3. Wilde star: Interviste
americane
“Ciò che desideriamo davvero non è essere
biasimati o elogiati, ma essere capiti.”
Nel 1882 Wilde tiene un ciclo di
conferenze, viaggiando per gli Stati
Uniti. Inizialmente lui doveva parlare
al temine di Patience, una commedia
che ironizzava sulla figura del dandy.
4. Assolutamente estetico
“È nell'occhio e nel cuore dell'artista che si trova il segreto del suo successo.”
Wilde ha da poco
pubblicato Poems, raccolta
che ha avuto un grande
successo di pubblico. Egli
racconta la ribellione del
movimento estetico verso
una società industriale
volgare e spersonalizzante,
verso un'arte naturalista
divenuta soltanto una
fotografia imperfetta.
5. «Sono indistruttibile!»«Quello di cui Mr Wilde
ha davvero bisogno è di
qualcuno che gli
insegni a parlare.»
«Non è un artista.»
«Quintale di estetismo»
«Non si incontra un
adoratore di girasoli
tutti i giorni.»
«Pazzo»
«Al buio ha un aspetto
migliore.»
«Non c’è nulla di
più deprimente che
essere criticati da un
idiota, perché non
gli si può rispondere
e non lo si può
combattere con le
stesse armi.»
6. 1884_Una rivoluzione Controcorrente
«C’erano molte cose che Zola non poteva
capire: innanzitutto, il bisogno che
sentivo[…]di fuggire da un ambiente in
cui soffocavo, di scuotere i pregiudizi, di
infrangere i limiti del romanzo.»
(Joris-Karl Huysmans, dalla prefazione
di Controcorrente)
Nel 1884 esce un romanzo
rivoluzionario, destinato a
ispirare i tre capolavori
della prosa decadente: Il
piacere di D’Annunzio del
1889 e Il ritratto di Dorian
Gray di Wilde del 1890-91.
8. Des Esseintes: dandy e filosofo
«Esiste un’armonia tra la natura sensuale di
un vero artista e il colore che ai suoi occhi
appare più particolare e vivo.»
Des Esseintes, per sfuggire alla società, si
rifugia uno stravagante «eremo». Solitario e
nevrotico, cervellotico e inquieto, si
abbandona a un’inquietudine incessante tra
pensieri, deliri e allucinazioni. Egli è teso
verso verso l’infinito come un romantico, ma
in un tempo sbagliato, egli è «fuori posto».
9. Andrea Sperelli: il playboy
È il protagonista de “Il piacere” di D'Annunzio. Spregiudicato, amante delle donne, usa la
sua cultura e i suoi modi come arma di seduzione. Egli sa conformarsi ad ogni donna che
conosce, ricalcandone il linguaggio, il modo di fare, i desideri, ma dietro questa maschera
nasconde la solitudine e la malinconia.
“Forse la
scienzadella
vitasta
nell'oscurare
la verità.”
10. The Decay of Lying
1.«Literaturealways anticipateslife.»
2.«Life imitates Art far more than Art
imitates Life.»
3. «Art never expresses anything but itself.»
Published in 1889, this philosophical essay is a passionate
defence of invention against artistic Realism. Wilde writes
how to build a new literature, using imagination.
12. The plot
Dorian Gray is a boy, he is a nobleman, he is rich, he is
handsome: he has got everything. However he does not know
much about his qualities since he meets Lord Henry, that
makes him believe that the only thing important in life is
beauty. But then Dorian Gray gets sad, he thoughts that he
will certainly become old and his beauty will be ruined.
Dorian prays the portrait could get old instead of him, so
that he would be beautiful forever and his prayer is
answered. Dorian will appear wonderful and his sins will
stain his portrait, without leaving any trace on his body. The
portrait becomes the mirror of his soul. This is the beginning
of a catastrophe.
13. Dorian takes a fancy to an actress, Sybil Vane, and they start a love story,
so Sybil decides to retire; however, Gray leaves Sybil, who committs suicide.
