The Picture Of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde Read Free Book Online

147–70; on the role of ‘revelatory’ portraits in Gothic fiction, see Mighall,
A Geography of Victorian Gothic Fiction
(1999), Chapter 3.
    20 Maudsley,
Pathology of Mind
(1895), 48.J. F. Nisbet, a popularizer of scientific ideas, had made a similar observation in 1889 when he discussed the principle of ‘throwing back’: ‘Every good quality and every defect that may have existed in any of our forefathers since the reign of Queen Elizabeth is liable to be revived in ourselves The recurrence of physical character after the lapse of centuries is attested by portraits, but moral character of a normal kind… can scarcely be traced beyond the third generation’ (Nisbet,
Marriage and Heredity
(1889), 106–7).
    21 Henry Maudsley, the major British exponent of what was called ‘degeneration’ theory, published
Responsibility in Mental Disease
in 1874. Maudsley was a materialist who argued that criminals were largely a product of their hereditary makeup, or were (evolutionary) throwbacks to more primitive forms of humanity. These ideas, deriving from French ‘alienists’ of the mid-nineteenth century, came into prominence in its last decades. Maudsley published articles on ‘Heredity in Health and Disease’ in the
Fortnightly Review
(1886), the same journal in which a number of Wilde’s own essays appeared. Wilde himself was diagnosed as a formof‘degenerate’ when he appeared in Max Nordau’s great pantheon of the pathological,
Degeneration
(1892), which appeared in English in 1895 and helped provide a diagnostic sub-text to journalistic comment on Wilde’s case at the Old Bailey, despite the fact that Nordau had not even hinted at Wilde’s sexuality, at least not in the first edition.
    22 ‘The Critic as Artist’,
Complete Works
(1994), 1137.
    23 And even this aspect is subjected to scientific scrutiny by Dorian. As he reasons: ‘Had it indeed been prayer that had produced the substitution? Might there not be some curious scientific reason for it all? If thought could exercise its influence upon a living organism, might not thought exercise an influence upon dead and inorganic things?’ (Chapter VIII).
    24 The first quote is from Acton,
The Functions and Disorders of the Reproductive
Organs
(1865), 67; the second from Spitzka, ‘Cases of Masturbation (Mastur-batic Insanity)’ (1888), 34, 52; the third from Tiss ot,
A Treatise on the Diseases Produced by Onanism
(1760; 1832), 51, 86. On this literature, its ‘Gothic’ elements and its possible contribution to
Dorian Gray
, see Mighall (1999), Chapter 5.
    25
Complete Works
(1994), 1082, 1091.
    26 ibid., 1106.

CHRONOLOGY
1854
Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wilde born (he added ‘Wills’ in the 1870s) on 16 October at 21 Westland Row, Dublin.
1855
His family move to 1 Merrion Square in Dublin.
1857
Birth of Isola Wilde, Oscar’s sister.
1858
Birth of Constance Mary Lloyd, Wilde’s future wife.
1864
Wilde’s father is knighted following his appointment as Queen Victoria’s ‘Surgeon Oculist’ the previous year. Wilde attends Portora Royal School, Enniskillen.
1867
Death of Isola Wilde. 1871– 4 At Trinity College, Dublin, reading Classics and Ancient History.
1874–8
At Magdalen College, Oxford, reading Classics and Ancient History (‘Greats’).
1875
Travels in Italy with his tutor from Dublin, J. P. Mahaffy.
1876
First poems published in
Dublin University Magazine.
Death of Sir William Wilde.
1877
Further travels in Italy, and in Greece.
1878
Wins the Newdigate Prize for Poetry in Oxford with ‘Ravenna’. Takes a double first from Oxford. Moves to London and starts to establish himself as a popularizer of Aestheticism.
1879
Meets Constance Lloyd.
1881
Poems
published at his own expense; not well received critically.
1882
Lecture tour of North America, speaking on art, aesthetics and decoration. Revised edition
of Poems
published.
1883
His first play,
Vera; or, The Nihilists
performed in New York; it is not a success.
1884
Marries Constance Lloyd