论文总字数：28181字

摘 要

作为王尔德唯美主义的代表作，《道林格雷的画像》自出版以来就被认为是一部缺乏道德的作品。本文简要地阐述了王尔德的唯美主义观点，从社会背景和人物分析的角度，探究了唯美主义和道德观在文中结合的表现，通过几个完全不同价值观的人物的交流和冲突表现了王尔德的道德关怀和剖析社会人生的严肃态度，他抨击维多利亚晚期社会的虚伪道德，反对中产阶级严苛的道德标准，呼唤的是一个更加宽容，符合人性的道德体系。

关键词：唯美主义；道德；结合；可能性

Contents

1. Introduction 1

2. Literature Review 2

3. Wilde’s Art and Morality 3

3.1 Wilde’s Aestheticism 3

3.2 Wilde’s Morality 4

3.3 Relation of Art and Morality in This Work 5

3.4 Possibility of the Combination of Art and Morality 6

4. Combination of Art and Morality in this Work 6

4.1 Reflection from Social Aspects 6

4.2 Reflection from Characters Aspects 7

5. Conclusion 11

Works Cited 12

1. Introduction

Oscar Wilde, born in Irish, is a famous playwright, novelist, poet as well as one of the representatives of British Aesthetic Movement. Yet besides his international fame, he is also well-known for his indecent homosexual affairs and two-year life in prison.

Oscar Wilde was born into a superior Dublin family. William Wilde, his father, worked as a surgeon. He was influenced by his mother who was a poet and showed great talent from childhood. Wilde was admitted to Magdalena College in Oxford, in which he was influenced by the aestheticism of Walter Pater and John Ruskin after graduating from Trinity College in Dublin with full literary scholarship and felt the new philosophy of Hegel, Darwinian evolution and Pre-Raphaelite’ works. All of these laid him the foundation of becoming an aesthetic pioneer. As an outstanding representative of aestheticism, he published poems, gave lectures on the idea “English Renaissance in Art”. Wilde became one of the celebrities of Victorian age due to his great talent, flamboyant clothes and eloquent speaks.

As famous as George Bernard Shaw in the nineteenth century, Oscar wrote nine fairy tales and each of them was comparable with Grimm’s Fairy Tales. However, fairy tales and short stories did not represented his ideas perfectly but his long story—The Picture of Dorian Gray and his dramas like Lady Windermere’s Fan and Salome led him to becoming one of the most successful and outstanding playwrights in late Victorian age.

The Victorian age was an age filled with strict moral principles. On the one hand, Queen Victoria who had a firm sense of duty and showed a respect for moral proprieties and values set the strict standards of solid virtues. On the other hand, the new capitalists are benefiting from such virtues as obedience and rationality. The dissatisfaction of the society looked for an expression in art and literature. The solid morality of Victorian era was challenged by the social skeptics and reformers.

In such a materialistic age full of extravagance and waste, there appeared a new thought named aestheticism which advocated the principle of “art for art’s sake” in the late 19^th century. Aestheticism was the reverse of romanticism and realism, emphasizing that art transcended reality, life and ethics, and was suggested to judge a work from the view of pure art.

Wilde was an activist of the aesthetic movement. His novel—The Picture of Dorian Gray was one of the most typical works of aestheticism. He tries to separate art from utilitarianism and help people to gain redemption in the way of showing respect to the pure art and beauty.

2. Literature Review

Wilde is one of the most controversial characters in the history of British literature, whose value is widely accepted and acknowledged by the literary arena five years after his death. His works together with his life still attract many people’s attention.

The study on Wilde in the domestic and overseas has gone deeply into nearly every aspect, such as Wilde’s homosexuality, his personality, his aesthetic views, critical views as well as the paradox in his works. Two people are important and helpful for us to do the research on Wilde. One is Robert Ross who published Wilde’s long letter in 1905 and Works of Oscar Wilde in 1908; another is Rupert Hart Davis, he edited Wilde’s letters and published The Letters of Oscar Wilde and More Letters of Oscar Wilde. These two people provided firsthand information for the later study on Wilde. One of the most significant researchers on Wilde in our china is Zhang Jieming, who has translated reading essays of Oscar Wilde and written aesthetic narration: A New Discussion on Oscar Wilde, promoting the comprehensive understanding of Wilde’s aesthetic and artistic views in China.

