《道林格雷的畫像》的倫理學(xué)批評(píng)【畢業(yè)論文】

1、<p><b>　?。?0_ _屆）</b></p><p><b>　　本科畢業(yè)設(shè)計(jì)</b></p><p><b>　　英語(yǔ)</b></p><p>　　《道林格雷的畫像》的倫理學(xué)批評(píng)</p><p>　　1. Introduction</p>&l

2、t;p>　　1.1 A brief introduction of Oscar Wilde</p><p>　　Oscar Wilde, the representative of Aestheticism in England, has been the focus in academic circles for a long time. As Peter Raby observes “ If Wilde

3、 formulated any one model of the artist, it was based on Keats, who embodied most of the necessary qualifications: poetic genius, physical beauty, public persecution, and an early death.(Raby5)There are so many things th

4、at worth mentioning in his life. He is a great writer. Few writers have succeeded in so many forms of creations. Many stories are s</p><p>　　Besides his distinguished works, his lifestyle is also a great att

5、raction no matter in his days or in the modern times. About his life, we can see many controversies. He proclaims his ideal of beauty not only in his works but also in his way of dressing, his pattern of behaviors and ev

6、en the choice of words. For instance, he favors all kinds of splendid accessories, such as Lily, the feather of peacoke. He mocked all the hypocrisy with his unique witty epigram. His eloquence was widely admired y</p

7、><p>　　In western countries, Wilde’s reputation and influence have been changed. In the early years, he was considered notorious for his recklessly strange ways of dressing and wild, unrestrained patterns of be

8、haviors, as well as being proud to be a homosexual. However, Wilde’s importance and influence on literature was gradually enhanced as the time went. In the early years of twentieth century, he was admired in England and

9、America by a few critics, such as Max Beerbohm, who wrote in 1900 that Wilde’</p><p>　　As is well known to us, Wilde is an aesthete. It can be said that he is the most articulate and popular Spokesman in the

10、 late nineteenth century advocating the doctrine of aesthetics, which insists that art should be primarily concerned with the ideal “Art for art’s sake”, not involved with ethic.</p><p>　　1.2 The introductio

11、n of The Picture of Dorian Gray</p><p>　　The whole story of this novel is simple. Dorian Gray finds his own exceeding beauty after he sees his picture the artist Basil Hallward paints for him. There he gets

12、acquainted with Lord Henry and deeply convinced by his life philosophy .He comes to realize that life is short and suffers from the fact that he can’t keep his beauty and youth. In front of his picture, he makes an oath

13、to exchange his soul with it for his beauty. Later, He falls in love with the actress Sibyl Vane but abandons her </p><p>　　2.Wilde’s ethics and Wilde’s aesthetics</p><p>　　2.1 Wilde’s views of

14、ethics</p><p>　　What is ethics? According to the Longman dictionary, ethics refers to the moral rules or principles of behavior for deciding what is right and wrong, while Wilde’s view of ethics is mainly ab

15、out aesthetic ethics. At first, we should turn to two typical definitions of two outstanding philosophers. Aristole defined ethics as the study of the conditions for human happiness, while Kant’s portrayed it as the stud

16、y of human irrevocable duties. In Greek tradition, ethics was related to the good life an</p><p>　　As Lord Henry says in The Picture of Dorian Gray, ”to be good is to be in harmony with one’s self”(p88)Speak

17、ing of puritan morality in relation to late Victorian society, Wilde once said“ Puritan morality has made us self –centered and hypocritical for so long, that sincerity and reverence for what is natural in our impulses h

18、ave been fairly brought out of us, with the result that there can be neither truth nor individuality in our society”(Hussey,25)</p><p>　　As for detached attitude towards life, Wilde hold the opinion as repre

19、sented by the character Lord Henry. Lord Henry is very typical guy who can be a detached observer of life. He talks but never does. He hates his marriage and knows well where the problems lie but takes no measure to solv

20、e it. He convinces Dorian Gray of his life philosophy but he himself never takes it into action. Here is a scene in the book that Lord Henry asks Dorian Gray to give up philanthropy and thinks that humanity tak</p>

