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Underground > Books, Criticism & Writing >

The picture of dorian gray

Elijah, Freelance Rabbi

12:29 / 20.04.02

dont know if i spelled the name right, but heres the thing
why do people insist on calling the the portrait of dorian gray?
i didnt realize how prevalent it was until i was reading some back issues of Starman and the shade made the error, which jack later pointed out.
this is a silly thread, but i was just baffled by the volume of people who call the story by its incorrect name

Trijhaos

14:51 / 20.04.02

Could it be because portrait sounds more elegant? Dorian's picture is painted, yes? Well, you don't say somebody is painting a picture of a person, do you? I always thought when a person gets painted one calls it a portrait. You paint pictures of birds, landscapes, and buildings. You paint portraits of people.

Ierne

00:54 / 21.04.02

Hmmm...I've not heard it referred to as The Portrait of Dorian Gray before...

It's a great book, by the way – I enjoy how Wilde depicts such a repellent personality in a highly sensuous, attractive way, and then ensures that Dorian gets exactly what's coming to him in the end. In the Preface it is noted:

There is no such thing as a moral or immoral
book.
Books are well written or badly written. That is
all.

Yet there does seem to be a sense of right and wrong inherent in the novel.

Kit-Cat Club

09:03 / 22.04.02

Yes, I agree - but I think maybe what Wilde was getting at, was the way in which certain books (French novels in yellow covers, Huysmans, Jude the Obscure, Wilde) were castigated as being immoral because they were somehow (nebulously) 'decadent' and portrayed themes like sexuality fairly explicitly - they were immoral whether or not the bad characters got their comeuppance or not, because, well, they were obviously immoral...

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