The Picture of Dorian Gray, the representative of the Aestheticism in the nineteenth century, was known as one of the three incomparable works for the trend of “art for art’s sake”. It was misunderstood for a long time because of the description of evil and degeneration and has always been the focus of discussion and criticism. Since its advent, many critics and scholars have given a lot of interpretation to the novel from all kinds of perspectives, such as aestheticism, consumerism, psychology, art, ecology and so on. As the picture in the novel is mysterious and reflects the soul of Dorian Gray, some scholars have made researches in the view of duality and then compared the life between the character and the writer himself.

With regard to the analysis of the novel in the aspects of morality, Stuart Mason was the pioneer who published Art and Morality in 1907. In 2001, Jill Larson promoted the argument about later Victorian aesthetics and ethics. In analyzing Oscar Wilde, he declared that:

Oscar Wilde, in The Picture of Dorian Gray develops a proto-postmodern ethics by telling a traditional fairy-tale or fable-like story with an ostensibly clear moral. But that morality survives only as the embedded beak and talons in an otherwise ethically elusive and contradictory text. (Larson, 2001: 13)

In China, Huang Xiuguo published The Moral Sense in Oscar Wilde’s Works in 2004 and Zhou Yan published Oscar Wilde: A Moralistic Aesthete—Ethical Analysis of the Picture of Dorian Gray in 2006. As Lu Jiande said in his thesis, Wilde did not give up moral senses and his own morality had even higher moral demands. Many of the Chinese scholars realized the moral sense in the novel and began to view the book in a more objective way. However, some of these scholars stressed the morality too much while ignored the aesthetic thoughts which were the basic and core content of the novel.

The study of the aesthetic views in the novel is not thoroughly discovered and analyzed and the moral views are not understood objectively. Thus, this paper will explore the ethical values concealed under the aesthetic views of Wilde and probe into the relation between the aestheticism and morality of Wilde, with which readers will grasp a more thorough understanding of Wilde’s aestheticism and moral values. Meanwhile, it will help readers to recognize and find the beauty in the real life through the artistic charm of Wilde.

3. Wilde’s Art and Morality

3.1 Wilde’s Aestheticism

Wilde has his own unique views on art and it can be said that his whole life is tightly connected with the principle “art for art’s sake”, using the pure beauty of art to disclose the ugly and ordinary aspects of life.

Wilde attaches great importance to the independence of art. He thinks that nature imitates art but not art imitates nature. He puts human feeling which is decided by art in a supreme position. Also, Wilde believes in the eternity of art in which Wilde thinks the only way to create eternal art is to get rid of the entanglement of the times.

As for the transcendence of art, Wilde considers art transcends anything including morality of the time. That is to say, art is independent of and unconstrained by morality. Art does not serve for morality and has its own pursuit—beauty. Moreover, Wilde advocates the absoluteness and formalism of art. He holds the view that the form is the highest target of art. It is because what art pursues is the beautiful but unreal form that art is immoral and contrary to the times.

3.2 Wilde’s Morality

Before being arrested in prison, Wilde was proud as a young genius, thinking that art had nothing to do with morality and insisted on hedonism. But it can not be concluded that Wilde has no moral anxiety and ethical sense according to this. In The Picture of Dorian Gray, readers may find out that Wilde’s morality can only be presented in the form of art.

During the years in prison, Wilde wrote The Ballad of Reading Gaol, starting to take a hard look at him-self and believe in the God who he had disdained in the earlier years. As an artist of sufferings, Wilde pursued a real morality with a higher form, full of compassion, to bring charges against the late Victorian era, namely an instinctive morality.

As one of the most outstanding representatives of the aestheticism, Wilde advocates “art for art’s sake” that art has nothing to do with morality. But in fact, in order to build a vibrant, free and lofty morality which is in line with the human nature, Wilde hopes to use his aesthetic theory to oppose the moral decay and hypocrisy in the late Victorian age. He is opposed to using the traditional moral standards to measure the pros and cons of art. However, he advocates that artists should create a perfect art realm and life with ability and imagination. In this way, it will give men and women great vitality and make growth and development a possibility. Moreover, it will help to fight for the human spirit which has been distorted in the world of utilitarianism and materialism.

3.3 Relation of Art and Morality in this Work

Wilde thinks that art should be separated from morality and he tries his best to create artistic characters with aesthetic principles. He shows that art and ethics are absolutely different and separate. The preface explains Wilde’s most important view in this way: vice and virtue is to the artist materials for an art (Wilde, 2004: 6). For Wilde, the artist has no responsibility to make any judgments of right or wrong. Wilde believes that art must be created without any sympathy for moral concerns.

