Oscar Wilde: biografia e Il ritratto di Dorian Gray

Riassunto in inglese della vita di Oscar Wilde e del suo romanzo Il ritratto di Dorian Gray (2 pagine formato doc)

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OSCAR WILDE: BIOGRAFIA

Oscar Wilde.

Oscar Wilde was born in dublin in 1854. He went to Trinity college and after  to Oxford and he followed the theory of "art for art's Sake". After he left Oxford and he went to London where he was a celebrity for his dress as a "dandy". Wilde became famous for his short stories:  The Canterville Ghost, The Happy Prince and Other Tales, The picture of Dorian Gray. The novel and salomè, a tragedy written in french, damaged the writer's reputation, because was considered immoral, and the latter was banned from the london stage for obscenity.
He met the young and beautiful lord alfred douglas, whose nickname was Bosie. wilde was accused of homosexual practices and sentenced to two years of hard labour. Wilde in prison wrote De Profundis, a long letter to Bosie. when he was released, he was a broken man; his wife refused to see him and he went into exile in France where he lived in poverty.
The dandy must be distinguished from the bohemian: the bohemian allies himself to the rural or urban proletariat, the dandy is a bourgeois artist, who remains a member of his class.

Oscar Wilde: vita e opere

OSCAR WILDE: OPERE

The wildean dandy is an aristocrat and his elegance is a symbol of the superiority of his spirit; he uses his wit to shock, and is an individualist who demands absolute freedom. Vanity, extravagance , refinement were linked to the more positive idea of the dandy. Wilde affirmed in the preface of his novel "there is no such thing as a moral or immoral book books are well written or badly written. That is all”. He rejected the didacticism that had characterised the Victorian novel in the first half of the century.
Wilde believed that only "art as the cult of Beauty" could prevent the murder of the soul. He wrote only to please himself and was not concerned in communicating his theories.

OSCAR WILDE: IL RITRATTO DI DORIAN GRAY

The picture of Dorian Gray. The protagonist of the novel is Dorian Gray, a young and handsome man. Dorian wants eternal youth and his desire is satisfied: the signs of age, experience and vice appear on the portrait that had been painted by Basil Hallward. When the painter sees the corrupted image of the portrait, Dorian kills him. Later Dorian wants to free himself of the portrait and stabs it but kills himself. At the moment of death the picture returns to its original purity and Dorian's face becomes "withered , wrinkled and loathsome".
This story is told by a third-person narrator and there is a process of identification between the reader and the character. The settings are vividly described with words appealing to the senses. The reader knows the characters  through what they say or what other people say of them.