![]() In Wilde’s essay The Decay of Lying – published just a few months before he started writing Dorian Gray – he had made a plea for more imagination in literature. What he’s doing with Dorian Gray is treading a very fine line.” Wilde's purpose was to break out of what Lady Bracknell called the ‘three-volume novel of more than usually revolting sentimentality' “He’d reached a point when he was in danger of becoming respectable and conventional – in 1889 he was married with 2.4 children, living in slightly bohemian Chelsea. “The manuscript shows the workings of Wilde’s mind as he was writing it,” said Merlin Holland, the author’s 72-year-old grandson, who has written a foreword to the new edition. Somehow I have never loved a woman… I quite admit that I adored you madly, extravagantly, absurdly.” ![]() ![]() For example, this declaration of love by Basil for Dorian on page 147: “It is quite true that I have worshipped you with far more romance than a man should ever give to a friend. Yet the manuscript also includes passages – later removed from the novel we know today – that show how Wilde wanted to shock his Victorian readers by openly writing about homosexual feelings. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |