Intro to The Picture of Dorian Gray

By Stanley Switalski
Task: Research key facts on Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray

Date of first publication: April, 1891

Genre: Gothic, philosophical and/or comedy of manners

Point of View: The Point of view is third person omniscient. This is because at times the narrator sees the external world as well as what the characters are thinking.

Setting: London, England

Themes: The purpose of art, the supremacy of youth and beauty, the surface nature of society and the negative consequences of influence.

Tone: Gothic, sardonic and comedic

Oscar Wilde born and died: Born: October 16th, 1854 to Jane Francesca Elgee and William Wilde. Died: November 30th, 1900

Married: Married on May 29th, 1884 to Constance Lloyd

Children: They had two children, Cyril in 1885 and Vyvyan in 1886.
Education: He first attended the Portora Royal School at Enniskillen. He excelled here at "studying the classics, taking top prize his last two years, and also earning a second prize in drawing." He later received a scholarship from the Portora Royal School to attend Trinity College in Dublin. Again, he did a great job in studing the classics. "In 1874, Oscar crowned his successes at Trinity with two final achievements. He won the college's Berkeley Gold Medal for Greek and was awarded a Demyship scholarship to Magdalen College in Oxford." He took the scholarship and excelled at Oxford as well.
Writing Career: Wilde's most creative period of his life came after his marriage. He had published two collections of children's stories, his first and only novel and numerous plays. Because of the quality of his plays, Oscar Wilde easily established himself as a playwright.
Crimes and arrests:In April of 1895, he was "arrested and convicted of gross indecency and sentenced to two years hard labor. Constance took the children to Switzerland and reverted to an old family name, “Holland.”

Literary works:
Poetry
  • Ravenna (1878)
  • Poems (1881)
  • The Sphinx (1894)
  • The Ballad of Reading Gaol (1898)
Plays
  • Vera; or, The Nihilists (1880)
  • The Duchess of Padua (1883)
  • Salomé (French version) (1893, first performed in Paris 1896)
  • Lady Windermere's Fan (1892)
  • A Woman of No Importance (1893)
  • Salomé: A Tragedy in One Act (1894)
  • An Ideal Husband (1895)
  • The Importance of Being Earnest (1895)
  • La Sainte Courtisane and A Florentine Tragedy Fragmentary (1908)
Prose
  • The Canterville Ghost (1887)
  • The Happy Prince and Other Stories (1888, fairy tales)
  • The Decay Of Lying (First published in 1889, republished in Intentions 1891)
  • Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories (1891)
  • Intentions (1891, critical dialogues and essays, comprising The Critic as Artist, The Decay of Lying, Pen, Pencil and Poison and The Truth of Masks)
  • The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891, Wilde's only novel)
  • A House of Pomegranates (1891, fairy tales)
  • The Soul of Man under Socialism (First published in the Pall Mall Gazette, 1891, first book publication 1904)
  • Phrases and Philosophies for the Use of the Young (First published in the Oxford student magazine The Chameleon, December, 1894)
  • De Profundis (1905)
  • The Rise of Historical Criticism (published in incomplete form 1905 and completed form in 1908)
  • The Letters of Oscar Wilde (1960 Re-released in 2000, with letters uncovered since 1960, and new, detailed, footnotes by Merlin Holland)
  • Teleny or The Reverse of the Medal (Paris, 1893. It has been attributed to Wilde, but was more likely a combined effort by a several of Wilde's friends, which he may have edited.)
 

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