21、<p>　　From his novel the picture of Dorian Gray, we may draw a conclusion that Wilde’s ethic is mainly about happiness and detachment of life, which is totally consistent with his views of aesthetics.</p>&

22、lt;p>　　2.2Wilde’s aesthetics</p><p>　　Firstly, let’s define aesthetics. According to Zhu Guangqian, a well known scholar of aesthetics, aesthetics is the study of beauty and its basic question is the rela

23、tion between form and content, ration and sense(Zhu Guangqian ,641).Since its beginning, aesthetics has been stressing on the literary theories and on its role in literary practice. Wilde’s aesthetics of Aestheticism and

24、 his view on beauty had been expressed profoundly in his critical essays and lectures. Basically his aesthetics ar</p><p>　　First of all, art should express nothing except itself. As one of the most influent

25、ial advocators for Aesthetic Movement, Wilde’s strongly hold the opinion “Art for art’s sake” .It shows that beauty of the art should be separated from the motive for social and moral functions. As he put in the preface

26、 of The Picture of Dorian Gray that “There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written.” ”The moral life of man forms part of the subject-matter of the </p><p>　　

27、The second aspect is his belief that life imitates art far more than art imitates life. As we will not discuss it deeply in this thesis, we will just skip it.</p><p>　　The last but not least of it is that ae

28、sthetics is more important than ethics.In the preface of The Picture of Dorian Gray ,he wrote, “No artist has ethical sympathies.An ethical sympathy in an artist is an unpardonable mannerism of style.No artist is ever mo

29、rbid(P1)</p><p>　　Of course, we can not deny that Wilde’s separation of art and ethics, his critique of conventional morality contributed a lot to the history of aestheticism. But when we take a good look at

30、 his views of ethic and aestheticism as well as take his work the picture of Dorian Gray into account, we might as well ask a question: Does and can pure aestheticism exsit? And is Wilde’s really not concerned with ethic

31、 just like he proposed or he just concealed his moral view under the cover of aethetic? We </p><p>　　3 Wilde’s ethical concern through the main character</p><p>　　3.1 Basil Hallward: the defende

32、r of ethics</p><p>　　Once Oscar Wilde said: “Basil Hallward is what I think I am; Lord Henry is what the world thinks of me, while Dorian Gray is what I would like to be.”( Laure Dimaure,397)We can see that

33、the artist is actually what he really wants to be, a worshiper for beauty, a defender for ethics. When we probe deep into personality of Basil Hallward, we can see Oscar Wilde cares about ethics just like he does aesthet

34、ic. There is no doubt that Basil Hallward is very kind and tolerant. He creates beauty and app</p><p>　　When Dorian Gray becomes distant from him and hangs around with Lord Henry, he becomes tortured. What h

35、e cares about most not Dorian gray’s appearance because it doesn’t change at all rather his exposition he actually admires more. “His personality has suggested to me an entirely new manner in art, an entirely new mode of

36、 style”(p13).And when he hears of the rumors about Dorian Gray, he doesn’t believe any of it. He prefers to believe in good part of human beings. The death of Sibyl Vane brings </p><p>　　But he does not give

37、 up his efforts to put Dorian Gray to the right road. Indeed, since Dorian Gray walks away from his life, he has lost his passion in art and always suffers. Here is what we can see from Lord Henry’s word: “His painting h

38、ad quite gone off. It seemed to me to have lost something. It had lost an ideal. When you and he ceased to be great friends, he ceased to be a great artist!”(p 252)He is really heart broken! However ,he is too weak and t

39、oo dominated by Dorian Gray, he can only</p><p>　　From the character of the artist, we can see more of his ethical view than of his worship for beauty. The artist adores Dorian Gray’s good look but he values

40、 his pure personality more. Now, his own idol has changed, becoming an evil despite of excellent beauty. With his idol’s corruption in morality, the artist loses his interest in art and life.</p><p>　　3.2 Lo

41、rd Henry: the offender of ethics</p><p>　　Lord Henry is a very fascinating character full of paradox and wits in this words. As a guide of Dorian Gray, he surely infatuates him and gradually leads him to an

42、evil way. When he meets Dorian Gray, he is also attracted by his natural beauty and personality, And he conceives Dorian Gray of his convincible beauty with witty paradox but warns him about transient period of youth and

