INNERVATE Leading Undergraduate Work in English Studies, Volume 3 (2010-2011), pp. 298-303.An essay examining Wildes exploration [602284]

INNERVATE Leading Undergraduate Work in English Studies, Volume 3 (2010-2011), pp. 298-303.An essay examining Wilde’s exploration
of art, nature, love and desire.
Hayley Wareham
Wilde’s exploration of art becomes multifaceted when considered in tandem with his
exploration of desire and sensation. This essay shall examine the presentation of art in The
Decay of Lying andThe Picture of Dorian Gray1to see what insight is offered into Wilde’s
ideology as an artist and consider why his treatment of love and dismissal of nature is so
crucial to his argument for the aesthetic. Further, this essay shall consider Wilde’s concerns
with morality and ask whether the presence or absence of a moral conscience is responsible
for the final destination of each character.
As a member of the aesthetic movement, Wilde purported the idea of art for art’s
sake; ‘the object of Art is not simply truth but complex beauty’.2Art’s objective is to be
beautiful; an artist’s objective is to be the ‘creator of beautiful things’ (17). Not only should
art be beautiful but it should be ‘quite useless.’ (17). Wilde considered the most useful things
the least beautiful- the lavatory for example- thus he desired art that pleased the senses.
Consequentially art should not be moral; art should not endeavour to educate or moralise the
spectator. Shoukry comments that for Wilde the aesthetic experience ‘occurred in a special
faculty that, unlike the moral sense, does not induce action. Thus art is immoral’.3Stunting
stimulation of action allows the artist to remove accountability and present their art in a
vacuum; if art has not the power or aspiration to provoke then any action that occurs after
consuming the art cannot be attributed to the art or artist. This aesthetic notion is revealed
through Lord Henry: ‘As for being poisoned by a book, there is no such thing as that. Art has
no influence upon action. It annihilates the desire to act.’ (157) Despite reservations about
attributing the views of Lord Henry directly to Wilde, it seems balanced to ascribe to Wilde
Henry’s musings on morality in art when considered alongside Wilde’s theories inThe
Preface: ‘There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book’ (17).
Removal of morality means that art is not didactic- any responsibility on art to make
changes to the world is diminished- and art, by never expressing ‘anything but itself’ (1087)
can instead focus on sensation. In his preface to Studies in the History of the Renaissance
Walter Pater comments that the aesthetic critic ‘regards all the objects with which he has to
do, all works of art… as powers of force producing pleasurable sensations’.4These
pleasurable sensations are confined to the individual and are thus a reflection on the
individual as spectator, not a reflection of the artist; Wilde argues that to ‘conceal the artist is
arts’ aim.’ (17) In concealing the artist Wilde perhaps attempts to mitigate accountability for
1Further referred to as Dorian Gray
2Oscar Wilde, The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde, ed. by Merlin Holland, 5thedn (London: HarperCollins
Publishers, 2003) p.1079. Further references to this edition given directly after the quotation.
3Sayed Hassan Shoukry, Aestheticism in Theory and Practice in the Writings of Walter Pater, Oscar Wilde and
the Poets of the Rhymers’ Club , (Nottingham: University of Nottingham, 1975), p.198
4Walter Pater , Studies in the History of the Renaissance , (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), p.4Volume 3: 2010-2011 ISSN: 2041-6776
School of English Studies

Hayley Wareham 299
INNERVATE Leading Undergraduate Work in English Studies, Volume 3 (2010-2011), pp. 298-303.the ideas in his work and interpretations of Dorian Gray that would accuse it of being an
immoral novel inciting immoral action. When asked in his trial if the sin in Dorian Gray was
sodomy, Wilde retorted that sin is ‘according to the temper of each one who reads the book;
he who has found the sin has brought it.’5Amalgamating this idea with his conception that
art’s aim is to conceal the artist, there is a sense that Wilde- akin to the work of
postmodernism many years later- attempted to remove his authorial voice to give power to
the reader and prevent himself from being blamed for any ‘immoral’ acts that his art inspired.
Bennett proposes that ‘a text’s unity lies not in its origin but in its destination’6and this
destination is the journey taken by the spectator, not a journey mapped out by the art.
