Analysis of the Preface of The Portrait of Dorian Gray

The Preface of Wilde’s only novel The Portrait of Dorian Gray is considered the manifesto of aestheticism. Indeed it expresses the new idea of art: art for art’s sake.

The novelist expresses the new idea of art trough short sentences with a simple language which  convey immediately  the novelist’s idea.

The ideas expressed in the “Preface” are the ones of a new concept of art.

By saying “There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written” Wilde denies the Manichean vision of life where everything can be divided in good or bad.

Stating  that “All art is quite useless” means criticizing Utilitarianism according to which everybody should have produced something useful for the society.

Wilde also gives a new idea of artist and critic: the artist has to create something beautiful. The artist can use everything, vice and virtues, and can express everything through language. So the artist is completely free from any ethical restraint unlikely before.

A critic instead finds a way to create something new from his feelings toward a work of art. It means that a critic has to express the beauty of a work of art by using language in his own way. A critic must translate in language his impressions. But because there is not an immoral work of art, a critic who finds a product immoral is a critic who has no interest in it and he is dishonest. It means that a critic does not express what he feels while reading, watching or hearing a work of art. Instead he gives a judgement.