43、 how beauty withers as time goes. Here he says, “You have a wonderfully beautiful face, Mr Gray. And beauty is a fo</p><p>　　Lord Henry believes in the philosophy of pleasure. It is a selfish philosophy whic

44、h doesn’t care about reality, social conventions. “Nothing remains then but the recollection of a pleasure or the luxury of a regret. The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it, for if you resist it, you s

45、oul grows sick with longing for the things it has forbidden to itself, with desire for what its monstrous laws have made monstrous and unlawful”(p22).He despises principles, and for him, “the only t</p><p>　

46、　Though Lord Henry leads Dorian Gray to an immoral way，he never does anything wrong or evil in life ,as Basil says: “You never say a moral thing, and you never do a wrong thing.”(p 5)He is like a detached observer, who s

47、eems really not involved with anything in reality. Even for his marriage, he’d rather keep his tedious life even though he despises it terribly. But things are not quite true. As far as I’m concerned, Wilde is also conce

48、rned with ethic which we can tell from the character of Lord </p><p>　　3.3 Dorian Gray: the conflict of ethics and aesthetics</p><p>　　Anyone who has read the novel will admit that Dorian Gray i

49、s an innocent and beautiful fellow who is devoted to philanthropy and has sweet curiosity and sincerity about life. He has kept himself unspotted from the outside world. But under the instruction of Henry, Dorian follows

50、 a degraded way that even Lord Henry can’t acknowledge. Dorian Gray pursues adventures and extreme delight. He meets his greatest romance, falls in love with the actress, Sibyl Vane. He thinks highly of her and regards h

51、e</p><p>　　Though Dorian Gray enjoys his life a lot, he can not get peace in mind. Since his picture shows up a touch of cruelty in the mouth, he hides it in a deserted room and covers it. With more and more

52、 evidences of crimes in his face, he gets more and more disturbed. When he is confronted with Hallward Basil, he can’t stand the queries of his ruined reputation; In fact, he can’t face the morality represented by Hallwa

53、rd Basil and feels scared. He kills the poor artist to conceal his secrets and destr</p><p>　　Why does Dorian Gray finish his life like this? As he is immersed in the beauty, why he is so disturbed by the lo

54、ss of ethic? According to Wilde’s view of aesthetics, Dorian Gray doesn’t deserve death since he strictly follows his doctrines. So we could conclude that Wilde’s in also concerned with ethics, and Dorian should be punis

55、hed with death.</p><p>　　4.Conclusion</p><p>　　In The Picture of Dorian Gray, Wilde portrayed two friends with quite opposite characteristics: Basil Hallward and Lord Henry. And as what Basil hi

56、mself said, Henry represents statue and wealth, he, Bails means talent, while Dorian Gray, beauty. But it turns out to be quite wrong. Lord Henry tempts Dorian Gray to do all kinds of evil deeds, and Basil surprisingly b

57、ecomes the defender of ration and ethic. Meanwhile, Dorian is the embodiment of corruption and crime(Zhang jieming,118).It seems quit</p><p>　　Actually, we can probe deep into his paradox from the aspect of

58、that society. With the Industrial revolution and the progress of the society, there emerged the uncertainty of religion and morality. At the end of the century, the moral sense became loose. The coarseness and grossness

59、of aristocratic manners and conduct had been notorious. People in that society sought for new sensations while disgusted moral and religious limitations. The change in society brought about deep changes in literature<

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65、gt;　　王 藜. 《道連 葛雷的畫像 中美與靈魂之關(guān)系》[J]. 新疆師范大學(xué)學(xué)報(bào)（哲學(xué)社會(huì)科學(xué)版）,2009(1):135-138</p><p>　　Acknowledgements</p><p>　　I cannot sufficiently thank my supervisor, Mr. Diao Junchun, whose invaluable advice and pa

66、instaking instructions of the earlier drafts have a major impact on the final shape of this thesis. My sincere thanks are due to all the teachers who have taught me during the BA course.</p><p>　　I am also g

67、rateful to Jiaxing University that has provided me a chance of this study.</p><p>　　Finally, the completion of my BA program could not have been possible without the constant support, encouragements and endu