One possible reading of Dorian Gray is the devastating consequences that arise from
either a misinterpretation of aestheticism or a failure to embrace it in its entirety. Sibyl is
guilty of such a crime. Through her relationship with Dorian she imagines a greater
appreciation of reality: ‘You taught me what reality really is… You had brought me
something higher, something of which all art is but a reflection.’ (71) Sibyl reasons that her
life before Dorian was merely an imitation and that his love has allowed her freedom; a
freedom no art could give her. Sadly for Sibyl this view is in opposition to the views of the
aesthetes. Dorian was in fact in love with Sibyl as art; she was more ‘real’ and desirable to
Dorian when acting: ‘Sibyl is the only thing I care about. What is it to me where she came
from?’ (51) Dorian need not know about her past or the reality of her situation. When the
disparities in their ideals are exposed, Dorian describes Sibyl like a piece of bad art; she was
‘wrong in colour’ and ‘her gestures become absurdly artificial.’ (69) Sibyl believed her art
was imitating life ‘I hate the stage. I might mimic a passion that I do not feel’ (72) whereas
Dorian, like Vivian, believes that ‘Life imitates Art far more than Art imitates Life’ (1082).
Dorian was in love with the sensation of Sibyl but upon her realisation in the truth or ‘lies’ of
her art- ‘To-night, for the first time, I became conscious that… the words I had to speak were
unreal’ (71)- Dorian is unable to continue loving her as she ceases to produce an effect (72).
Vivian pleads for ‘Lying in Art’ (1072) because lying and misrepresentation of the pre-
existent startles an audience into ‘fresh modes, fresh perceptions.’7Lying produces an effect
and Sibyl, in producing no effect functions almost as a metaphor for the literature of the 19th
Century; literature that presented ‘dull facts under the guise of fiction’ (1073) and avoided
lying.
Just as Dorian perceives Sibyl as art, so too do Henry and Basil perceive Dorian as
art: ‘Life has been your art. You have set yourself to music.’ (155) Dorian produces an effect
and Henry wishes Dorian to maintain this life so that he might always produce such an effect
upon him. This ‘effect’ is not threatened until Dorian starts to moralise his life and as
discussed, only bad art moralises. Thus Dorian no longer functions as a piece of art by
aesthetic standards. Basil however attempts to paint life as he sees it- he does not lie- ‘As the
painter looked at the gracious and comely form he had so skilfully mirrored in his art’ (18).
Basil lets life inform his art rather than create art that informs life and in not conforming to
aesthetic values, pays for it with his life.
Integral to aestheticism is the element of sensation, manifesting frequently in the form
of desire. The OED defines desire as ‘…that feeling or emotion which is directed to the
attainment or possession of some object from which pleasure or satisfaction is expected.’
This feeling is the sensation achieved upon satisfying said desire; the hedonistic side of
aestheticism focused on pleasure and consumption. In Dorian Gray, desire is multifaceted;
desire between characters, desire for eternal beauty and desire for physical fulfilment: ‘The
5Merlin Holland, Irish Peacock and Scarlet Marquess: The Real Trial of Oscar Wilde, (London: Fourth Estate,
2004), p.78
6Andrew Bennett, The Author, (Oxon, Routledge, 2005), p.18
7Guy Willoughby, Art and Christhood: The Aesthetics of Oscar Wilde, (USA: Associated University Press,
1993), p.65

300 An essay examining Wilde’s exploration of art, nature, love and desire.
INNERVATE Leading Undergraduate Work in English Studies, Volume 3 (2010-2011), pp. 298-303.hideous hunger for opium began to gnaw at him.’ (134) Like art, desire places importance on
visceral sensations over psychological reactions and thus desire often exists as transient
disposable objects; ‘The ephemerality of individual desires heralded in Dorian Gray can thus
be read as the subjective correlative of the obsolescence built into the objects that the dandy
prefers… such as the cigarettes that he never stops smoking’8. Lord Henry, epitomised as the
dandy through the indulgence of such activity, endorses desire in Dorian: ‘The only way to
get rid of a temptation is to yield to it. Resist it, and your soul grows sick with longing for the
things it has forbidden to itself, with desire for what its monstrous laws have made monstrous
and unlawful’ (28, 9). Desire for such temptation most likely refers to homosexual activity, a
desire frequently deemed ‘monstrous’ and ‘unlawful’ in 19thCentury society. However to
Lord Henry- and I would argue to some extent Wilde- it is this taboo labelling of such an
activity that makes the pursuit of it all the more desirable. Ultimately desire is, as the OED
states, the ‘condition of desiring’; that is the act of wanting. Once this desire is met, it ceases
to exist.
