Dev.SN ♥ developers
Sections
Dev.SN
This story needs over 200 comments. Preferably in a dozen or so threads. Get to work. A link here.
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
Hang Many Comments Here
|
Log In/Create an Account
| Top
| 1000 moderator points
| 223 comments
| Search Discussion
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
I'm not a robot like you. I don't like having disks crammed into me... unless they're Oreos, and then only in the mouth.
-- Fry
(Score: 1) by mrpg on Monday December 05 2016, @08:31PM
The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Picture of Dorian Gray, by Oscar Wilde
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net
Title: The Picture of Dorian Gray
Author: Oscar Wilde
Release Date: June 9, 2008 [EBook #174]
[This file last updated on July 2 2011]
[This file last updated on July 23 2014]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY ***
Produced by Judith Boss. HTML version by Al Haines.
The Picture of Dorian Gray
by
Oscar Wilde
CONTENTS
PREFACE CHAPTER 1 CHAPTER 2 CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4 CHAPTER 5 CHAPTER 6 CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8 CHAPTER 9 CHAPTER 10 CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12 CHAPTER 13 CHAPTER 14 CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16 CHAPTER 17 CHAPTER 18 CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
THE PREFACE
The artist is the creator of beautiful things. To reveal art and conceal the artist is art's aim. The critic is he who can translate into another manner or a new material his impression of beautiful things.
The highest as the lowest form of criticism is a mode of autobiography. Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming. This is a fault.
Those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are the cultivated. For these there is hope. They are the elect to whom beautiful things mean only beauty.
There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.
The nineteenth century dislike of realism is the rage of Caliban seeing his own face in a glass.
The nineteenth century dislike of romanticism is the rage of Caliban not seeing his own face in a glass. The moral life of man forms part of the subject-matter of the artist, but the morality of art consists in the perfect use of an imperfect medium. No artist desires to prove anything. Even things that are true can be proved. No artist has ethical sympathies. An ethical sympathy in an artist is an unpardonable mannerism of style. No artist is ever morbid. The artist can express everything. Thought and language are to the artist instruments of an art. Vice and virtue are to the artist materials for an art. From the point of view of form, the type of all the arts is the art of the musician. From the point of view of feeling, the actor's craft is the type. All art is at once surface and symbol. Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril. Those who read the symbol do so at their peril. It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors. Diversity of opinion about a work of art shows that the work is new, complex, and vital. When critics disagree, the artist is in accord with himself. We can forgive a man for making a useful thing as long as he does not admire it. The only excuse for making a useless thing is that one admires it intensely.
All art is quite useless.
OSCAR WILDE