Dorian does not care about that. He looks to his picture, but the man in
the picture smiles cruelly at him.
“He got up and locked both doors. At least he would be alone when he
looked upon the mask of his shame.Then he drew the screen aside and
saw himself face to face. It was perfectly true. The portrait had altered.”
Themore Dorianbecomesbad, the more theportraitgetsugly.
14. The tragedyreachesits height: Basil is killed
Dorian_So you think that is only God who sees the
soul, Basil ? Draw that curtain back, and you will
see mine.
Basil_You told me you had destroyed it.
Dorian_I waswrong.It hasdestroyedme.
Basil_What a thing I must have worshipped! It has
the eyes of a devil.
Dorian_Each of us has heaven and hell in him.
15. The «thing»
Wilde calls the dead Basil “thething” and this is striking, but for Dorian Basil’s corpse
is just a thing that has to disappear. For this purpose he calls Alan Campbell, a
chemist who has been a close friend of Dorian's for a while. Wilde does not tell why
this friendship finished, but is easy to imagine it could have finished when Alan
discovered the real nature of Dorian Gray. Alan first refuses to do his job and Dorian
starts to write a letter, that frightens Campbell – Wilde does not say what is written
in that letter – and this is enough. Then Alan commits suicide.
16. «It was the living death of his own soul that troubled him.»
Dorian is obsessed with the living death of his soul. He finds confort in opium
and lives a dissolute life. He tries to change, he tries to be good. However, as
Lord Henry reminds him, he just wanted to feel a new sensation.
“You will soon be going out about like the converted, and the revivalist, warning
people against all thesinsof whichyouhavegrowntired.”.
This is a poisoned but clever opinion. It tells the truth. Dorian is a superficial
man, consequently his desire to convert is superficial.
17. The final act: Dorian decides to kill the portrait
«He looked round and saw the knife that had stabbed Basil Hallward. As it had
killed the painter, so it would killthe painter's work, and all that that meant. It
would killthe past[...].It would killthis monstrous soul-life[…]. He seized the
thing, and stabbed the picture with it.
There was a cry heard, and a crash.»
Dorian wants to kill his conscience and by destroying his soul he destroys
himself. This is the end of a long trail of blood.
18. Dorian Gray Dorian Gray is a nobleman and
starts his life as a good and
beatiful boy, but this is just a
mask, because trough the novel
he reveals to be superficial and
cruel. Gray destroys everything he
touches, he has an evil influence
on everybody he meets. He is a
terribleman, however he is
terriblyfascinating.
19. Cold like ice
Dorian doesn’ t care about anybody, his heart is
cold like ice. He cannot love anybody, neither
himself, nor Sybil, neither Basil to whom he
declares friendship. But how can he defines
himself a friend of Basil? He can’t feel anything.
He is cold when he coldly kills Basil, he is a
traitor and a liar. He lies with everyone and kills
Basil, because he has seen the truth, however his
actions reveal his evil soul.
20. Basil Hallward
Basil is the romantic hero:
passionate,pure, idealisticand
doomedto failure.Basil's love for
Dorian is true and desperate. He is
Wilde’s romantic soul. Basil dies
tragicallylike romantic ideals die. He
is candid, he does not know his
enemy, a demon dressed up as an
angel.
21. Basil meets Dorian
«I knewthatI hadcomefaceto facewithsomeonewhosemere
personalitywasso fascinatingthat, if I allowedit to do so,it would
adsorbmy wholenature,mywholesoul,my veryartitself»
Basil says this to his friend Lord Henry Wotton while he
is talking about the day when he has met Dorian.
22. Basil’s confession
«Dorian, from the moment I met you, your personality had the most extraordinary
influence over me. I was dominated, soul, brain, and power, by you. You became to
me the visible incarnation of that unseen ideal whose memory haunts us artists
like an exquisite dream. I worshipped you. I grew jealous of every one to whom you
spoke. I wanted to have you all to myself. I was only happy when I was with you.
When you were away from me, you were still present in my art.... Of course, I never
let you know anything about this. It would have been impossible. You would not
have understood it. I hardly understood it myself.»
