cost of considerable effort, he managed to become known as the “king of life,” but the time has come to prove that the king is not naked, as in the fairy tale of his beloved Andersen. And Oscar Wilde brilliantly proves this. Continuing to wear in public the mask of languid idleness that they so much like and supporting the myth he created about himself as a militant hedonist, he works hard, creating in eight years almost all the works that have provided him with an honorable place in the history of world literature. These are two books of fairy tales - “The Happy Prince” (1888) and “The Pomegranate House” (1891), the short story “Portrait of Mr. W.G.” (1887), the collection “Plans” (1891), the novel “The Picture of Dorian Gray” (1890), four comedies - “Lady Windermere’s Fan” (1892), “A Woman Not Worth Noticing” (1893), “An Ideal Husband” ( 1895), “The Importance of Being Earnest” (1895), the drama “Salome” (1894), written in French, another drama in the same spirit “The Holy Harlot, or the Woman Covered with Jewels” (its full text is lost) and the remaining unfinished "Florentine Tragedy".

1 The relationship between aesthetic declarations and artistic practice of O. Wilde

“In essence, Art is a mirror, reflecting whoever looks into it, and not life at all,” wrote Oscar Wilde in his Preface to the novel. This paradox perfectly explains the variety of often mutually exclusive assessments and interpretations that are found in research works dedicated to The Picture of Dorian Gray. Many critics, as if following this paradox, consider the novel from their own positions, investing in it a meaning that is initially completely not inherent in the novel and which, in fact, often neutralizes Wilde’s authorship. Most clearly, the contradictory interpretations of “The Picture of Dorian Gray” can be seen in works that address the issue of the relationship between Oscar Wilde’s aesthetic views and their expression in the artistic fabric of the novel. This question is most often addressed in the pages of research papers and is the cornerstone for scholars of interpretation of The Picture of Dorian Gray.

When considering this issue, the attention of many researchers focuses specifically on the Dorian experiment as the main component of the plot of the novel. It should be noted that researchers disagree on what exactly the experiment involves. For example, Richard Ellman believes that the experiment was carried out by Wilde himself on the main character of the novel, Dorian Gray, who, “like Wilde, experimented with two forms of sexual love - love for women and love for men; Through his hero, Wilde could open a window into his own experiences of recent years.” “Now,” Ellman develops his idea, “when he (Wilde) became established in his homosexual orientation, he asked himself the question: was he always like this? Were his youthful loves just a sham? Questions like these pushed him to create two Dorians.”

M.V. Urnov sees in “The Picture of Dorian Gray” a mythical novel, the hero of which turns his life into an experiment of pleasure.”

A.A. Fedorov considers the novel as “a work in which an artistic experiment is staged on the Platonic theme of the relationship between the ideal and the real,” but not the main character, but Wilde himself, who transfers “Plato’s doctrine of beauty” to London at the end of the 19th century. Based on the fate of Dorian, who “is portrayed in the novel as a representative of an entire generation of people at the end of the century,” Wilde draws conclusions about the “inaccessibility of spiritual ascent, which Plato hoped for in his Republic.” Compare with T.A. Boborykina, who views Dorian, Basil Hallward and Lord Henry as “different aspects of the same irreparably torn personality” and sees the main ideological and philosophical concept of the novel in “the idea of ​​spiritual decay as a characteristic state of modern man.”

N.V. Tishunina and N.G. Vladimirova emphasize that Wilde does not connect his characters, action, and, as a result, the outcome of the novel with a specific historical reality, and interpret the novel in a philosophical and symbolic key. According to N.G. Vladimirova, “the core of the plan was an experiment with a person surrendering himself to the power of Art.” N.V. Tishunina proposes to consider Dorian Gray “not as a realistic image embodying certain traits of his contemporaries, but as an image - a symbol.”

In Dorian, as a hero-symbol, N.V. Tishunin further develops his concept, there is a synthesis of the artist (subject) and his work of art (object), as a result of which life itself becomes a work of art, which is the goal of the new hedonism. But at the same time, Dorian’s collapse is inevitable, since in the process of creating a work of art from his own life, “there had to be an inevitable alienation from himself, as well as from other people... and the more he embodied himself in a living work of art, the more he left from it is real life itself. By creating a work of art out of his existence, he self-destructed as an artist,” and as a result, “the object absorbed the subject of creativity and the subject must withdraw itself.”

A.A. Astvatsaturov agrees that the novel is not tied to a specific historical reality: “the main events unfold in aristocratic salons and mansions, as if isolated from the outside world,” however, he believes that “the author’s interest is mainly focused on the evolution of the consciousness of the central character ", and the central idea of ​​the novel is "the Christian idea that it is meaningless for a person to gain the whole world if he loses his soul."

S.A. Kolesnik considers the novel as an answer to the question: “What will happen to a person if, leaving him with a beautiful shell, you deprive him of his inner moral foundation?” And the question formulated in this way is very significant, because the novel is often considered from the ethical side.

In this regard, one cannot fail to mention the very first critical responses to the novel, which appeared in the English press immediately after its first publication. Critics called this novel immoral, harmful, immoral, corrupting youth and accused the author of unclear ethical positions. And these accusations of English criticism of the immorality of the novel, and then the scandalous trial of Oscar Wilde, one way or another had a great influence on subsequent critical and literary studies of this work, identifying - as the main - the problem of Wilde's ethical position reflected in his novel. Subsequently, a fairly clear tendency emerged: when analyzing The Picture of Dorian Gray, to pay attention mainly to the ethical side of the novel, its morality, and to what the author wanted to express and actually expressed. And, perhaps, the most serious sin of which Wilde is accused is not the immorality of his novel, but its inconsistency.

