Homoeroticism and Aestheticism

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Analysing topic of ageing in at least 3 pieces of Wilde's writing with reference to homoeroticism and aestheticism. main emphasis on analysing topic of ageing.

The Picture of Dorian Gray shows how Wilde's attitude to art is analogous to his feelings about sexuality and mortality. He concludes the preface by saying that it is fine to create something useful so long as it is not admired as art. Wilde believes that useless things are only created in order to be admired. He concludes that, "All art is quite useless." That is, it exists for its own sake as art ("art for art's sake") and not for some moral purpose.

For Wilde, art is something mis-valued, or misinterpreted at best. He stresses that nothing is gained from attempts to impose utility on the aesthetic. The aesthetic is something distinct from use, but not without power and meaning. Meaning, then, is different to utility: something can have an intellectual worth and direction without having any objective practical function at all. The problems begin when the distinctions are ignored, when artworks are given a utility, as with the magical transformation of the painting at the beginning of the Dorian Gray play. Basil's reaction to his friend Gray's requests give a voice to Wilde's theory of aestheticism, as he suggests that artists create beautiful objects for their own sake and that art should not be burdened with meaning. He dismisses artists and critics who see art as a means for biographical expression, refusing to have his work thought of in that way.

Further, Basil's attraction to Dorian is fraught with the problems of utility. Dorian wishes to become an artwork, and as much as Basil claims to resist the clash of art and function, implicitly, the clash of aesthetic and pragmatic worlds, of inner and outer, he is drawn to Dorian's contrary aspect like a moth to a flame. Despite Basil's claims to independence, he is instantly overpowered by Dorian from their first meeting, and grows dependent on the younger man very quickly, despite himself. Dorian represents a challenge to Basil's conception of aestheticism, as he becomes both the heart of his art, and the centre of his life. The contradiction is outlandish, as Dorian suggests a vision of artistic possibility to Basil, where the order and perfection of the Greeks merges with the chaos and passion of Romanticism. Basil considers the problems of comparing the merits of beauty to intellect, stating that there is "a fatality about all physical and intellectual distinction, the sort of fatality that seems to dog through history the faltering steps of kings." Such undertones run through the play - that excellence in physical and intellectual realms can too frequently result in the downfall of those who possess them.

At the outset, Wilde draws attention to Dorian's physical beauty, his "finely curved scarlet lips, his frank blue eyes, his crisp gold hair." While Basil and Lord Henry are older, perhaps in their early thirties, Dorian is at least twenty himself, and old enough to take responsibility for his feelings. Yet he is relatively immature, in possession of a childlike quality that some of the characters interpret as innocence or even "purity." Dorian is prone to pouting, acts with petulance and frequently seems unpleasantly naïve, behaving like a spoiled child.

In another signal of the ideological proximity of sexual desire to youthfulness, and, moreover, the connection between the dangers of mixing utility with art and the dangers of assigning purpose to beauty, the manipulative but charismatic Lord Henry spots Dorian's vulnerability immediately and begins exploiting it. He is at least partially responsible for the tragedy of the story, as it is he who sews the seeds of fear in the young man, and it is an unreasoned, childish terror of the natural process of ageing, refusing to accept the inevitable loss of fresh beauty.

Dorian is strikingly fickle in his affections, switching them from Basil to Lord Henry over the course of an afternoon. Although it may be tempting to Dorian's weakness and fickle nature to youth, the change actually only occurs after he has taken on board the power of his own beauty - in fact signifying maturity, perhaps something approaching wisdom. Although still self-centred in all his actions and words, a real change occurs in Dorian's personality following his decision to heed the older man's words. Again, we are reminded that physical attraction can change the world: but this time it is Dorian's attraction to the Lord that enabled him not only to change, but to listen to the man's "advice" in the first place.

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