Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)

The Picture of Dorian Gray

Characters:

• Lord Henry Wotton
• Basil Hallward
• Dorian Gray
• Sibyl Vane

Plot summary:

• Lord Henry Wotton observes artist Basil Hallward painting the portrait of a handsome young man named Dorian Gray. Dorian wishes he would stay like the picture and it will bear his age for him.
• Under the influence of Lord Henry, Dorian begins an exploration of his senses.
• He proposes marriage to Sibyl Vane who only knows him as "Prince Charming." Her brother, a sailor, is sceptical of "Prince Charming"'s affection for his sister. 
• She starts to perform badly after falling in love with him. Dorian falls out of love with Sibyl and she commits suicide. He notices that Basil's portrait of him has changed - his mouth has become crueller.
• Dorian hides his portrait in the attic. Over the next eighteen years, Dorian indulges lives in sin, but does not age a bit.
• One day, Basil questions Dorian about rumors of his indulgences, and Dorian shows him the portrait, which has become monstrously ugly. Dorian blames Basil for his fate and stabs him to death, then blackmails an old friend into destroying the body.
• Dorian seeks escape from his crime in an opium parlor, but is rejected by the proprietor, who calls him "Prince Charming". Sibyl Vane's brother recognizes the moniker and attempts to kill Dorian in order to avenge his sister but Dorian prevents him by exclaiming that he looks too young to have been involved by his sister. The sailor goes back to the opium den where the woman tells him that Dorian has not aged for the past 18 years.
• At a shooting party at a country house, Dorian sees the brother stalking the grounds, but by accident, the brother is shot dead. Dorian, shaken, informs Lord Henry that he will now repent. 
• When he returns to his house he wonders if the portrait would have changed, now that he has changed his ways, but when he unveils the portrait he sees it has only gotten worse, as he has only been imagining in vain that he could redeem himself. In a fit of rage Dorian picks up the knife he used to kill Basil and plunges it into the painting. His servants send for the police who find a bloated, ugly old man with a knife in his heart and the portrait of Dorian as beautiful as he was eighteen years ago. 

The Importance of Being Earnest

 

Characters:

• Algernon
• Bunbury
• Ernest
• Gwendolen
• Lady Bracknell
• Cecily
• Miss Prism
• John Worthing

Plot summary:

• Algernon, a wealthy young Londoner, pretends to have a friend named Bunbury who lives in the country and is frequently ill. Whenever Algernon wants to avoid an unwelcome social obligation or to get away for the weekend he visits his "sick friend." He calls this practice "Bunburying."
• Algernon's real-life best friend is Ernest who lives in the country but makes frequent visits to London. When Ernest leaves his silver cigarette case at Algernon's house he finds an inscription claiming that it is "From little Cecily to her dear Uncle Jack." 
• Ernest eventually admits that he is "Bunburying" as well. His real name is John Worthing and he pretends he has a wastrel brother named Ernest who lives in London. When he comes to London he assumes the name and behavior of the profligate Ernest.
• John wishes to marry Gwendolen, Algernon's cousin. However, she seems to only love him because she believes his name is Ernest, which she thinks is the most beautiful name in the world. Lady Bracknell, Gwendolen's mother, is also horrified when she learns that John is a foundling discovered in a handbag in a railway station.
• Algernon resolves to meet Cecily and visits John in the country, pretending he is the mysterious brother "Ernest." However, John had already decided to give up his "Bunburying" and announced the tragic death of Ernest.
• Algernon meets Cecily who believes herself in love with Ernest.
• Lady Bracknell arrives and discovers that John is a nephew of hers who was lost by Miss Prism, Cecily's governess, who was then working for Lady Bracknell's sister. His real name is Ernest.
• It is suggested at the end of the play that Ernest/John will marry Gwendolen and Algernon will marry Cecily. 

The Ballad of Reading Gaol

• poem written in memory of C.T.W. who died in Reading prison and traces the feelings of an imprisoned man towards a fellow inmate who is to be hanged

It begins:

He did not wear his scarlet coat,
For blood and wine are red,
And blood and wine were on his hands
When they found him with the dead,
The poor dead woman whom he loved,
And murdered in her bed.

He walked amongst the Trial Men
In a suit of shabby grey;
A cricket cap was on his head,
And his step seemed light and gay;
But I never saw a man who looked
So wistfully at the day.

I never saw a man who looked
With such a wistful eye
Upon that little tent of blue
Which prisoners call the sky,
And at every drifting cloud that went
With sails of silver by.

The Decay of Lying

• essay written in Socratic dialogue
• characters of Vivian and Cyril are having a conversation throughout
• Vivian tells Cyril of an article he has been writing called The Decay of Lying: A Protest
• In the article Vivian defends Aestheticism and "Art for Art's Sake"
• Art never expresses anything but itself
• All bad art comes from returning to Life and Nature, and elevating them into ideals
• Life imitates Art far more than Art imitates Life
• Lying, the telling of beautiful untrue things, is the proper aim of Art.

The Critic as Artist

• Socratic dialogue form between Gilbert and Ernest
• Gilbert argues for the equal importance of the critical faculty with artistic creation - artist must be both critic and creator in order to produce great art, and that the art of the critic should be as fine a creative work as that of any artiste
• artist does not create from a vast unconscious storehouse of emotions and ideas "All fine imaginative work is self-conscious and deliberate. No poet sings because he must. At least, no great poet does. A great poet sings because he chooses to sing...There is no fine art without self-consciousness, and self-consciousness and the critical spirit are one."