All the arts are immoral, except those baser forms of sensual or didactic art that seek to excite to action of evil or of good (Wilde, 2004: 129). Wilde advocates art’s freedom from restraint of morality. He thinks the artist should keep independent of the contemporary morality. Thus, popular values of the times should not prevent the artist from creating whatever he or she wants. In essence, what he eventually emphasizes is that artists should have the freedom to escape from the dominant perspective and the moral restraint and create whatever they want.

Wilde believes that the author should be spiritually free in the creation of artwork, but the audiences should be responsible for what they understand from the artwork, which shows the reader himself but not the life in the eye of the author, Just as he states in the preface to The Picture of Dorian Grey: It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors (Wilde, 2004: 115).

In this sense, we can see that Wilde intends to emphasize the autonomy of art and free art from utilitarian purposes. But in fact, the very attempt of Wilde to separate his characters from the society shows that all the aesthetic images and characters are existence on the premise of morality, which explains his deep understanding and own ideas for morality. All the aesthetic images that he creates are based on morality without his expectation. Thus, Wilde’s aesthetic thought is just an artistic ideal which can not come true in the creation of art. Although he subjectively emphasizes the thought—“art for art’s sake”, he objectively creates moral images that are tightly related to the reality.

3.4 Possibility of the Combination of Art and Morality

Wilde tries to separate morality from the artwork, yet the themes of the novel expose the depravity of the upper class, and teach us a lesson that moral depravity and soul corruption will result in serious punishment at last and people have to pay for their crimes. For Wilde, his advocating of the purity of art dose not means the losing of moral sense.

It is when the culture falls into decay that narrow morality and a narrow principle of “art for art’s sake” will turn out and morality and culture will be in conflict (Zhu Guangqian, 2009: 106). At the time of Victoria, Britain has finished industrial revolution and become the most developed country in the world. People’s pursuit of material benefits has reached a fever pitch with the progress of science and technology. Wilde wants to reveal the sins of the real life in a higher level, criticize the hypocrisy of the social morality and create an ideal social model with high humanization (Li Hang amp; Huang Hongling, 2009: 140). So, Wilde uses his own way to express his attitudes towards his age.

The book has tried its best to express the moral theme and criticize the behavior of both the individual and the society (Nie Zhenzhao, 2004: 23). Wilde is sick of the hypocrisy and philistinism of the middle class and their so-called morality. Therefore, he discloses it in the disguise of aestheticism and confronts it with aestheticism. That is to say, Wilde keeps the traditional morality in his heart and reveals it with his aesthetic thoughts perfectly. That is why both art and morality can be found in the novel.

4. Reflection of the Combination of Art and Morality in this Work

It is obvious that Wilde’s aestheticism can not be totally independent of the moral standards. Both the narration of the story and the description of the characters reveal that Wilde’s aestheticism can not escape from the morality.

4.1 Reflection from Social Aspects

As mentioned in the above, Wilde’s aestheticism can not disguise its concerns for morality: so limited and vulgar as our own, an age grossly carnal in its pleasures, and grossly common in its aims (Wilde, 2004: 43). Wilde tries to use his aestheticism to rebel the hypocritical morality of the bourgeoisie. After the industrial revolutions, people’s thoughts have increasingly commoditized. In the society where money is almighty, the hypocritical politics and laws only serve for the bourgeoisie and their so-called morality is just a kind of decoration. By this time, Kant’s aesthetic views come into the British society; especially the un-utilitarian views of art enjoy popular support around people.

The hedonism that Wilde advocates is in fact to refrain from sufferings, which includes not only the pleasure of body but also the pleasure of spirit. For instance, Dorian falls in love with an actress, Sibyl. It can be inferred that the essence of his love is the love for art and her roles but not the real Sibyl herself. Dorian’s infatuation with Sibyl shows not only the pleasures in the level of sense but also in the level of spirit. In this sense, the hedonism of Wilde differs from that of the bourgeoisie of his age.

The novel shows an allegorical picture of the moral degeneration but it is not purely the defense of the aestheticism. As a litterateur of the age, Wilde sees the moral degeneration of the upper class and brings it to right in the way of novel, which is the responsibility of a litterateur. We can not criticize its beautification of the degeneration of the novel (Yang Ni, 2007: 133). It is just like the situation where A Dream in Red Mansions can not be regarded as beautification of the corruption of landlord class although it describes their rotten life.

