Talk:The Picture of Dorian Gray/Archive 1

More critical article

As it stands now, this article is merely a short summary of the novel, followed by an enormous list of all the characters. It would be very useful to have some analysis of the novel, which I found quite deep. --thomas9987 21:24, 22 May 2005 (UTC)

• Agreed, but remember that original research doesn't belong here. Which is to say, if you want to write that, you need to be citing what established critics have written, not writing criticism yourself. -- Jmabel | Talk 19:16, May 25, 2005 (UTC)

I agree with both. This article desperately needs some analysis done by established persons. Hans

Almost a year and this article still has nothing on the critical reception of the book, nor does it have any significant discussion of its literary merits or techniques.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.112.82.17 (talk • contribs) .

That is true with most works of fiction on Wikipedia, after 5 years, much less one. Critical reception is similar to historiography in history articles, it's specialized knowledge most people are not aware of or readily have access to; but which is a foundation for an encyclopedia article. --Stbalbach 13:18, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

How do we do this without sticking a bunch of POV in the novel?

Does anyone have any good citations of major critics raising the contradictory issues about the morality of the novel? On the one hand, it is in some ways a very moral tale: Dorian temporarily escapes what is posited to be a rule that the immorality of our actions will be reflected on our countenance. Conversely, it almost revels in its portrayal of that immorality. Wilde, of course, denied that the book (or any book) was "moral" or "immoral". I've quoted him on that, but I'd really like to get decent statements of the two opposing views into the article. -- Jmabel | Talk 03:10, Nov 13, 2004 (UTC)

A Request

If anyone ever gets a picture, that Wikipedia would be allowed to use, of an edition of the book, please replace the picture of the dvd cover of the movie version that is currently attached to this article. It is not the worst thing in the world to have it there but a book cover or a Lippincott's would be better. MarnetteD | Talk 21:41, 6 May 2005 (UTC)

Doyle & Wilde?

In the fall of 1889 J. M. Stoddart was in London to solicit short novels for one of his enterprises, Lippincott's Monthly Magazine. To one dinner he invited Arthur Conan Doyle and Oscar Wilde. They both agreed to write for him and Doyle submitted his second Sherlock Holmes novel The Sign of Four.

Anybody know more about this incident? Fancying Wilde and Doyle at the same table is extremely fascinating. -- Syzygy 15:06, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Editing

Anyone else think this article could use some good editing? Right now much of it is taken up trying to be some sort of Cliff's Notes. The section listing every single person mentioned in the novel makes the article much longer without making it any better. It could also use a better introduction, explaining the significance of the portrait right away. The Dorian Gray article is also in need of attention (though a major revret I just did improved it substantially). -R. fiend 16:31, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

I think the list is harmless; I'd never have gone to that kind of effort myself, but it's obvious what it is, and easy to skip past if that's not what you are looking for. -- Jmabel | Talk 07:12, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

Homosexuality a Theme

In this article, it is claimed that homosexualty is a theme in the novel. Although this may be considered by some to be a hidden motif in the novel, it is by no means a theme of the work. That is completely off-base. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by El Patito (talk • contribs) 10 Feb 2006.

Hideously dull and egregious

This article is a complete farce as it stands. Even the Dorian Gray article contains more plot information than all this "historical characters referenced" and "mythological characters referenced" and "newspapers referenced" rubbish. For the sake of all that is good: almost every single Victorian-era novel mentioned Shakespeare plays, mythological characters, and other such things. And nobody is interested in a list of trivial and minor characters.

This is an article, not some sort of detail catalogue. This looks practically like a Nihilartikel, or the work of a 12-year-old. It must be urgently cleaned up, even if at the cost of merging in the Dorian Gray article. 140.142.168.184 07:45, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

Inappropriate use of the "cleanup" tag which is for more mundane syntax issues -- missing article content or quality is another matter entirely. There are very few articles on Wikipedia that could not be expanded and improved upon greatly -- I just don't see this article as being that much worse than any other literature article. Wikipedia is "only" about five years old, it takes a long time for someone to come along and really work an article up the way it should be. If you want to discuss moving the cultural references to a new article that is fine (it was done for the Divine Comedy), or work on some plan and contribute, but tagging an article and ranting on talk pages and walking away isn't constructive. -- Stbalbach 14:37, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

Title Confusion

People often call the novel "The Portrait of..." rather than "The Picture of...". To satisfy my curiousity, to what is this attributable? I'm wondering if its The Seven Year Itch, given that its rather old and a few times "The Portrait of Dorian Gray" is mentioned. Thanks to anyone who can help! :) Carl.bunderson 19:06, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

Modernized play version

A modernized play version appeared in Scholastic Scope's September 6, 1991 issue, written by Deborah Sussman.

