The Picture of Dorian Gray

Professor Ruth Livesey discusses Oscar Wilde's 'The Picture of Dorian Gray'

[@Nero-ox5tw]

My favourite book. Wildes dialogue is what drives the story. I love the characters. So vain, so materialistic, so shallow, so unbothered about appearing politically correct. Lord Henry Wotton constantly infecting his friends with his emotionless philosophy, representing the upper class of London and how that lifstyle can affect and corrupt a persons youth. Aswell as how art and literature can also affect the soul and ones youth. Really on how you are never really yourself as others influence become apart of you. So many quotable lines and such relatable content in todays world. If you haven't read this book, be careful. It will either make you hate the vanity of the characters and despise them, or it's poetic shallowness will just fill you with admiration for that lifestyle and psychopathic way of viewing the ugliness of the world. Either way, it's truly a masterpiece.

[@hugo822514]

Your review is clear and enlightening. Congrats! Now, what would it be your review about the literary figure of The Yellow Book in the story?

[@65motowngirl]

Nero George Sanders played the role perfectly in the 1945 movie.

[@joshstirling5999]

thanks for the review! Just finished for first time and seen a lot of reviews talking about how it's an act of 'suicide' at the end of the book. I really can't understand this. His final acton mirrors the naive action he makes at the start, which is to rid himself of a horror in his life. To start with, that horror is the idea of ageing, and by the end, the horror is his own memory that haunts him. I'm not sure I see it as a suicide, more so just another act by Dorian Gray trying to run away from the reality of his life. Wondered what other people thought?

[@lucasf6689]

That’s actually a good point

[@felixthecat3n2]

Hello Josh - I totally agree. It wasn't a suicide. It was a temper tantrum. Dorian did not know that by destroying the picture, he too would be destroyed. A fundamental misunderstanding I think..

[@jmarsh5485]

Just finished reading it myself and don't feel it was suicide either. Furthermore, I felt that maybe the picture never was ugly, perhaps Basil could no long see Dorian's apparent purity, or innocence. Maybe after Basil had not seen the picture for years, now saw a Dorian tainted by the general public opinion of taste, (something an Artist desires of course) so Basil wasn't looking with the same eye as he had. We are of course spared Lord Henry's interpretation. It's all in everyone's head, perhaps an argument that taste is personal, thus Wilde can explore aestheticism. We all wrestle with the 'morality' Basil championed, and the hedonistic curiosity that Lord Henry 'infects' the novel with.

[@ShannonsChannel]

Accidental suicide maybe?

[@Charlotte_L]

Dorian becomes an experiment of Lord Henry, who wishes to insert evil and venom on the boy's pure mind reflected on his beautiful face. Meanwhile, Basil captures on the canvas Dorian's goodness and virtue. In fact, he falls in love with the boy, and considers the portrait too much personal to exhibit. Little by little, Dorian assumes Lord Henry's theories, and wonders how physically time does not leave him any mark of his dirty living. Dorian feels a nightmare inside which does not find an exit. He is suspicious of his eternal beauty and youth. The reason: Basil, the artist, made Dorian's soul migrate to the canvas. That is why at the end, all of a sudden, sees clearly where his corruption has landed. The vision horrifies him till the point that kills the picture that shows the encarnation of his corrupted soul. So portrait and body die at the same time. The portrait embraced, trough Art, his wholeness.

[@susandudak59]

I think that even though Dorian got his wish (to stay young) he realized that all the horrible things he had to do to keep that under cover had ruined and controlled his life.

[@keneckert]

Thank you. I teach this novel to Korean students and have for years puzzled over a story which seems to contradict the principles of Wilde's introduction. These are interesting and helpful arguments.

[@j946atFIVEFOUR88AA]

Mr. Wilde was such a complex and intelligent individual. Incredible.

[@appoljuce]

I think good art should have a moralistic awareness and not just give pleasure, but I find that this book does that. When I think of art and morality, I think of wisdom. This book is wise to show the ugliness of self-absorption, hedonism, vanity and the places it can take you. That's why it's one of my favorites.