We can trace this most clearly in Russian literary studies. Even at the beginning of the 20th century, some critics (A.M. Redko, E.V. Anichkov), studying Wilde’s work, focused on “the contradictions between aestheticism and immoralism, on the one hand, and, on the other, Wilde’s inclination to solve ethical problems.” Perhaps The most famous and authoritative exponent of such views was K.I. Chukovsky, who believed that “the work of Oscar Wilde turned out to be stronger than himself. A sense of artistic truth, as is always the case with great artists, forced Wilde, contrary to his false plan, to reveal to the reader the ruinousness and rottenness of the idea that he wanted to exalt, and to show the spiritual bankruptcy of the hero for whom he planned to create a halo." Following K. I. Chukovsky, other researchers continue to develop the idea of ​​​​the inconsistency of Wilde's novel. We can find this idea, for example, in the “History of English Literature”: “The contradictions in Wilde’s views are revealed especially clearly in his novel “The Picture of Dorian Gray.” The writer builds an image and plot episodes in accordance with his favorite aesthetic ideas: art is higher than life, pleasure is more important than everything, beauty is higher than morality. However, the system of images and the development of the plot reveal the falsity of these ideas." A.A. Anikst in her article concludes about the contradictions between aesthetic declarations and the writer’s own artistic heritage. T.A. Porfiryeva considers the novel as Wilde’s deviation from his aesthetic views and finds in the work “the conflict of the author himself with the ideals of aestheticism." Conclusions about the inconsistency of the novel are often made on the basis of a comparison of the novel and its Preface. Thus, in one of the dissertations about Wilde we encounter the following point of view: “Wilde contradicts himself in his own theoretical constructs. The material in the novel “The Picture of Dorian Gray” pursues a moral goal, the glorification of honesty, kindness, nobility, and at the same time, in the preface to the novel, Wilde notes “There are no moral or immoral books...” A similar point of view is expressed by R. Ellman “Wilde, how the author of the preface and Wilde as a novelist subject each other to deconstruction.”

Some researchers do not so much sharpen Wilde's contradictions as try to explain what caused this inconsistency and to reconcile these contradictions with each other. In this regard, the work of T.A. is characteristic. Boborykina, who distinguishes in Wilde’s work two contradictory, but internally compatible and interconnected forms of understanding reality, one of which most often embodies “critically negative motives”, and “its usual tools are the brilliant paradoxes of the writer and his ability to juggle words and thoughts, and a uniquely unique combination of irony, humor and graceful skepticism.” The main task of this trend is T.A. Boborykina sees “the shaking of the foundations of the dominant moral and religious shrines,” in which “out of the entire set of absolutely indisputable truths, only one remained unshakable - about the unreliability of everything that is generally considered reliable and indisputable.” “This side of Wilde’s work,” writes T.A. Boborykin, - it is difficult to overestimate /.../ and many critics see in it the defining and almost the only beginning of Wilde’s artistic activity,” arising “from the very essence of his life position.” At the same time, the author notes, there is a clear underestimation of the second line of the writer’s work, which embodies “aesthetically positive motives” and reflects the “direction of aesthetic and ethical quests” of Wilde.

The discrepancies between “aesthetic preferences” and moral truth,” which, one way or another, were emphasized by the authors analyzing “The Picture of Dorian Gray,” gave rise to another tendency among researchers: the tendency to overcome this contradiction, the desire to prove that Wilde in his novel expressed what he sought to express, that the exposure of the main character and, accordingly, the idea that he preaches is initially included in the concept of the novel.

For M.B. Ladygina’s novel is “the clearest example of the external contradiction between aesthetics and the artistic creativity of a writer, but in fact the unity of Wilde’s aesthetic principles and works.” Analysis of the novel, says M.B. Ladygin, “testifies rather to the consistency of the writer.” R. Khusnulina believes that in Wilde, “the revelations of aesthetics are woven into the plot and into the characters, so that the story told by the writer illuminates the understanding of the reality of the end of the century, the mentality of the aesthetic-decadent environment, but even more about the versions of adaptation to them.” Richard Ellman says the same thing: “Dorian Gray” is an aesthetic novel in the highest sense, not promoting the aesthetic doctrine, but revealing its dangers” (“Wilde wrote the tragedy of aestheticism”). A point of view similar to this is expressed by A.A. Fedorov: “The Picture of Dorian Gray directly reflected the theoretical problems of aestheticism, and showed the author’s desire to evaluate the various trends that emerged in the aesthetic movement... On the one hand, Hallward’s Hellenism is shown, whose paintings are distinguished by external and internal perfection and harmony, with on the other hand, the fate of Dorian reveals the futility of that direction of aestheticism, which began with admiration for Baudelaire’s “Flowers of Evil.”

At the same time, aestheticism also conceals the possibility of personality degradation. This is the explanation for the plot denouement of The Picture of Dorian Gray.

At the same time, authors who adhere to a similar point of view on the concept of the novel (as a novel that does not contain a contradiction) either do not consider the Preface to the novel at all, or contrast it with the main idea of ​​the novel, intersecting on this issue with those researchers for whom the Preface is one of the main arguments to prove the inconsistency of Wilde's novel. The only difference between those and other researchers is that the former consider this contradiction to be conscious. Whereas in reality, as it seems to us, there is no contradiction in the novel: “aestheticism for the author of “Portrait” has always been not a credo, but rather a problem, and therefore in the novel he made an attempt to rethink its postulates. Wilde in no way abandons aestheticism, he only clarifies his position. This is evidenced by the preface, where in the form of aphoristic paradoxes he presents to the reader his thoughts about art, which completely coincide with the concept he developed in detail in his theoretical treatises.” Traditionally, the Preface is considered as “the literary and aesthetic program of the writer, which he prefaces his novel,” and the provisions of which “pass the test of strength in the actual plot part of the work,” and as a result of such a test, “the novel itself indicts the preface, glorifying aestheticism " Undoubtedly, Wilde’s Preface looks like an aesthetic program: “here are given definitions, very reminiscent of scientific ones, of the most important aesthetic categories (beauty, form, realism, romanticism, etc.), the uniqueness of human personality, art is shown, the relationship between art and morality is defined. Many problems that are within the competence of aesthetic science are solved in aphoristic form.” But here the Preface performs slightly different functions, different from the functions of the prefaces of other authors: it does not clarify the text itself. And the history of the appearance of the Preface to The Picture of Dorian Gray is quite peculiar: it appeared only in the second, book edition of the novel, which in itself indicates the absence of a close connection between it and the novel itself. In addition, it was a summary of those less polished, more detailed statements from Wilde's letters, which he addressed to the editors of several newspapers and magazines that published harsh reviews of the magazine version of The Picture of Dorian Gray. Thus, the Preface is, first of all, collected responses to the attacks of critics (“reply to critics”), but the functions of the Preface, of course, are not exhausted by this.

