ANALYSYS

Preface

Oscar Wilde’s novel The Picture of Dorian Gray, published in 1891, begins with the Preface. It is important because it is considered the Manifesto of the Aesthetic movement.

A manifesto is a work of literary criticism composed in order to promote new concepts and ideas in contrast with the old systems of thought.

Indeed, the aesthetic ideology brought a new conception of art and a new way of approaching to life.

So, the function of the Preface is to explain to the reader the main elements of the aesthetic movement and to discuss new way of writing.

The Preface consists of a list of paradoxical and apparently contradictory statements about art and the role of the artist. They are very short and easily fix into the mind.

In the first part of the Preface, Oscar Wilde gives information about the new aesthetic view of art. Art is impersonal and not understandable by everyone: impersonality is the new base for art because the artist is just the creator of beautiful things that hide him behind them. Furthermore, only learned people can reach the good and beautiful meaning of art.

It follows a critic toward the Victorian ideology and morality. The Victorians condemned everything was not considered useful and moral. In Oscar Wilde’s opinion only the form and the language are tools to analyze and critic a work of art: morality is just a part of a work of art, unlike the Victorian think.

In the last section Mr. Wilde discusses the tools the artist has to use to create an aesthetic work of art and the best models to follow. Thought, language, vices and virtues become the primary elements for an aesthetic work of art, completely in contrast with the Victorian standards.

Oscar Wilde ends the Preface underlining the inutility of art: art born to be admired not to have a utilitarian or a material value.