[@ralfphilipp]

The reader has to be smart enough to draw his own conclusion. The outcome of Dorian`s actions should be warning enogh, even if his lifestyle before might be desirable

[@jseanbrooks1]

Thank you professor Ruth! This was very enlightening and gave me a new layer of appreciation for one of my very favorite novels :)

[@ians.mozdzen3012]

What are we to make of the idea that Dorian, in dying, becomes an “immortal” work of art? Wilde’s contrary text also gives us a “dorian moksha”

[@giorgosspyropoulos4762]

Thanks!...that was so very well analysed and so concise!!!

[@ralfphilipp]

Wilde was ahead of his time - that was his downfall

[@JinSangha]

Thank you for your contextual analysis of the book and author. Really appreciated.

[@vicentecostantini]

Great video! Really clear explanation. Thank you so much! Greetings from Argentina

[@iamnintendofan]

"All art is at once surface and symbol. Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril, those who read the symbol do so at their peril." She does understand Wilde pretty well though

[@aishwaryao4769]

Great explain

[@ActionmediaUK]

This is great - thank you. Paradox/preface/morality tale? Use in the trials..Really helpful. Wilde was such a genius complex character

[@maxjelley4055]

He always seemed to see morality as a grotesque and brutal imposition of authority on life, life itself being delicate enough to be stained, warped and corrupted by others’ influence. Wilde’s adoration of art is reflected in his language, despite his caution of corruption. Such a good book, still puzzled by parts. Great explanation of the preface, really helped.

[@josesousa6428]

Thanks you are the MVP.

[@metepsa]

Thank you. So interesting!

[@MultiDryder]

I have not read book but I seen the 2009 and 1945 movies and my way of looking at it is seeking sensory pleasures doesn't mean happiness and there is a scene in 2009 movie between ben barnes and rebecca hall where he explains something of pleasure is different than happiness

[@bubbercakes528]

I initially hated this book as I hated Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein as the male characters are so seemingly flamboyantly gay. As I grew older and wiser (and less religious) I fell in love with these types of novels. The language was so expressive. The scenes created so vivid. I can now see beyond the mere skin of what I saw before and can now look deep into the recesses of the thoughts expressed by these great writers. Sometimes I yearn to hear people express themselves so eloquently. The english language has lost so much in our modern haste and efficiency.

[@User-fp8dk]

Don’t blame religion for ur homophobia

[@meganfolows]

I love your comment! How wonderful that you were able to open yourself up to these stories and perceive them for their artistic value, not through the lens of prejudice.

[@lailapeak2363]

I don't know if there is anyone who would help me to find the answer to my question. In the first chapter there is a part that I can't get my head around: "...and in front of it, some little distance away, was sitting the artist himself, Basil Hallward, whose sudden disappearance some years ago caused, at the time, such public excitement and gave rise to so many strange conjectures". Why ? Such a strange piece, not related to the rest of the chapter. Have I missed something? If it's explained somewhere, could you direct me to the answer, please?

[@artbonacorse3000]

It might be a crazy vision, but i feel like since he defended "Art for art", all the meanings were not his first ideas. Of course he wrote it for the "aesthetic", but FOR ME, Basil is a reflection of who Oscar was and Dorian is a reflection of who Oscar wanted to be during that era, taking knowledgement of his trial.

[@talkstospiders]

Anyone else listen to Dir en Grey?

[@kaonashiyakuza]

My research paper is about "literature and art " and I have The Picture of Dorian Gray as a reference...if you have anything that might help I'll really appreciate it.. thanks~

[@vines423]

Hello

[@KS-up2xj]

May I read your paper, it would be a great help.

[@threethrushes]

Didn't Dostoevskii write in Idiot or B.Karamazov that "[...] beauty will save the world."?

[@jmarsh205]

Livesey makes a great point about Dorian splitting himself in half.

[@jmarsh205]

I also agree with what she says that its not a codified way of exploring homosexuality, hence Wilde's choice to make Dorian's sins ambiguous. I think its a case of many critics reading too much into it. At any rate I have read he was bisexual, not homosexual so I feel he was making a larger statement about 'immoral behaviour' and reading homosexuality into Dorian or Basil is too narrow a focus and unimportant to the grander point Wilde suggests.