This Preface is another Wildean paradox, a kind of hoax: on the one hand, Wilde, through the mouth of Lord Henry, says that a book cannot poison, and on the other, he supplies the novel with “poisoning” (at least that’s how many perceived it) Preface. It is also important to consider here that “Wilde, like the postmodernists of the 20th century, creating the appearance of simplicity, openly declaring and entertaining, in fact plays with the reader, creating many levels of text,” which “everyone is free to read as he wants.” Therefore, considering the Preface as a collection of theses of Wilde’s contemporary philosophy of art, the novel can be read both as a programmatic work of aestheticism, where the theses of the Preface are transformed into a literary text, and as an edifying parable in which these theses are tested and refuted. The purpose of the Preface is to instill in the reader a special view of art as “something located on a completely different plane, which does not coincide with the level of everyday life.” And, taking into account the point of view of T.A. Boborykina on “The Picture of Dorian Gray” as a novel that “has already been written not only by Wilde the prose writer, but also by Wilde the playwright,” we can correlate the Preface of the novel with the author’s remark or dramatic poster, where, in fact, one main character is introduced novel: art.

To summarize what has been said in this chapter, I would like to note that in many studies there is a tendency to simplify, and thereby impoverish Wilde’s concept. Thus, despite the author’s postulates, vice and virtue are by no means presented exclusively as “material for creativity.” As often happens in the relationship between art and normative aesthetics, Wilde sometimes involuntarily contradicts his own theoretical declarations and in his artistic practice goes beyond the boundaries he himself has established. Even recognizing the paradoxical nature of Oscar Wilde, the authors tend to see it only in a refutation of “truths”, to consider it as a confrontation with traditional morality, as a weakening of social foundations. And cross this shaky bridge to something more stable and positive: to the ethics of the novel, to the moral lesson that the novel contains.

2 Beauty is above all

The story of the fall of the young aristocrat Dorian Gray, corrupted by the high-society cynic Lord Henry, unfolds in the elegant setting of rich rooms covered with ancient tapestries, a greenhouse with blooming orchids, darkened offices with secret cabinets hiding poisonous potions and equally poisonous books. Admiration of the objects of salon-aristocratic life, aestheticization of moral corruption, justifying the cynical reasoning and vicious adventures of the heroes, make this novel one of the most characteristic works of decadent prose. The laconic preface reminds the reader that the doctrine of aestheticism, according to the author’s intention, is a set of indispensable rules by which the novel should be interpreted. The twenty-five elegant, witty aphorisms that make up this preface can be perceived as the thesis expression of a system of views that was expounded in a different form and at greater length in the dialogues. The preface, not connected by plot with the main text of the novel, is interesting because of the originality and expressiveness of the sayings that make it up. But in terms of the way they express the meaning inherent in them, they are in complete harmony with the style of Wilde the novelist. At the same time, the preface and the novel itself seem to be conducting a kind of dialogue with each other, during which agreements and contradictions alternate. Expressed aphoristically in sharp phrases, the provisions of Wilde’s aesthetic program are tested for “strength” in the actual plot part of the work.

The concept of “beautiful” and “beauty” (Wilde writes this word with a capital letter) is placed in the preface at the highest level of values. The teachings of Lord Henry and their embodiment - the life of Dorian - seem to fully correspond to this arrangement. Dorian is beautiful, and beauty justifies all the negative aspects of his nature and the flawed moments of his existence (“the chosen one is the one who sees only one thing in beauty - Beauty”). Anyone who encroaches on Beauty - regardless of reasons and intentions - himself becomes a victim, like, for example, James Vane, the brother of the unfortunate Sibylla.

Dorian is punished only when he raises his hand to something beautiful - to a work of art. Art, as the embodiment of beauty, is eternal, and therefore the hero dies, but a beautiful portrait remains to live, just as at the moment of the end of the artist’s work. Everything seems to be consistent with the theoretical views of the writer.

At the same time, the ending of the novel may have a slightly different interpretation. The dead man lying on the floor was identified by his servants only by the rings on his hands: “his face was wrinkled, withered, repulsive.” The very appearance of the dead Dorian is anti-aesthetic, and this circumstance allows even in the value system of aestheticism to read the punishment incurred for the crimes. Precisely crimes (in the plural), because the attempt on a portrait alone would not have left such an abundance of traces on the hero’s face. The general coloring of Dorian's crimes is absolute immorality, complete moral indifference. Even the writer who condemned the “aesthetic sympathies of the artist,” contrary to his own program, showed not only the mental crisis of his hero, but also ultimately led him to punishment. In the first chapters of the novel, the soul and mind of the protagonist are disturbed by the penetration of new ideas about the life purpose of beauty; in the last chapter, Dorian dies.

The dissolution of aestheticism in the new hedonism is also characteristic only of Lord Henry's tirades and remarks. Let us recall, for example, the hymn to Beauty from the second chapter. “Beauty is one of the types of Genius, it is even higher than genius... it has the highest right to power and makes kings those who possess it...”. The idea of ​​“permissiveness” inherent in Beauty is tested in the novel and ultimately refuted. It seems to Lord Henry that if the ideas of the new hedonism took possession of every person, then “the world would feel again ... a powerful impulse to joy”

The text of the novel tells us: swim beautifully on the surface - and you will perish ugly in the depths. The author, glorifying aestheticism, himself accuses it. “The Picture of Dorian Gray” is self-contained and self-referential in the most ingenious sense, just like its central image.

Dorian ascends - or descends - from life to art and from it back to life. Every event, like every character in a book, has a hidden aesthetic component by which this event, this character is ultimately measured.