4.2 Reflection from Characters Aspects

The art for art’s sake movement includes the independence of art, the separation of art and life and so on. In the Wilde’s works, we find that he never tries to abandon conscience, but advocates a higher form of morality which has become instinct. His aesthetic ideal cannot break away from the temporal morality. The three main characters: Basil, Lord Henry and Dorian can be regarded as the true portraiture of Wilde’s moral ideas. Basil’s pursuit of pure art shows his altruism; Henry’s paradoxical theories call on his hedonist morality; Dorian is free in between art and morality. Aestheticism cannot exist without the influence of morality.

4.2.1 Basil Hallward

Basil is an artist an aesthete, who draws the portrait of Dorian Gray. As an artist, he is desperate for beauty and takes art as top priority. When Basil first sees Dorian, he feels that Dorian’s beauty absorbs his whole nature, his whole soul and his very art itself. For Basil, Dorian’s young appearance is dominating and influencing him greatly. Obviously, it is due to his intensive love for beauty that he is doomed to be attracted by the beauty of Dorian.

When lord Henry asks Basil to exhibit the picture, Basil refuses, which indicates that artists can produce perfect art works only when they give up the fame and wealth, and follow the principle—“art for art’s sake”. Basil explains to Henry: “I have put too much of myself into it.’’ (Wilde, 2004: 3) His explanation corresponds with Wilde’s view that critics may set many strict requirements for an artist to meet, but he can ignore them.

Also, the murder of Basil reflects aesthetic ideas. When Basil discovers the vice of Dorian, he intends to rescue Dorian by the way of confessing his sins to the god. However, Dorian dislikes his moral doctrines and finally kills Basil as a reaction against life, which shows that art is above life.

In addition, many of Wilde’s views on art are spoken out through the mouth of Basil. Basil is a not only a pious follower of morality himself but also a moral instructor of both Dorian and Lord Henry. He respects the ethical codes established by his time and even shows some of the virtues forgotten by his time. Meanwhile, he plays the role of a preacher of morality with great efforts to rescue his two friends.

It is a society filled with desires, but Basil is indifferent to the worldly fame and wealth. His refusal of exhibiting the picture is the best proof of his simplicity and purity. Also, he dose not seek for a life of pleasure although both of his two friends worship a theory of hedonism.

In a letter to Ralph Payne, Oscar Wilde said: “Basil Hallward is what I think I am” (Rupert, 1962: 352). Basil has an unlimited aspiration for and pursuit of art and beauty. In this aspect, Basil is considered as Wilde by people. Basil is maintaining the ethical codes of Victorian age. In fact, the writer himself also wants to convert to morality and his moral sense is clearly shown from Basil.

4.2.2 Lord Henry

Lord Henry is a preacher of aestheticism and a powerful instructor of Dorian. When they meet in Basil’s studio the first time, Henry tells Dorian the importance of youth and beauty, which makes Dorian realize his outstanding beauty and desperately hope to keep his youth and beauty forever.

Henry not only delivers his paradoxical speeches to Dorian but also gives him a book that tells the story how a young Parisian practices his passion and thought, which arouses Dorian’s desires to live a life of pleasures. It is a poisonous book. Dorian later realizes the bad influence of the book and blames Henry for giving him the book. But Henry denies: “As for being poisoned by a book, there is no such thing as that” (Wilde, 2004: 87). Wilde shows his views of the function of art through the mouth of Henry. Wilde believes in the non-utility of art, thinking that “All art is useless” and that the only goal of art is to show itself. Because art rejects the functional utility in the real life, there is no way but death for Sibyl when she gives up her roles and returns to the real life.

Henry is considered as the embodiment of evil with his immoral theories, but he ever dares to put the theories into practice by himself. Just as Basil says: “Your cynicism is simply a pose” (Wilde, 2004: 5). Thus Henry needs a person to help him to test his paradoxical theories. He instills all sorts of evil thoughts into Dorian and tempts Dorian to carry out villainous desires. He instead makes himself a detached observer of life and enjoys a variety of new experience that brought out by shaping a brand new Dorian. He believes he can escape from the hardship of life in such a detached way but never expects that “when we think we are experimenting on others we are really experimenting on ourselves” (Wilde, 2004: 69). It seems that only Henry evades punishment of life. However, death is not the only way of punishment and sometimes it can be regarded as a way of liberation. Although Wilde never describes in the novel, it can be seen that he has to be confronted with a wrinkled face, an aging body and a life without friends and family. Just as Henry confesses to Dorian: “I have sorrows, Dorian, of my own” (Wilde, 2004: 255). Actually, his wife has run away with a man who plays Chopin exquisitely and leaved him alone in a bleak house. A detached way can never help him get rid of the sufferings of life.

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