Chapter 11 Analysis.

This is an extra taken from Oscar Wilde's novel, The Portrait of Dorian Gray. In this text Oscar Wilde deals with the idea of Dandy and the role of beauty in life. 

As regards the first one, it comes out from the context of Dorian's parties: lunches full of young people where everyone wanted to join in. There the guests were used to seeing in Dorian a perfect model, that is high intelligence mixed to beauty. In particular, to emphasize this point Wilde quotes Dante and Gautier. And immediately next he characterizes Dorian as a dandy, that is he who makes his life a beautiful work of art and who makes the trend universal, even if its something ephemeral. Dandyism was a doctrine, but you can't make a list of its features. Indeed it's outstanding, that is it stays in the individual essence. Therefore the ability to be original and armonical couldn't be teach. And Dorian was a right example of a dandy, in a world like Dickens' Coketown. He was glad for this, and Oscar Wilde expresses his position as the actual Petronio. At Nerone's era Petronio was very famous due to his particular personality and his literature ability. 

But this wasn't enough because he wanted to be more and not only an adviser. He would like to create a new life style. This is Dandinisms' doctrine. Indeed he considered life and art interchangeable: you have to make a work of art from your life. This made him reflected on the senses and human's behaviors linked to them. He thought that humankind had never understood their importance: being too uncontrolled for them, they reacted with terror or destroying them. But they should have been taken as spiritual tips, putting the beauty at top.

This was Lord Henry's philosophy, the one who inspired Dorian in his life. And in explaining his prophecy, Oscar Wilde explains his idea of his century too. According to him, beauty will delete Puritanisms' dogmas and limitations, opening new horizons for an hedonistic society. Therefore people won't stop their passions even if intelligence would be one of this kind of thinking's characteristics. And people will be concentrated on their willingnesses and nothing else. They would understand that life is a moment and to living it at all, you have to live every moment. So, any new and pleasurable experience is worth having, even if that experience is hurtful to others.