The beautiful, according to the code of aestheticism, is above all. The hero who raises his hand to the beautiful (portrait) is punished. By killing the creator of beauty - the creator of the portrait - he commits an equally serious crime.

Dorian Gray is an aesthetic novel in the highest sense, not promoting aesthetic doctrine, but revealing its dangers. Wilde wrote a tragedy of aestheticism that contains a foreshadowing of his own tragedy.

SECTION 3. “PORTRAIT OF DORIAN GRAY”

On July 1890, Lippincott's Magazine published the first edition of The Picture of Dorian Gray. It took the writer a little more than three weeks to create the novel, and this was the only time the work took him so much time. In April of the following year, 1891, the novel was published as a separate edition with significant additions. In addition to minor inserts, the writer added six new chapters and a small preface. The disturbing atmosphere, the philosophical basis of the work, at least the ambiguous feelings that unite the characters, but especially the deep perversity of the main character led to an unprecedented scandal and ensured the success of the novel. Victorian England exploded with two hundred and sixteen reviews from outraged, shocked critics.

As in “The Canterville Ghost,” in this book the author’s fiction is not strictly limited by the limits of authenticity, and reality is intertwined with fantasy in a very unique way. Actually, in the story of the handsome young man Dorian Gray, who served as a model for the artist Basil Hallward for his best portrait, and then, under the influence of the preacher of hedonism, Lord Henry Wotton, became an incorrigible selfish and indifferent to morality, a pleasure seeker who slipped into the path of vice - in this story everything is quite plausible and within the limits of credibility. What is fantastic is that the man and the portrait seem to have switched roles: Dorian Gray has remained outwardly unchanged for eighteen years, and the grave function of aging is taken on by the painting, on which time, passions and vices leave their traces.

This plot motif has a very definite literary pedigree. The motif of the mysterious connection between a person’s fate and his portrait could have been borrowed by Wilde from the famous novel by C.R. Maturin "Melmoth the Wanderer". In the same row are the creations of E.T.A. Hoffmann, Goethe, “The Wonderful Story of Peter Schlemihl” by A. Chamisso, B. Disraeli’s novel “Vivienne Gray”, “Pelham, or the Adventures of a Gentleman” by E. Bulwer-Lytton and, perhaps, above all, “Shagreen Skin” by O. Balzac. Finally, if we talk about the influence of literary ancestors on Dorian Gray, one more book should be named - the very “poisonous book” that Lord Henry gives to young Dorian. The title of this book is not given, but none of the interpreters of the novel had and can have any doubts on this score: Lord Henry gave Dorian the famous novel by the French writer Joris-Karl Huysmans “On the contrary” (“A Rebours”), published for the first time in 1884

1 The role of the portrait in the plot and concept of the novel

As noted above, on many issues concerning the novel “The Picture of Dorian Gray,” the opinions of researchers differ significantly, but when assessing the role of the portrait in the novel, their opinions are surprisingly similar. The portrait is either a mirror of Dorian's soul, or represents Dorian's materialized conscience (takes on the function of conscience). Often researchers do not separate these two functions in their works, although there is undoubtedly a difference between them: the function of the mirror of the soul is just a function that states changes in Dorian’s soul, while the function of conscience includes not only a reflection of the soul, but also, most importantly, the assessment of the changes taking place in Dorian’s soul is an evaluative-expressive function. Regarding this function, the point of view of some researchers is interesting, who see in the portrait the conscience not of Dorian himself, but of Basil Hallward in relation to Dorian. A highly moral artist, according to S.A. Kolesnik, conveys its functions to the picture, “capturing the purity of moral feeling,” that is, “the functions of the creator, forcing the portrait to play the role of conscience in the novel in relation to the main character.” “It is precisely because the portrait conceals the artist’s vision that it (the portrait) reveals a moral truth,” writes John E. Hart. Lewis J. Poteet also writes about this: “These changes on the canvas actually reflect the life of Dorian, filtered through Basil's court." And since the portrait, one way or another, is Dorian’s conscience for researchers, then his role in the novel is clear. This is the role of a double, reflecting Dorian’s soul (or “his mental shifts, passions, vices”), a witness to crimes , the judge of Dorian's actions, the exposer of his true essence. Let's give just a few examples: “In the portrait, art becomes a conductor of truth,” “The portrait is the secret mirror of Dorian’s soul,” “The portrait is intended to expose the hypocrite.”

Speaking about the portrait, researchers not only describe its role, but also try to explain the reasons for the appearance of the portrait in the novel. The most common point of view is that the picture allows us to most clearly show the changes occurring in Dorian. “The essence of personality is difficult to understand. Is this why the image of a portrait is so important in Wilde’s poetics?” - R. Khusnulina does not ask, but rather asserts. Also N.V. Tishunina sees in the portrait “an attempt to materialize through the fantastic grotesque, to make visible in an artistic metaphor the spiritual world of a person.” For O.Yu. Pysina’s painting in the novel makes it possible to more expressively and concentratedly show how “appearance changes under the influence of a person’s actions.” “An abstract idea,” writes T.A. Boborykina, “here acquires visible, sensually perceived forms, allowing the reader to see the dramatic vicissitudes of the life of the human soul with the same clarity and physical tangibility with which he sees the physical appearance of its bearer.”

In addition, according to T.A. Boborykina, “a living portrait emphasizes the drama and severity of the conflict.” The point of view of N.G. is close to this point of view. Vladimirova, who believes that a portrait is needed “to create an atmosphere of a kind of risk in connection with the ongoing “action” against mimetic art,” without such an atmosphere “the very intensity of experience, which the author is counting on, may not arise.”

Some researchers see in the portrait, again, an illustration, but not of a conflict in the soul of a person (or a conflict of a person with his own soul), but of a relationship, at the plot level, between art and life.

For A.A. Aniksta’s portrait illustrates the thesis that “art is more real than life.” For V.K. Tarasova, the portrait is simply one of the illustrations of the author’s views on the relationship between art and life. According to N.S. Bochkareva, the painting is intended to “express the interaction of art and life.” Here you can cite the opinion of N.V. Tishunina that the portrait as a double of Dorian at the plot level allows Wilde to show at the symbolic level that “art does not reflect life”, that “art and life exist according to different laws.”

