Abstract As the best representative work of Wilde’s aestheticism, The Picture of Dorian Gray has been regarded as immoral since it was published. This thesis introduces Wilde’s aestheticism and probes into the combination of aestheticism and morality from the perspective of the social background and the analysis of the major characters. In the masks of different characters whose values are conflicting, Wilde conducts a sober analysis of himself and the social surroundings, which shows him the moral concerns and his seriousness in discussion of moral anarchy. The Picture of Dorian Gray reveals that Wilde exposes the hypocritical morality of late Victorian society and opposes the rigid moral rules and false virtues canonized by the contemporary middle class. So he calls for a more tolerant and humanly morality.54649

Keywords: aestheticism; morality; combination; possibility

摘要作为王尔德唯美主义的代表作，《道林格雷的画像》自出版以来就被认为是一部缺乏道德的作品。本文简要地阐述了王尔德的唯美主义观点，从社会背景和人物分析的角度，探究了唯美主义和道德观在文中结合的表现，通过几个完全不同价值观的人物的交流和冲突表现了王尔德的道德关怀和剖析社会人生的严肃态度，他抨击维多利亚晚期社会的虚伪道德，反对中产阶级严苛的道德标准，呼唤的是一个更加宽容，符合人性的道德体系。

毕业论文关键词：唯美主义；道德；结合；可能性

Contents

1. Introduction 1

2. Literature Review 2

3. Wilde’s Art and Morality 3

3.1 Wilde’s Aestheticism 3

3.2 Wilde’s Morality 4

3.3 Relation of Art and Morality in This Work 5

3.4 Possibility of the Combination of Art and Morality 6

4. Combination of Art and Morality in this Work 6

4.1 Reflection from Social Aspects 6

4.2 Reflection from Characters Aspects 7

5. Conclusion 11

Works Cited 12 

1. Introduction 

Oscar Wilde, born in Irish, is a famous playwright, novelist, poet as well as one of the representatives of British Aesthetic Movement. Yet besides his international fame, he is also well-known for his indecent homosexual affairs and two-year life in prison. 

Oscar Wilde was born into a superior Dublin family. William Wilde, his father, worked as a surgeon. He was influenced by his mother who was a poet and showed great talent from childhood. Wilde was admitted to Magdalena College in Oxford, in which he was influenced by the aestheticism of Walter Pater and John Ruskin after graduating from Trinity College in Dublin with full literary scholarship and felt the new philosophy of Hegel, Darwinian evolution and Pre-Raphaelite’ works. All of these laid him the foundation of becoming an aesthetic pioneer. As an outstanding representative of aestheticism, he published poems, gave lectures on the idea “English Renaissance in Art”. Wilde became one of the celebrities of Victorian age due to his great talent, flamboyant clothes and eloquent speaks.

As famous as George Bernard Shaw in the nineteenth century, Oscar wrote nine fairy tales and each of them was comparable with Grimm’s Fairy Tales. However, fairy tales and short stories did not represented his ideas perfectly but his long story—The Picture of Dorian Gray and his dramas like Lady Windermere’s Fan and Salome led him to becoming one of the most successful and outstanding playwrights in late Victorian age.