University of Bucharest Faculty of Foreign Languages Chinese-English, 1st year 18th of January 2012

Dorobantu Adelina

Epicurus's Morality in The Picture of Dorian Gray By Oscar Wilde

Oscar Wilde, the son of an eminent Dublin surgeon, stands out among the fraternity of Victorian dramatists, which includes fellow-Irishman Dion Boucicault, Tom Robertson , Tom Taylor, W. S. Gilbert, and Arthur Wing Pinero. After studying at Trinity College, Dublin, Wilde attended Magdalen College, Oxford, where as a disciple of Walter Pater he founded the Aesthetic Movement, which advocated "art for art's sake." His aesthetic idiosyncrasies (such as his wearing his hair long, dressing colourfully, and carrying flowers while lecturing) Gilbert and Sullivan parodied in the operetta Patience (1881), for which Wilde acted as a "front man" by delivering lectures on aetheticism in advance the road tour of the operetta. Wilde published his only novel,the tale of a of a hedonistic Adonis with the tormented soul of a satyr, The Picture of Dorian Gray, before he reached the height of his fame. It was criticized as scandalous and immoral. Disappointed with its reception, Wilde revised the novel in 1891, adding a preface and six new chapters. The Preface (as Wilde calls it) anticipates some of the criticism that might be leveled at the novel and answers critics who charge The Picture of Dorian Gray with being an immoral tale. Wildes philosophy of art can be found in this novel. believed that art possesses a fundamental valuethat it is beautiful and it does not need to serve any other purpose, whether it is moral or political. This attitude was revolutionary in Victorian England, where popular belief said that art was not only a function of morality but also a means of enforcing it. Epicurus (342-270 B.C.E.), a Greek philosopher active during the Hellenistic period, had a defining influence on those identified as Aesthetes and Decadents, particularly Walter Pater and 1

his occasional disciple Oscar Wilde. Epicurus found pleasure to be the highest good, and although he didnt consider pain as evil, he knew that some pain was necessary as a means to achieving pleasure. Thus, contrary to the contemporary definiton of the term "epicurean" to signify a person given to indulgence in hedonistic pleasures, Epicurus supported what the Victorians may call taste. He taught that "just as [someone] does not unconditionally choose the largest amount of food but the most pleasant food, so he savors not the longest time but the most pleasant," and that "Self-sufficiency is a great good being genuinely convinced that those who least need extravagance enjoy it the most." Therefore, Dorian Gray's greatest sin is not that he wanted to surround himself with beautiful things, but that he wanted to depend on those objects to retain interest in life. "Prudence," the cornerstone of taste, "is the principle of all these things and is the greatest good." What is not acceptable is the materialism that substitues spiritualism. The Picture of Dorian Gray, depicts the hard lesson of a gentleman who finds that a handsome look does not make a beautiful human being, and that the unhealthy soul of a man who cannot see his entire self does not makes him successful. Tormented by not having the ability of spiritually, Dorian never approaches the Epicurean goal of being free from pain and chaos. Rather, he is continually troubled. To Basil Hallward, the ideal Epicurean, "death is nothing" although martyred, his body is reduced to purity by the Dorian's blackmailed scientist. Rejected by Wotton and Gray in life because he understood them too deeply, he dies relatively naturally, humanly, and cleanly in a symbolic gesture indicative of the purity of his calm, cultivated, and observant soul. In opposition, Gray becomes hideous in death:
Lying on the floor was a dead man, in evening dress, with a knife in his heart. He was withered, wrinkled, and loathsome of visage. It was not till they had examined the rings that they recognized who it was (241).

The novel is a continous battle between the soul, the spiritual aspect of life, and the body, the carnal and material side of our own selves. Deep inside our souls lays the truth about who we truly are. But that can be contaminated if materialism, the tendency to lead a life in which pleasures of the body are given preference above anything else, takes the place of spiritualism and if we forget about our souls and only focus on superficial and shallow things. Gray's failure to develop his soul reaches its climax when he destroys the painting, which was the only connection between the body and the soul. Destroying it, he destroys the only chance of his inner self to recover; the painting was the only way he could have regarded himself as a man with both soul and face. The dead man's knife points to the heart traditionally the dwelling of the 2

soul revealing the source of his destruction, and all that remains for others to identify him by all he has ever been identified by are his rings. A harsh end, perhaps, for one who does not take a philosopher seriously enough, but it is indicative of the importance that Epicurus held for Aesthetes like Wilde and illuminating in the confounding world of Dorian Gray. Bibliography 1. Wilde, Oscar. The Picture of Dorian Gray. New York: Barnes and Noble Books, 1995. 2. Epicurus Hellenistic Philosophy. Indianapolis, Hackett Publishing Company, 1988