T.A. Porfiryeva, exploring the peculiarities of the author's position in The Picture of Dorian Gray, explains the introduction of such an element as a fantastic portrait into the artistic existence of the novel by Oscar Wilde's desire to show his own attitude to the changes taking place in the soul of Dorian, making the portrait an exponent of the author's position. Thus, the researcher believes, Wilde, without imposing his own opinion and “hiding the parable edification of the novel” (“the artist is not a moralist”), still expresses his opinion. Consequently, with this interpretation, the portrait may well be considered as the focus of “the moral intention of the novel, not expressed in its plot side.”

But, if the meaning of a portrait in a novel can be reduced to all the above functions, then is L.I. really wrong? Axelrod, believing that “this work would have benefited in all respects if the artist, instead of modifying the portrait, had given us a psychological picture of the hero’s life and its completion.” In other words, is it really necessary to introduce a fantastic element into a novel if its significance is reduced only to illustrating the relationship between art and life, to creating a special (more dramatic or more conducive to the intensity of experience) atmosphere, to visual proof that beauty is destroyed under the burden of harmful passions or immoral actions, to clarify the author’s position and reflect Dorian’s soul and internal conflict? And many authors, it seems, are ready to answer this question negatively, viewing the portrait as a fantastic assumption made by Wilde, as something fairly conventional, helping to identify the main idea of ​​the novel, but at the same time having no independent meaning.

Some researchers explain the presence of a fantastic (or mystical) element in the novel only by the influence of neo-romantic and symbolic traditions of that time on Wilde’s work. So, A.A. Fedorov explains the mysticism in the novel by the aesthetic logic of the writer, “in the light of which fabulousness should become a necessary property of literature” .And M.G. Sokolyansky considers Wilde’s attraction to the grotesque “a characteristic feature of neo-romanticism in the novel” and considers the introduction of a portrait into the novel as “a traditional fantastic device that in no way reduces the vital specificity of the novel.”

The presence of not just a fantastic element, but a magical portrait, is also explained by the literary tradition by the American researcher Kerry Powell. In addition, in the image of the portrait created by Wilde, the researcher sees a response to the authors of realistic works written in the “portrait tradition.” In particular, Kerry Powell examines the works of three novelists whom Wilde criticizes in his essay "The Decay of Lying" (1889) as representatives of realism: Charles Reed, James Payne, and Henry James. In the works of these writers (“Portrait” (“The Picture”, 1884) by C. Reed, “Best of Husbands” (“Best of Husbands”, 1874) by J. Payne, “History of a Masterpiece” , 1868) by G. James there are also portraits, but they do not have the supernatural properties that The Picture of Dorian Gray is endowed with.

The "striking similarities" between The Picture of Dorian Gray and these works lead Kerry Powell to suggest that Wilde's novel, among other things, "sought to show his dull contemporaries exactly where they were wrong and how such stories should be written."

The fantastic portrait is intended to emphasize the unreality of what is happening in the novel, the impossibility of such events in life. As noted by N.V. Tishunina, Wilde “does not deduce the final moral with the tragic ending itself: this is, they say, not a good thing to do, and if you behave like Mr. Gray, a terrible end will overtake you. None of the readers will be able to behave like Dorian, since no one will ever have such a portrait.” That is, Wilde considers an exceptional, not a typical case in his novel. And, considering the novel as a fantasy novel, we can highlight one more function, which is not considered independently, but is implied in the context of almost all research works, namely, the function of a double hero who grows old instead of a prototype hero. It was precisely the fact that the portrait grew old instead of Dorian that allowed Dorian, without fear for his beauty, to lead a lifestyle whose main component was the search for all the pleasures available in life. In the novel, the portrait is the guarantee of Dorian’s eternal youth, and, therefore, a guarantee of the opportunity to live the way Dorian wants. In this S.A. Kolesnik sees a fundamental difference between The Picture of Dorian Gray and Balzac's Shagreen, which is often cited as the source of Wilde's novel. Wilde does not imitate “Shagreen Skin” in his novel, the researcher concludes, “but seems to be polemicizing with Balzac: Dorian’s eternal youth is not only not a requirement for any prohibitions, but also a preliminary absolution; he does not need to tremble for every day he lives, he can generously lavish his life and his feelings.” The function of the aging double is fundamental for the further development of the plot, which means that it is precisely this function that can justify the “necessity” of a portrait in the novel’s existence.

So, we examined the following functions of the portrait: the function of the mirror of Dorian’s soul, the function of conscience, both of Dorian himself and of Basil Hallward in relation to Dorian, and even of Oscar Wilde in relation to Dorian (the portrait is an exponent of the author’s position), the function of a hero-double, aging instead of the main character and thereby ensuring his eternal youth and polemical function (Wilde’s answer to supporters of the realistic method in art).

But even if all of the above functions of the portrait were taken into account, it would have to be assigned an auxiliary, peripheral role in the structure of the work. This is precisely the role that Wilde’s researchers essentially assign to him. Meanwhile, both the title of the novel and its entire content indicate that, according to the author’s plan, the portrait plays a much more complex, central role in Dorian Gray.

2 Character system

The system of artistic characters in the novel “The Picture of Dorian Gray” allows us to identify at least three antagonistic types of characters.

The first type - the Creator, Basil Hallward, expresses the image of the Artist, an impartial creator with pure thoughts and an open soul. His destiny is creativity, to some extent delimited from the imperfection and dullness of life; he is the creator of “detached” beauty.

His antagonist - Lord Henry Wotton, symbolizes the type of hero, cynical-gnostic in relation to generally accepted morality in his thoughts, deeds and actions, he is the Tempter. A kind of litmus determinant of the direction of the vector of spiritual development of this or that character (“I don’t need money, they are needed by those who have the habit of paying debts, and I never pay my creditors,” “Young people want to be faithful - and they are not, old people they would like to cheat, but where can they be!”, “The only difference between a whim and “eternal love” is that the whim lasts a little longer”).

