Category: The Picture of Dorian Gray

Looking up the word queer in the English dictionary one will find multiple definitions and meanings for the word. The most common one is probably queer(adjective) for something odd, strange, unusable or even slightly ill. However, words and their meanings change over time and in the late nineteenth century queer got a new definition. It…

Introduction to Gothic Elements in ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray The setting of the respective novel is essential for the overall development of the characters and the plot as it provides a foundation for the readers to visualize and understand the social as well as the psychological mindset and the typical behaviour during the era.…

Aestheticism is rooted in the 18th century and spread in Western Europe and America during the late 19th century. It revolves around a devotion to art and it represents the significance of beauty compared with other values such as morality and material utility. As Robert Vincent Johnson notes, aestheticism is not one single phenomenon, but…

Oscar Wilde prefaces his novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, with a reflection on art, the artist, and the utility of both. After careful scrutiny, he concludes: All art is quite useless. In this one sentence, Wilde encapsulates the complete principles of the Aesthetic Movement popular in Victorian England. That is to say, real art…