... Vatican comes out of the closet and embraces Oscar.
Any discerning reader of Wilde quickly notices how much of a moralist Wilde was, and how deep his religious sentiments in fact were - read "The Selfish Giant" or "The Happy Prince." In connection with this I will once again recommend Ellis Hanson's Decadence and Catholicism.
I suppose thinking of it, Dorian Gray is Wilde pushing the worldview of the aesthete to an extreme and discovering it to be severely wanting. There's an awful lot to be said for this pushing of ideas to their nth, and thus giving a clearer idea of what they really amount to. Of which Dostoevsky the supreme example.
ReplyDeleteVery good point, Andrew. I had a tendency to do that in action when I was younger and wilder. I'm lucky I survived. But it was, as they say, an excellent learning experience.
ReplyDeleteThough I did mean pushing ideas to their nth in the realm of the mind or imagination rather than in the more dangerous bodily manner you seem to have used, Frank!
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