The third type is Beauty, not realizing itself as such, the personification of the innocence and purity of youth, in fact, Dorian Gray. The hero, who after Gnostic conversations with Lord Henry prayed for eternal youth, ultimately received not only youth, but also a terrible punishment.

The remaining characters in the novel enter into a complex structure of relationships with the three types of heroes listed above. They interact with them, highlighting their behavioral patterns in different situations, and show their life attitudes from different sides.

Oscar Wilde himself emphasized in his journalistic articles the main moral component of the novel: a person who tries to kill (deceive, drown out) his own conscience will suffer terribly from this, first of all, himself.

artistic character climax wilde

3.3 Analysis of the climax of the novel

The main ideologically loaded, main moralizing part of the work is the climax of the novel. The action, which is resolved by the death of the main character in the climax of the novel, accumulates the reader's tension like a tight spring.

According to the plot of the novel, Dorian Gray stops aging - the changes affect only his portrait, made by the artist Hallward. Taking advantage of this, he generously spends his life in pursuit of pleasure and indulges in the most vile vices. And somewhere in the back room of his luxurious large house hangs a portrait of the once young Dorian Gray. On the face of this portrait twin, traces of cruelty and depravity, traces of aging, gradually appear.

Right up to the climax, the work consistently pursues the theme of unpunished vice: any crime inevitably leaves a mark on the second, carefully hidden “I” of a person, from where nothing can wash away the “bloody stains” of the past. So, after Dorian kills the artist Hallward, the hands in the portrait of his aged double mystically become covered with blood.

The portrait became, as it were, the embodiment of Dorian Gray's conscience. Now, the once pure and innocent young man, like a spectator in a theater, watches the decomposition of his own soul - detached and without any opportunity to intervene in the plot, which is increasingly horrifying in its immorality. Sometimes, however, one observes his weak attempts at self-reflection, attempts to break out of the vicious circle and restore the former purity and beauty of his soul, but the extreme coarseness and depravity of feelings no longer allow him to go back. His muted conscience, hidden so far away, still poisons his boundless vicious life.

The consistent and inevitable degradation of Dorian Gray is the result of the heartless hedonism into which Lord Henry Wotton so skillfully dragged him. Lord Henry sprinkles brilliant paradoxes; in his statements we see Wilde’s famous aphoristically formulated unexpected thoughts aimed at trying to understand the nature of good and evil, the nature of love, the nature of beauty and friendship, the nature of creativity.

Trying to break the spell of a terrible portrait (metaphorically - to get rid of the terrible pangs of conscience), Dorian Gray tries to destroy the portrait in which a young, full of strength, innocent youth, over the years of cheeky debauchery and the pursuit of pleasure, has turned into an unpleasant, vicious old man, as if compensating for his aging morally - the moral burden that befell the “original”.

Oscar Wilde contrasts the cruel and insensitive Dorian Gray (metaphorically, a type of Beauty who realized herself as beauty and as a result lost her innocence) with such characters as the artist Hallward, Sibylla, and her brother the sailor. The figurative structure of these simple and sincere, pure-hearted people, capable of great feeling, emphasizes the monstrous sinfulness of Dorian.

Trying to hide the traces of his crimes and killing the artist Hallward, Dorian Gray symbolizes the type of Fallen Beauty who destroys her Creator in the hope of avoiding retribution, which refers us to the most ancient plots of literature. This is a biblical story of temptation, and the pursuit of eternal youth, and the sale of the soul to the devil, and the motive of the inevitable retribution for sins.

The outcome of the climax of the novel makes us remember later works (“Shagreen Skin” by O. Balzac, “Faust” by Goethe), which exploit similar plots in different ways. The author emphasizes the inevitability of retribution for eternal youth so miraculously acquired, but so monstrously and criminally wasted.

In the structure of the novel, the final, climactic part is the final part for all plot lines: this is the end of the Creator, the end of the sitter, but not the end of Beauty. The moment of mutually reflected mirroring is played out: Dorian Gray, supposedly a creation, killed Hallward, the creator, but when trying to kill his aged image in the portrait, he amazes himself, and the whole situation becomes “mirrored” with the beginning of the novel: the vice received what it deserved, Beauty is restored to its original form (in a portrait).

Here we see the use of one of the oldest techniques in fiction - the use of the mirror symbol (portrait as a mirror). The portrait plays the functional role of a border between worlds - a border that is both material (since the portrait is still quite material and real, made of canvas, paints, etc.) and immaterial (since it reflects the hidden, deep essence of the metamorphoses and events occurring with the hero). These worlds themselves and the metaphorically conveyed entities - reflected and reflected - were identified precisely with the symbolic understanding of the suffering of the spirit of the protagonist.

M. M. Bakhtin paid much attention to this topic in his literary works. Thus, he believed that the motif of mirroring, as a rule, denotes the hero’s understanding of himself through a reflected, external symbol of himself, and the transition of “I-for-myself” into “I-for-another,” that is, from the realm of the subjective, purely internal world self-experiences into the realm of the objective. This understanding of the world through mirroring and replacing the original with a double is rooted in the artistic tradition of the era of antiquity and baroque. Specularity is a reflection of the situation of dual worlds, and even more - a manifestation of the idea of ​​“many worlds” and “multi-worlds”.

In The Picture of Dorian Gray there is a clear echo of romanticism. Here is the fate of the artist and his creations. Basil Hallward is a talented painter who painted a magical portrait. The motif of duality also brings us closer to romanticism: Dorian Gray leads a double life: for everyone he is a decent secular young man, but for himself he knows that his life is spent in brothels, among the rabble, on his conscience is death, there is nothing sacred, the only meaning of life is satisfaction of one's own vanity.

Taking into account all of the above, let's try to summarize some results of the analysis of the climax of the novel “The Picture of Dorian Gray”.

.The novel, of course, carries a certain semantic load concerning the expression of the author’s ideological and artistic principles (a kind of manifesto of aestheticism).

.Throughout the novel and in the climax, in the dialogues of the characters, in plot twists, the author’s position in relation to the fundamental categories of aestheticism is easily guessed

.The novel has a complex mirror composition, which, reflecting the events of the plot, returns us to the beginning of the novel and highlights the main idea of ​​the work.