23. Lord Henry
He is an eccentricdandy. He loves
beauty, art and cigarettes. Basil thinks
that Henry has influenced Dorian,
however he has just revealed his real
nature. He is a «spectatorof life» and he
doesn’t do what he says. He talks about
life instead of living. He refuses all kind
of emotions, he is rational.
24. Lord Henry’s quotes: serious ones
«Be always searching for newsensations. Be afraid of nothing.»
«Youth is the one thing worth having.»
«Beauty is a form of genius--is higher, indeed, than genius, as it needs no
explanation.»
«The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own
shame. That is all.»
Hedonism
Aestheticism
Decadentism
25. Lord Henry’s quotes: irony and paradox
«Punctuality is the thief of time.»
«The secret of remaining young is never to have an emotion that is
unbecoming.»
«Men marry because they are tired; women, because they are curious: both are
disappointed.»
«The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it.»
26. The preface: the Manifesto of Wilde’s poetics
«The artist is the creator of beautiful things.»
«Those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things
are the cultivated. For these there is hope. They are the
elect to whom beautiful things mean only beauty.»
«There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book.
Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.»
«All art is quite useless.»
Art for
Art’s sake
28. The society comedies: a dialog from The importance of being
earnest
JACK_ I am sick to death of cleverness. Everybody is clever
nowadays.[…] I wish to goodness we had a few fools left.
ALGERNON_ We have.
JACK_ I should extremely like to meet them. What do they
talk about?
ALGERNON_ The fools? Oh! About clever people, of
course.
JACK_ What fools!
29. Wilde’s short stories
Wilde wrote several short stories
where he mixed irony and poetry.
Among these, the most famous is
The Canterville Ghost, where he
ridiculed american society and its
deep faith in technology. Other
well-known stories are The Happy
Prince, The Selfish Giant and Lord
Arthur Savile’s crime.
30. Wilde vs Victorian society
Wilde criticized the hypocrisy of
Victorian society due to the contrast
between appearence and reality,
respectability and wrongness. Reading
between the lines of his novel, we can
see that Dorian Gray is perfectly
Victorian, because he seems beautiful,
however he hides an evil monster. In
his comedies he portrays the idle upper
classes and their foolishness.
31. Meanwhile Wilde has begun an
affair with Lord Alfred Douglas,
the son of the marquess of
Queensberry, who obviously
disapproves this relationship.
«SOMEONE WHO
HAS BEEN SO
HIT»
These circumstances lead to a scandal, a dreadful turning point: Wilde
is put on trial and he is convicted of gross indecency. In 1895 he is
sentenced to two years of hard labour in Reading Gaol, where he writes
De Profundis, a long letter to his lover and a poem, The Ballad of
Reading Gaol.
1
1. André Gide, Oscar Wilde
32. The Ballad of Reading Gaol
«Some love too little, some too long,
Some do the deed with many tears,
And some without a sigh..»
«And all men kill the thing they love,
By all let this be heard…»
Shakespeare,
Macbeth
Douglas
Wilde
33. De Profundis
Wilde contro Douglas
«Non eri in grado di sapere, non
eri in grado di capire, non eri in
grado di apprezzare.»
«Qualunque fosse la tua condotta
verso di me, sentii sempre che in
fondo mi amavi davvero.»
34. «Il vizio supremo è la superficialità.»
«Chi vuole una maschera è costretto a
portarla.»
«Chi può calcolare l’orbita della
propria anima?»
«Sonouno di colorochesonofattiper le
eccezioni, nonperle leggigenerali.»
Dolore, poesia, orgoglio dell’ultimo Wilde
35. Le lettere di Oscar Wilde
«Tra me e la vita c’è sempre una nebbia
di parole.»
(da una lettera a Arthur Conan Doyle)
Questo libro raccoglie tutte le
lettere di Oscar Wilde dal 1868 al
1900 e racconta un uomo simpatico,
eccentrico, odiato perché diverso,
amato perché unico.