23:42, 10 June 2006 (UTC)~Enda80

~Magicana~ I have a copy of the novel in front of me – It is indeed The Picture of Dorian Gray.

Vane

I stumbled across the article for Sybil Vane (sic) if anyone is interested. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 13:54, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

A Substanial Edit

I have made a large edit to this article, because I think I (with some help) can get it up to FA standard. An overview of my edits is as follows:

• Expanded the lead
• Added a character list, with a brief overview of each character
• Created a section about The Preface, because it is a significant part of the book
• Severely curtailed the section on the publication history, as the previous version was largely irrelevant. I still think more could be found out about the books history
• Created the Themes section. I have tried to offer as many citations as possible. I plan to expand this section in the future
• Removed the fodder from the previous article

I plan to build on this start, but are there any suggestions for what to add? -Adasta- 17:01, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

It's a good start. FA's on literature are among the more difficult (we have only a handful on classic literature sadly). Other things to add would be criticisms (contemporary and later), and a literary history (not the same as publication history, but could be integrated). Couple questions – what happened to the "Film" section, was it just deleted? Or moved to another article? We need to move all the Film Project tags and film categories to somewhere.

I added this to the Novels Wiki Project (just by adding the tag above). Not sure if this strictly qualifies as a novel, but the important thing is they have standards on how to bring literature articles up to FA, and resources to help. -- Stbalbach 01:32, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

I have a criticisms section in draft form, and am working to expand on that. I also hope to add to the Theme section. Could you expand upon the notion of a Literary History, and what you think that should entail?

I have removed all of the film references; if someone wants to talk about a specific adapation, they will need to create a page for that. I will remove all film tags now. -Adasta- 11:47, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Hmm. re: films I'm not sure if they should go on a dab page, a "in popular culture" page, or a " xyz (film)" page. Re: literary history, I don't have any critical editions but you would typically find a literary history as the first piece in a scholarly edition, the intro, preface, etc.. the "publication history" section is partly that now, but that's probably not a good name for that section, too limited in scope, it's more than just a publication history. -- Stbalbach 12:32, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

It appears the films are already listed in List of cultural references in The Picture of Dorian Gray, so problem solved. --Stbalbach 12:35, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

It seems that much of the writers own opinions and inferences are used to represent the argument that dorian gray was a symbol of homoeroticsm

There is an awful ot of repetition in the last part; the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen is mentioned twice, the new Ben Barnes film is mentioned twice etc etc86.135.204.212 (talk) 07:57, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

On the Preface

I've cleaned up the formatting of the text of the Preface and have added some historical information noting the influence of Wilde's contemporaneous exposure to Daoism over the Preface. I'm not sure if this runs afoul of the "no original research" dictum of Wikipedia, but if it does, blame the Inaction of Wilde's scholars (of whom I have been among the most inactive) and revert at your leisure.

I would submit that the Preface is significant enough in and of itself to merit its own entry. As I myself am a partial adherent to that "great creed of Inaction," I'll leave the task, if worthy, to more industrious angels than myself.

Tatwell 20:45, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Dorian Gray in popular culture

The films, TV, comic books, etc.. all need to be listed in one article. It looks like a bunch of that material was just deleted outright, with a film-only new article created, and the TV stuff kept in this article – a confused mess. See Dante and his Divine Comedy in popular culture for how this is done. -- Stbalbach 18:55, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

I really don't think that that article has any need to exist. Those horrendous lists can easily be converted to good prose if someone would spend the time to do so. I don't think that your moving of relevent content to a page which is an incomplete list of things loosely related to The Picture of Dorian Gray benefits the main article. My edit with regards to Urashima Taro is not only a perfectly acceptable example of allusion within the novel, but also adheres to the templates found at the Wikinovels project. I think that the use of the Dante and his Divine Comedy in popular culture as an example is not wildly compelling as it is also merely a list, and the main article itself (Divine Comedy) is not a featured article.