.You can try to identify some archetypal characteristics of characters based on their attitude to life and creativity (Hallward - “Creator”, Lord Henry - the “Temptor” archetype (Gnosticism), Dorian Gray - “Soul” who fell into sin).

.The climax of the novel returns everything to its place - both the sitter and the creator die, but Beauty remains unchanged, thereby supporting the idea of ​​aestheticism about the value of art as such and the advantages of art over life

.The climax of the novel echoes many of the oldest themes in literature (temptation, the pursuit of eternal youth, the sale of the soul to the devil, the motive of inevitable retribution for sins).

4 The novel “The Picture of Dorian Gray” from the point of view of entropic time

Despite the fact that this novel was written at the end of the 19th century, in its problematics and ideology it entirely belongs to the 20th century, and in its artistic language - to European symbolism, and thereby to modernism and neo-mythologism. In addition, in this work, for the first time, the problem of the relationship between text and reality was posed as a problem of entropic time.

If we consider the mythological side of the novel. First of all, Dorian Gray is given a number of nicknames, the names of mythological handsome men - Adonis, Paris, Antinous, Narcissus. The last name suits him, of course, most of all.

The myth of Narcissus says that the soothsayer Tiresias predicted to the parents of a beautiful young man that he would live to old age if he never saw his face. Narcissus accidentally looks into the water, sees his reflection in it and dies of self-love. Dorian Gray is in love with his “other self” portrait, looks at it for a long time and even kisses it. At the end of the novel, when the portrait replaces him, Gray falls more and more in love with his beauty and, unable to bear the beauty of his body and, in contrast, the disgustingness of his soul, which the portrait shows him, essentially commits suicide, dies, like Narcissus, from self-love.

Another equally important myth that is used in the plot of the novel is the legend of how Faust sold his soul to the devil for eternal youth. Lord Henry plays the role of the tempter.

Let's now try to figure out what all this means from the point of view of the concept of entropy time. The property of physical time is irreversibility associated with the accumulation of entropy, decay, chaos, as shown by Oscar Wilde's contemporary, the great Austrian physicist Ludwig Boltzmann. The novel depicts this process of entropic decomposition of the body many times. Entropic time is opposed to semiotic time, which exhausts, reduces entropy and thereby increases information. The text becomes younger over the years, as it acquires more and more information. This is one of the most important memorial functions of culture: if texts about the past were not preserved, we would know nothing about our ancestors.

In Wilde's novel, text and reality change places. The portrait takes on the features of a living organism, and Dorian becomes a text. This happens because the novel contains the ideology of panaestheticism, which its heroes live by. It was the end of the 19th century. and the beginning of the twentieth century. associated with the protest of positive physical time against the second law of thermodynamics. This protest was expressed even in Boltzmann’s statistical thermodynamics itself; the philosophy of Nietzsche, Wagner, Spengler, and Berdyaev is filled with it. This is a return to the medieval philosophy of history of St. Augustine, who replaced entropy with vice.

It is no coincidence that Dorian Gray is in love not so much with the actress Sibyl Vane, but with the roles (texts) she plays - Juliet, Rosalind, Imogen. He himself is a musician and passionately loves everything beautiful. Collects objects of ancient art. This is a decadent version of Dostoevsky's mythology that beauty will save the world. Beauty destroys personality, because it is not real beauty, but devilish, as the portrait kept by Dorian Gray shows. You have to pay for your deal with the devil. The whole story that happened with Dorian Gray is a devilish obsession: killed, Gray becomes as ugly as he should be, and the portrait turns into text again - balance is restored.

SECTION IV. SCREEN ADAPTATION OF THE NOVEL “THE PORTRAIT OF DORIAN GRAY”

Oliver Parker's new film is another attempt to address the philosophical essence of the master's great work. This is not the director’s first turn to the work of Oscar Wilde; Parker has already worked twice with this classic work of English literature.

A new film adaptation of the legendary, only published novel by British writer Oscar Wilde, “The Picture of Dorian Gray” », survived 27 film adaptations and was produced in the UK. The premiere of the next film took place on September 9, 2009. The film was directed by Oliver Parker and starred Ben Barnes, Colin Firth, Ben Chaplin and Rachel Hurd-Wood.

As you know, any work transferred to the screen undergoes certain changes. So Oscar Wilde's novel was no exception. The differences between the film and the novel include, for example, the fact that in the book, Dorian Gray is blond with blue eyes (Ben Barnes was quite surprised that he was chosen for the role of Dorian Gray: “I was told that Oliver Parker, before signing a contract with me , went and showed my photograph to everyone I met - he did research on whether I was suitable for this role. Although for me personally, Dorian’s beauty is not the main thing - what is more interesting is his ability to remain forever young, while those around him are decrepit. If you remember, he is described in the book blond with blue eyes, so I was going to change my color and almost started choosing lenses. But, as it turned out, the director was quite happy with the way I looked." Also, in the novel, Dorian saw Sybil for the first time in the role of Juliet, and not Ophelia. In the film, the young actress drowned herself; in the novel, she poisoned herself. Dorian Gray did not dismember Basil's body as shown in the film. He asked the chemist Alan to help him and dissolve the body in acid. In Oscar Wilde's novel there is no fire, and Dorian is simply found dead next to the portrait, etc.

The novel was filmed for almost 100 years, from 1910 to 2009 in many countries of the world, including England, USA, Canada, France, Russia, Denmark, Italy, Germany, Hungary, Mexico, Spain. In addition, the novel was dramatized many times, and musicals based on it were created and staged. [w]

The life and work of Oscar Wilde, like no other writer, largely confirms the truth of the statement of Chesterfield, also a great wit and moralist of the 18th century.

O. Wilde is one of the most remarkable and controversial figures in English literature. Both during his life and after his death, his name enjoys extraordinary fame. Contemporaries called him “the brilliant Oscar.”

