SYMBOLISMO

Symbolism was a poetic movement which originated in France between 1880 and 1890 in the same decades, partaking of the same aesthetic vision. From poetry it soon extended to drama and prose. The French Symbolists were Paul Verlaine, Stèphane Mallarmè, . Their quest focused on the potentialities of poetry to evoke deeper realities, and get at the heart of existence. They drew on the Romantics and on baudelaire's vision but their special interest was language, the interplay of word's, symbols and rhythm to convey revelations. Their techniques were a step towards modernist experimentation.

Symbolism reached England in the very last decade of the century. English Symbolism was not particulary innovative -apart from the personal poetry of Yeats. It remained strictly within the aesthetic - decadent atmosphere.

Aestheticism:

Strssing the supremacy of art over all other intellectual activity, the Pre - rapaelites paved the way for Aestheticism. Aestheticism was a literary movement which was not limited to England, but developep throughout Europe by the middle of the 19^th century. It originated in France abaut 1835 and numbered, among its members, mainly writers and painters. Brought abaut by the sense of frustation and uncertainty that marked the closing years of the century, it expanded as a reaction againt the utilitarian outlook and  the moral restictions of bourgeois society.

Adopting Gautier's slogan, "Art for Art's sake" the Aesthetic writers broke with the conventions of the time and gave free rein to immagination and fantasy, echoing, in a way, that the Romantics had already done, but taking their theories and attitudes to extremes. By applying their new " canon" not only to their works bat to their lives as well, the early members of the movement chose to live an exravagant " vie de Bohème", disorderly and unconventional, but vital and exciting, spent in the pursuit of sensatoun, devoted to the cult of art and beauty, sometimes marked by excesses, but always rich in creative energy.

Wilde and Aestheticism:

During the 1880 and 1890s Wilde became the most famous spokesman for aestheticism, although, even in his Oxford days, he was already, as we have seen, an incomplete aesthete. He was interested in the pursuit of beauty not only in leterature bat in the arts, in interior design, in the use of colour, in clothe, in hall - crafted artifacts , such as pottery, forniture and textiles. He rejected the mass -produced, the gaudy, the over - decorateed, whether in clothes, house - interiors or the invironment in general. On arriving in America for is lecture tour of 1882, Wilde described aestheticism as "the science of the beatiful throught which men seek the correlation of the arts". Through this science of the beatiful, a new renaissance of the arts wuold be brought about.Wilde's doctrines did not, however, remain static. By the autumn of 1884 , his lecture, "The Value of Art in Modern Life" makes it clear that he had already rejected the doctrine of art for art's sake: "I have found that all ugly things are made by those who strive to make something beautiful,and that all beautiful things are made by those who strive to make something useful." This hardly accords whit his dictum, in the preface to the picture of Dorian Gray The: "All art is useless."

The important point is that Wilde, thougt he was clearly the spokeman of aestheticism, did not view it in a simple way, was capable of an ironic detachment towards it, and recognized its potential dangers, in artistic and human terms.

Morality was apt to invade his art, despite his disavowals. His essay "The Soul of Man under Socialism" reconcile the cul of the beautiful, the cult of the morally just. Thogth The importantance of Being Earnest, focuses attenction on a number of social problems from education to property and privilege.

THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY:

In 1891 wilde published in book form The Picture of Dorian Gray. The book was immediately received by the public and by critics a storm of protest and criticism. The suggested homosexuality, the amoral of the story, the descriptions of self - indulgence, unrepentant luxuty and moral indifference all shocked an england still dominated by "Victorian" morality and taste. The novel isan expression of anti - Victorian aestheticism, but suffers from wilde's rather melodrammatic manner of descibing Dorian's crimes.

The novel was published with Wilde's celebrated Preface, which, written in the style of a sort of Decadent Ten Commandments, represents Wilde's Aesthetic Manifesto.

THE PLOT

The plot is a simple description of how a beautiful, tasteful and cultured young man, Dorian Gray, becomes corrupted by his friends and associates to the point of becaming a moral "monster". When the painter, Basil Hallward, paints an attractive portrait of Dorian, the latter expresses the desire to remain as young and as beautiful as the figure in the portrait, and from this hedonistic desire the plot springs.

Lord Henry Wotton, Wilde's amusing portrait of a Victorian dandy whose cynism and hedonism dominates his life style, takes Dorian under his wing and the process of corruption begins.

The first crime happens when Lord Henry persuades Dorian to abandon his girlfriend, the naive and attractive actress Sybil Vane, who then kills herself. In true Gothic style, the portrait begins to manifest sign of the evil and cruelty of Dorian, while Dorian himself remains untouched.

As Dorian realized what is happening, he abandons himself totally to a hedonistic life of excess, which after twenty years culminates in the murder of is friend Basil.

At last, tired of constantly trying to escape from is own cruelty, he destroys the portrait.

The final act of violence destroys the "magic" or "course" of the portrait and kills him. Immediately the body of Dorian assumes the terrible trasfiguration of the portrait and the painting resumes its original apperance.