Consequentially, heterosexual relationships in Wilde’s work evade the language of
desire. As McGhee discerns, ‘rarely do his marriages convince us that duty has become the
same thing as desire.’9In this way, Wilde suggests that it is the duty and expectation from
society for marriage that results in homosexual desires; desire forms in the void between duty
and sensation. The dandy seeks pleasure and if this cannot be fulfilled within the restrictions
placed upon him by society then he will seek it elsewhere. I would argue that Wilde is
perhaps holding the conservative Victorian society accountable for any activity that is outside
the realms of their expectations; their conservatism breeds this desire. Further, Sedgwick
proposes that boredom also breeds desire; ‘a psychoanalyst designates boredom as… a period
during which the psyche feuds off and thus also manifests the unbearable because double
burden of desiring desire.’10Desiring desire feeds directly into the aesthetic movement of
desires of sensation. Where Dorian succumbs to his desires, Basil, Gomel argues, is saved by
a desire which ‘drives a wedge between the self of the artist and the erotic Other’.11In
desiring Dorian the man, Basil ‘saves himself from the total immersion in the image that
ultimately destroys Dorian.’12However Basil arguably does not save himself- he does meet a
tragic end- and I would argue that actually it is his desire for the ‘real’ Dorian- that is Dorian
the man- over the painting of Dorian that destroys him. Basil finds more beauty in life than in
art and his desires react accordingly; his un-aesthetic resolve is ultimately to his undoing.
Basil’s desires destroy him because they are directed at nature- the ‘real’ Dorian.
Aestheticism rejected nature as being ‘always behind the age’ (1078) and of being an ally of
the ‘natural’; natural being what was considered the ‘normal’, Victorian view on the world.
The OED defines nature as ‘To fix in one's nature, to make natural’. The verb ‘fix’ suggests
that there is a fault which can be rectified by nature, by being made natural. Wilde opposed
this notion for two reasons; firstly because he engaged in this ‘unnatural’ activity- relations
between men- and secondly because it promoted the opinion that nature was a suitable canvas
for art. As an aesthete, Wilde believed art had no social duty and was not the tool through
which to ‘fix’ morality/immorality. This view countered the 19thCentury realist movement
and work of such writers as Charles Dickens and Charles Reade who attempted to arouse
‘sympathy for the victims of the poor-law administration’ (1077) by presenting the harsh
8Jeff Nunokawa, ‘The Importance of Being Bored: The Dividends of Ennui in The Picture of Dorian Gray ’ in
Novel Gazing: Queer Readings in Fiction , ed. by Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick (USA: Duke University Press, 1997),
pp.151-166, (p.161)
9Richard D. McGhee, Marriage, Duty and Desire in Victorian Poetry and Drama, (USA: The Regents Press of
Kansas, 1980), p.269
10Nunokawa, p.153
11Elana Gomel, Oscar Wilde, ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray, and the (Un)death of the Author’, Narrative , 1,
(2004) 74-92, pp.81, 2
12Ibid.

Hayley Wareham 301
INNERVATE Leading Undergraduate Work in English Studies, Volume 3 (2010-2011), pp. 298-303.realities of life; the natural. Wilde’s dislike of nature surfaces through the character of Vivian
who states he does not ‘admit anybody who is of the usual age’ (1073) to his club.
Synonymous with natural, ‘usual’ suggests something which is normal and conventional. If
homosexual activity was ‘unnatural’, not considered the norm, then perhaps Vivian’s club
was actually a club for such activity.
Nature, as the opposite of true aesthetic art, is something which one should distance
oneself from; Vivian proclaims with delight that he has ‘entirely lost’ the faculty to enjoy
nature (ibid). ‘Faculty’ connotes ability and a physical feature that can be learned / unlearned.
Vivian is perhaps alluding to his deliberate loss of the natural- heterosexual monogamous
relationships- in order that he may engage in homosexual relationships. Lord Henry proposes
that ‘When one is in love, one always begins by deceiving one’s self, and one always ends by
deceiving others.’ (50) Lord Henry is arguably referring to the Victorian idea of love- thus
heterosexual- which represses desire through the deception that this ‘natural’ love is what is
required. This deception is evident in the ‘love’ between Dorian and Sibyl. Dorian ‘loves’
Sibyl but becomes conscious that his love is for her art and the sensation her art provides
him: ‘How little you can know of love, if you say it mars your art! Without your art you are
nothing!’ (72) Sibyl attempted to detach her love for Dorian from her art in the fain hope that
they might marry and conform to the expectation of love: ‘take me away with you’ (ibid).
Dorian, as the dandy, cannot commit to such falsity and thus ends his relations with Sibyl.
