Hello everybody!
Let’s go on with one of my favourite writers, whose popular quotes are so famous that I’ve chosen one for you. It’s been a difficult but the following one reminds me of so many situations I have experienced….
Whenever people agree with me I always feel I must be wrong.
The greatest ever …OSCAR WILDE (Dublin, 1854- Paris 1900)
Read more quotes at:
Choose one and then tell the class why it’s meaningful for you!
Session 1: Wilde’s life and his novel “The Picture of Dorian Gray”
1- Read Wilde’s biography on your textbook (pg E110-111) and get further information from the following website and short video
http://www.biography.com/people/oscar-wilde-9531078
The same website gives information about his extravagant life:
http://www.biography.com/people/oscar-wilde-9531078/videos/oscar-wilde-an-extravagant-life-2080074102
The same website gives information about his extravagant life:
http://www.biography.com/people/oscar-wilde-9531078/videos/oscar-wilde-an-extravagant-life-2080074102
2- He considered life as “a work of art” As and as a man he sometimes created sensations in the “respectable” Victorian society. His love affair with Bosie, the young man he fell in love with, was a scandal and was the reason for his being arrested and sentenced to two years’ hard labour (charged with indecency and sodomy).The following video is Wilde’s trial from the movie “Wilde” (1997) where he does his famous monologue “I am the Love that dare not speak its name…” . I’ll attach the text, but watching and listening to Stephen Fry playing Wilde will be so involving!
“The Love that dare not speak its name in this century is such a great affection of an elder for a younger man as there was between David and Jonathan, such as Plato made the very basis of his philosophy, and such as you find in the sonnets of Michelangelo and Shakespeare. It is that deep, spiritual affection that is as pure as it is perfect. It dictates and pervades great works of art like those of Shakespeare and Michelangelo, and those two letters of mine, such as they are. It is in this century misunderstood, so much misunderstood that it may be described as the “Love that dare not speak its name,” and on account of it I am placed where I am now. It is beautiful, it is fine, it is the noblest form of affection. There is nothing unnatural about it. It is intellectual, and it repeatedly exists between an elder and a younger man, when the elder man has intellect, and the younger man has all the joy, hope and glamour of life before him. That it should be so, the world does not understand. The world mocks at it and sometimes puts one in the pillory for it.”
He died at the age of 46 because of a meningitis, , all alone, in Paris and was buried in the famous cemetery of Père Lachaise, where lots of tourists go and see his grave everyday.
To see it and kiss it !!!!
Let’s talk now about the novel we’re going to study, The Picture of Dorian Gray, whose “Preface”, pg E114 of your textbook, expresses all Wilde’s committment to the principles of Aestheticism (look for further information about this movement on your own out of the following website:
http://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/aestheticism-and-decadence
http://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/aestheticism-and-decadence
The image above is from the movie with the same title, The Picture of Dorian Gray, 2009, starring Ben Barnes and directed by Oliver Parker: they give a perfect impression of the theme of the novel, once more “the duality” of human nature, as in “Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde”.
Here a couple of the most outstanding scenes: one is the the murder of Basil, the painter of Dorian’s portrait.
And the final scene. When Dorian understands that his bad side is kept by the picture, he can’t do without “stabbing” the portrait and so killing himself…..as Dr Jekyll does with Mr Hyde. Have a look !
Last but not least, Wilde wrote a poem just after his release from prison, The Ballad of the Reading Gaol. It deals with the harsh realities of prison and with the even harsher reality of an execution, the taking of a human life, through legal means, by fellow humans.
Here below you’ll find a very interesting video from an Italian tv show “Cult Book”, where Masolino D’Amico, an important Italian literary critic, gives his opinion about the text. You’ll see trailers from different movies inthere: try to get the common theme they have. I can’t wait to listen to your opinions when in class!
From the poem a very famous song was written, “Each Man Kills The Things He Loves”, in the movie “Querelle de Brest”, starring Jeanne Moreau, directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder (1982). The same song is now being used for a popular Italian tv show about femicide victims. I’m sure you know it!
Hope you’ve enjoyed this post and fall in love with this
unusual personality as I did while attending university lectures with my special Professor Paul Jenkins……a long, long time ago!!!
See you soon!
Prof
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