[@Leo-ng9gi]

Love your review. Great story. Imagine being immortal. Wow! To still be around after hundreds of years. One thing is true, you would know what really happened in the past. Let's face it you would have witnessed something first hand. And today you would read the modern history books and maybe, just maybe...Lol! All history is just what it means. His. Story. History was predominantly written by men. Left brain and in a draconian way. History to me, whomever wrote it, is theory, opinion and conjecture. How one perceives history is down to the individual. One does not know what happened if one was not there to witness it. Yes it can be read in a book but, who wrote it? There are conflicting views of history in all books. Different cultures have differing stories of how events happened. Who knows which is telling the truth? Normally the victors would write whatever they wanted, who could argue? It is only his story after all. That is all well and good but, when it is taught in schools and becomes the mainstream then any other debate that says other wise is ridiculed, attacked and (excommunicated) pushed to one side as pseudoscience. It goes against the grain. Information has to stay linear in a civilized society. It has to be taught in schools and universities so the pupils can graduate, owe the state bucket loads of money, and become good civil servants and carry on with the flow of information they have learned, and repeat it over and over. And teach it to the next generation, and the next. All going the right way. The official way. That is what information is. IN. FORMATION. Linear. Ordered. Left brain. Masculine. My story is a mystery, unless I tell somebody else, then it becomes His Story. It is still just a story after all. I always wondered if the word Heresy derives from Her Say, like a woman's view point. It makes sense considering women were persecuted and not allowed to speak back then. The church was a male dominance over the female. How times have changed. Women were not allowed to do anything. They were basically property. There is a reason why the male orientated church suppressed the female, because they are aware that women are the creative of the two genders. The sacred feminine. This is why our history and the world is so riddled with war and violence. Having said that, it is more a spiritual trait. Take Oscar Wilde. He had the more feminine spirit inside of him and he was persecuted for being gay. He was a man but he had the creative essence of the female.🐯👍 Oscar Wilde, he was a gentle man, a creative mind A genius, a story teller, great prose, he left behind Persecuted, hounded, sentenced, for being gay A masterpiece, The Picture Of Dorian Gray How times have moved on! One might say How ironic, how this brilliant mind, is revered and celebrated today. 👍🐯

[@classicalwhite8743]

Wow... This might be odd sounding but this is a very good comment. You seem not only enlightened but greatly intelligent. :)

[@shellbell1705]

Good grief. What rambling nonsense. You seem to have a rudimentary idea of how the internet works as you're on here so why not stop wondering about the word heresy and look it up. 'Her say'? 😂

[@brownstar38]

I thought it was “ The Portrait of Dorian Gray”

[@jamesm.3967]

brownstar38 Picture.

[@shellbell1705]

Well you thought wrong

[@mandylin2310]

You might mess it up with Joyce’s The Portrait of Young Man as Artist 😮

[@AshrafulIslam-ot7vj]

Writer Oscar Wilde was a gay.

[@paulschnyder938]

Brilliant, in-depth analysis.

[@francescodicola4063]

14 minuti di cazzate

[@ThatReadingGuy28]

She looks like she’s never read a book for fun in her life. Lighten up a little. Ps the analysis was spot on 👌

[@sanpellegrinolimonata]

that's a bit rude mate

[@ivorypenelope8444]

You dont seem like you read much at all. Lighten up.

[@blameitoncapitalism]

It's not like she never read a book for fun, it's that in those specific videos she is explaining literature professionally and that takes seriousness. That's her JOB, you ignorant, rude, idiot.

[@attackpatterndelta8949]

Just finished reading this. What a god awful, pretentious mess of a book. No real likeable characters to speak of. But then perhaps that’s what Victorian England was like. Everyone was horrible. Also read Dracula during lockdown. Another tedious, impenetrable book. Think I might stay away from Irish authors in future. They seem to be vastly overrated.

[@aheenobarbushenocied9880]

Theres a reason why this is the most down voted comment here