Although not commenting on Dorian Gray Shoukry’s statement on love in Wilde’s work is
clearly apt: ‘love between a man and a woman is never achieved or enjoyed’.13Willoughby
argues that ‘Dorian Gray’s failure… is to adopt Lord Henry’s cramping nominalist
aesthetic… it is not that an aesthetic view is innately wrong, but that it needs to be
redefined’.14I would have to disagree in part with this notion as I would argue that Dorian’s
downfall is not that he does not modify aestheticism to suit himself, rather that he abandons it
altogether when he attempts to moralise his actions and ‘deceive’ himself by attempting to
engage in a heterosexual relationship with Sibyl: ‘He would not see Lord Henry any more-
would not, at any rate, listen to those poisonous theories that… had first stirred within him
the passion for impossible things. He would go back to Sibyl, make amends, marry her, try to
love her again.’ (75) As Mahaffey comments, Dorian Gray is a ‘powerful indictment against
the corrupting piousness of compulsory heterosexuality’.15Were Dorian to accept that love
between a man and a woman cannot be achieved, then he would be able to fully embrace
aestheticism and continue to live with his passions.
Ultimately, an examination of Wilde’s impressions of art, desire, nature and love are
always going to prove difficult due to the paradoxical nature of his work, as Vivian states
‘who wants to be consistent?’ (1072) However, what is evident is the extent to which the
principles of aestheticism feed into Wilde’s work. Wilde believed in ‘useless’ art that
appealed to the senses and was fuelled not by love but by desire. As a writer Wilde was
clearly very deliberate and conscious in his choices, commenting to a fellow writer that the
word vice was not suitable as it was ‘tainted in its signification with moral censure’.16
Through The Decay of Lying andDorian Gray Wilde proficiently expresses his desire for an
art that is removed both from morality and nature. In dismissing nature as antiquated and
unpleasant Wilde is able to allude to- arguably with or without great subtlety- homosexual
activity; an activity repressed by Victorian conservatism. Underpinning such explorations is
the eventual realisation that it is not a life lived immorally that will end ‘withered, wrinkled
13Shoukry, p.191,2
14Willoughby, p.68
15Vicki Mahaffey, States of Desire: Wilde, Yeats, Joyce and the Irish Experiment, (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1998), p.83
16Ian Small, Oscar Wilde Revalued: An Essay on New Materials and Methods of Research, (Greensboro: ELT
Press, 1993) ,p.47

302 An essay examining Wilde’s exploration of art, nature, love and desire.
INNERVATE Leading Undergraduate Work in English Studies, Volume 3 (2010-2011), pp. 298-303.and loathsome’ (159). Rather, a life that has failed to fully embrace the true principles of
aestheticism.

Hayley Wareham 303
INNERVATE Leading Undergraduate Work in English Studies, Volume 3 (2010-2011), pp. 298-303.Bibliography
Primary text
Oscar Wilde, The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde, ed. by Merlin Holland, 5thedn (London:
HarperCollins Publishers, 2003)
Secondary texts
Bennett, Andrew, The Author, (Oxon, Routledge, 2005)
Gomel, Elana Oscar Wilde, ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray, and the (Un)death of the Author’,
Narrative , 1, (2004)
Holland, Merlin, Irish Peacock and Scarlet Marquess: The Real Trial of Oscar Wilde,
(London: Fourth Estate, 2004)
Mahaffey, Vicki, States of Desire: Wilde, Yeats, Joyce and the Irish Experiment, (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1998)
McGhee, Richard D., Marriage, Duty and Desire in Victorian Poetry and Drama, (USA: The
Regents Press of Kansas, 1980)
Nunokawa, Jeff, ‘The Importance of Being Bored: The Dividends of Ennui in The Picture of
Dorian Gray ’ inNovel Gazing: Queer Readings in Fiction , ed. by Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick
(USA: Duke University Press, 1997)
Pater ,Walter, Studies in the History of the Renaissance , (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2010)
Shoukry, Sayed Hassan, Aestheticism in Theory and Practice in the Writings of Walter Pater,
Oscar Wilde and the Poets of the Rhymers’ Club, (Nottingham: University of Nottingham,
1975)
Small, Ian, Oscar Wilde Revalued: An Essay on New Materials and Methods of Research,
(Greensboro: ELT Press, 1993)
Willoughby, Guy, Art and Christhood: The Aesthetics of Oscar Wilde, (USA: Associated
University Press, 1993)