O. Wilde's writing career took shape like a kind of kaleidoscope. The reputation of no writer of his generation has undergone so many different transformations - from ridicule to admiration, from admiration to glory, from triumphant glory to dishonor, shame and contempt; and over time, posthumously, a return to glory and triumph.

In the early 90s of the 19th century, O. Wilde rapidly gained recognition and fame in English literary circles as a brilliant wit, an eccentric personality, an apostle of aestheticism and a writer distinguished by beauty and grace of style, original mind and insight. His every word was caught on the fly; to those around him he seemed to be a rebel, a bearer of unprecedented novelty. His aphorisms, epigrams, paradoxes and philosophical remarks reveal his rejection of society with its laws and morals.

The work of Oscar Wilde is associated with many phenomena not only in English, but also in Western European literature in general. Wilde himself emphasized this connection, naming a number of names close to him. His idols were Edgar Poe, Charles Baudelaire, Théophile Gautier, John Ruskin, Walter Pater.

Wilde's work was deeply meaningful; he touched on many vital issues, although he did it in an unusual manner. Many of his works, from his first poems to “The Ballad of Reading Gaol,” testify to how cramped the writer was within the framework of decadent aesthetics. O. Wilde’s talent manifested itself in different genres - articles, plays, fairy tales, poems, novels...

Wilde's only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, was published in 1891 and was a resounding success, producing the effect of a bomb exploding. Because Dorian Gray is not only a novel about aestheticism, which reflects all the philosophical views of its author about art and hedonism; it is also one of the first attempts to introduce the theme of same-sex love into English prose. In his novel, the writer traces the relationship of three characters: the handsome young man Dorian Gray, the high-society cynic, Lord Henry, experienced in the vices, and the artist Basil Hallward, devoted to art. Using the example of the miraculous transformation of the portrait of the main character, he defends his favorite thesis that art is higher than life.

Reflecting in his aesthetic views the duality characteristic of petty-bourgeois consciousness in the conditions of imperialist reaction, he mourned the decline of beauty in his contemporary society, but saw only one way out for art - to contrast the world of beautiful fiction with reality. But the healthy and strong aspects of his talent - sharp irony, the ability to capture the real contradictions of life in well-aimed paradoxes, brilliant command of dialogue, sensitivity to words, classical simplicity of phrase - ensured his success and posthumous fame.

His work is a good illustration of Goethe’s eternally fair formula: “What makes a poet is a living sense of reality and the ability to express it.” . Wilde had both; in addition, he was filled with an understanding of the exceptional importance and enduring value of real art. Attempts to consider the writer’s works less significant than the shocking appearance and loud statements of the leaders of London aesthetes, or to read manifestations of some painful inclinations in his books are unproductive. This is best proven by the persistence of reader interest in his creations.

The work done allows us to draw some conclusions. Thus, in particular, it can be argued that the goal and objectives of the work formulated in the introduction have been basically achieved. Also, to one degree or another, it was possible to study special literature on the research topic; highlight the basic dogmas of aestheticism and, in particular, trace the relationship between Oscar Wilde’s aesthetic declarations and artistic practice. For a deeper understanding of O. Wilde’s work, it seems advisable to study his biography in more detail and, most importantly, as objectively as possible, since this can shed additional light on O. Wilde’s psychological attitudes with which he began to write his works.

Despite the fact that Oscar Wilde’s novel “The Picture of Dorian Gray” was written at the end of the 19th century, until now researchers have not come to a consensus on which literary movement the novel can be classified as. They are still trying to characterize his work, resorting to a variety of names: symbolism, aestheticism, impressionism, neo-romanticism, modernism - and they even find a connection with postmodernism in some of Wilde’s works. The question still remains open about the genre of The Picture of Dorian Gray, which is considered both as a moral and philosophical parable, and as a socio-psychological novel, and as a symbolic novel, and as a novel of creation, and even as a critical essay embodied in fiction. form. Oscar Wilde's novel The Picture of Dorian Gray is truly unique and represents an inexhaustible source for researchers.

LIST OF REFERENCES USED

1.R. H. Davies The Letters of Oscar Wilde. London, 1962 p. 51

.Wilde O. Intentions. London. Methuen, 1908, p.315

.B. Shaw. My memories of Oscar Wilde, 1930 p.397

.Wilde O., Poems. London, 1881 p.16

.Wilde O. The Picture of Dorian Gray. London, 1891 p.34

.Baudelaire S. About art. M. 1986. p. 304-305

.Wilde O. An Ideal Husband. London, 1899 p.32

.Wilde O. Selections. Moscow 1979. - V.II, p. 348

Miscellanies p.244

Miscellanies p.243

O. Wilde Reviews. P.78

12.Oscar Wilde. The Portrait of Dorian Gray // Oscar Wilde. Collected works in three volumes. M., 2000. T.1. P.25. (Further references to this edition are given in the text; Roman numerals indicate volume, Arabic numerals indicate pages).

13.Ellman, Richard. Op. op. P.360.

.Urnov M.V. Terrible children. Oscar Wilde // Urnov M.V. At the turn of the century. Essays on English literature (late XIX - early XX centuries). M., 1970. P. 163.

.Fedorov A.A. English aestheticism: the concept of beauty and alternatives to individual consciousness // Fedorov A.A. Ideological and aesthetic aspects of the development of English prose. Sverdlovsk, 1990. P. 144.

16.Boborykina T.A. Decree op. P.80.

.Vladimirova N.G. Op. op. P.118.

.Tishunina N.V. Western European symbolism and Russian literature... P.96.

19.History of Western European literature. - P.516.

20.Kolesnik S.A. "The Portrait of Dorian Gray" // On the problems of romanticism and realism in foreign literature. M., 1973. P.246.

.Pavlova T.V. Op. op. P. 17.

22.Chukovsky K.I. Op. op. P.714

.Anikin G.V., Mikhalskaya N.P. History of English Literature. M., 1998. P.324.

.Karkaryan Yu.A. Oscar Wilde and Armenian literature. Author's abstract. dis. for the job application account Ph.D. Philol. Sci. Yerevan, 1992. SP.

.Ladygin M.B. Practical lesson