Hedonism and Aestheticism in Oscar Wildes the Picture of Dorian Gray

The Victorian age (1837 1901) took its name from Queen Victoria. The Victorian era was the age
of progress, stability and great social reforms but in the same time was characterized by poverty,
injustice and social unrest. The Victorians were great moralizers. They promoted a code of values
based on personal duty, hard work, respectability and charity. These values were of equal
application to all strata of society, but were given their essential Victorian form by the upper or
middle classes. The idea of respectability distinguished the middle from the lower class.
Respectability was a mixture of morality, good manners, hypocrisy and conformity to social
standards.
Due to the fact that the era covers more than sixty years, it is difficult to define its typical literature
and cultural development, since there are very distinct ideas and a variety of literary approaches.
Most notably, in the last years of Queen Victorias reign a new conception of art has emerged and
shaped the view and definition of aesthetics, and as a consequence the representation of morals in
literature and art was perceived critically, as the culture of dandyism established itself. The most
prominent dandy of the time, Oscar Wilde, highly contributed to this movement of Aestheticism and
was one of the most public decadent personalities at the time.
In contrast to common Victorian values, a growing group of artists and writers in the19th century
considered art and beauty as an isolated subject which must be distinguished from any form of
politicization or moralization. This particular concept emerged under the influence of Immanuel
Kants theory of aesthetics and was soon adopted by 19th century French and English writers, for
instance Baudelaire in France, and in England it was most prominently Oscar Wilde. The Aesthetic
Movement introduced the concept of art for arts sake everywhere: in art, literature, in life,
beauty becomes important, art embodying the absolute autonomy, a superiority over other aspects
of life and an independence from morals and society. Their views are a reaction to the Victorian
beliefs according to which art could be used as a tool for social education and moral enlightenment.
Not only Oscar Wildes extravagant appearance and his statements caused a scandal in the Victorian
world, but also his very public homosexual life although he was married to a woman; a fact that
eventually led to his infamous trial.
When it was first published in 1890 in Lippincotts Monthly Magazine, The Picture of Dorian Gray
was considered to be immoral, so Wilde revised his novel and had it published a year later with a
preface that explained his aesthetic approach. He wanted to express his opinions on hedonism and
aestheticism in his novel.

A painter, Basil Hallward, paints a most exquisite portrait of his muse, the handsome young man
named Dorian Gray. During the last session of painting, Dorian, who has until this point been
completely innocent both of his beauty and of the world, meets Basil's friend Lord Henry Wotton,
who opens his eyes to the nature of his own beauty and tells him that he should experience life to
the fullest. Upon the completion of the portrait, Dorian wishes out loud that the painting would
grow old, and not he. Due to Lord Henry's influence, Dorian goes out looking for passion. Dorian
finds a certain joy, over the next years, in committing sinful or pleasurable acts and watching the
painting change; he loses none of his beauty or youth, but the painting grows old and ugly. He is
constantly in touch with Lord Henry, who feeds his beliefs about a new Hedonism, that is the search
for pleasure, not morality, which should take over the world. Lord Henry opens Dorian's eyes to a
world where the only good thing to do is seek out pleasure, not morality, and do whatever feels
good. He tells Dorian that this is what the world needs. He believes that if everyone were to follow
pleasure instead of what society tells him is moral, then the world would be happier, richer, and
more ideal. Dorian is thirty-eight, he runs into Basil, having not seen him for a long time, and
finally shows him what has happened to his portrait. Basil is horrified and tries to make Dorian
repent, but Dorian kills him. Then he decides to change his life and becomes a good man but he
must destroy the picture to get his original purity. He stabs it, with the same knife he used to kill
Basil, and when the servants enter they see the portrait as it was when it was new, and a horrible,
old, ugly man lying dead on the floor.