I think we should be looking at articles like The Giver or The Illuminatus! Trilogy as examples of what this article should become. I would like to avoid an edit war, as I think it is entirely possible to incorporate that list into the main article without comprimising the article's quality. Surely that would meet both of our desires? -Adasta- 16:29, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Well, the popular list could be better formated, I didn't take the time to do so. The problem is there are so many references in popular culture, my guess is 100s if not many 1000s. Of course we can always have notable versions in this article, but the editor needs to justify why they are notable and why they stand above the crowd, as you say, in prose format – it's better to just have an open list anyone can edit with no worry about relevance, notability or quality because it will eventually get very long. Anyway, feel free to turn the notable adaptations into prose, that would be a great addition. -- Stbalbach 23:46, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Actually, all the non notable references shouldn't even be in the article at all, read WP:TRIV.24.190.34.219 (talk) 05:13, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

The first episode of Series 4 of Blakes Seven has a reworking of the Dorian Grey story (the character in question being called... Dorian). Jackiespeel 21:19, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

May I suggest one paragraph here and a link to References to Oscar Wilde in popular culture, where the rest of the material can go? - Jmabel | Talk 07:26, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

I have nominated the article The Picture of Dorian Gray in popular culture for deletion. The prose here looks good to me, and the indiscriminate trivia in that article seems excessive. I hope that this article can remain free of trivia intrusion. The discussion is here. MLA 10:42, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

hope that this article can remain free of trivia intrusion. – No doubt you have added this article to your watchlist and plan on helping to that end. With that article deleted, this article will become a regular hot-spot of popular culture additions. I would be happy to notify you when new ones are added over the next couple years to see how things develop. -- Stbalbach 15:36, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your offer of assistance, it will undoubtedly prove as useful to have multiple editors removing unnecessary additions as I have found to be the case on Martial art external links and List of multiplayer browser games as well as New Page Patrol. MLA 08:56, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

An excellent use of our time, talents and energies. -- Stbalbach 15:45, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Well once again the article has turned into nothing but a bloated list of useless trivia.24.190.34.219 (talk) 05:13, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

RE: The Picture of Dorian Gray in popular culture. Good going with that a year later. I just reformatted and then deleted a completely extraneous entry that had already been covered. Not only is it snobbery to omit the information, you didn't even follow through. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.172.168.183 (talk) 23:16, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

A third of the article on adaptions and trivia, and 4 lines about criticism of the book? Why are so many wikipedia articles on literature reduced to naming film adaptions? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.114.171.86 (talk) 19:55, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Libertines reference is there twice, one should be removed —Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.162.152.24 (talk) 04:42, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

No offense, but the section is currently nothing but a huge list of trivia which is against wiki policies (WP:TRIV), especially considering two articles currently exist about Adaptations of The Picture of Dorian Gray and Music based on the works of Oscar Wilde. Most of that section should be either deleted or relocated, and the section should be changed to HOW the work has influenced popular culture and listing a few notable examples. The current length is unacceptable, especially compared to the length of the rest of the article.24.190.34.219 (talk) 05:00, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Linking dates

There was a concerted effort a few months back, using bots, to de-link excessive date linking in articles across Wikipedia. According to the manual of style on dates it says:

There is consensus among editors that bare month and day names should not be linked unless there is a specific reason that the link will help the reader to understand the article.

Just because there is a date in an article doesn't mean it should be linked. Only when there is a good reason to do so, when clicking on the date link will lead to a better understanding. -- Stbalbach 23:38, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

I thought that bare month and day names like wednesday and October should not be linked. But 21 October should since that way it will, according to one's date preferences, either show 21 October or October 21. Garion96 (talk) 23:52, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

I see. -- Stbalbach 14:17, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Pardon me if it sounds flippant, but--so? Linking to dates is annoying, and almost never adds any additional meaning to the article. I think people can bear to have the date written in a European or American format that runs contrary to their own personal taste. -216.145.255.2 21:58, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Ages of the characters

At the outset, the ages of the characters are:

Dorian, 20 Lord Henry, 30 Sybil, 17 James, 16

We are also told that Basil is a 'young man.'

'18 years later' we find Dorian, 38; Lord Henry, 48; and James, 44. Basil is murdered and Sybil committed suicide at 17.

The point is, some people want to make the homosexual relationship 'pederasty.' While there is a degree of older man/younger man influence, it is clear by Wilde's references to Henry and Basil also as 'young men' that the idea was more of experience/rookie; it was still on an adult theme (Dorian being 20 years old at the start).

→ R Young {^yakł_talk} 07:39, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

"deference of aging"

"deference of aging"? Who is deferring to whom? Perhaps "deferral"? Or "postponement"? - Jmabel | Talk 03:47, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

I did actually intend to use the word "deferral", but I think I used "deference" by mistake. Well spotted; I will amend it now. -Adasta- 12:27, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

'Picture' as a Classic

The opening paragraphs of this article call 'Picture' a Western classic--a basically unanimous view--but it supports this claim by saying that the novel is one of the most popular novels:

"However, in modern times, the book has been referred to as "one of the modern classics of Western literature."[4]The BBC placed it at #118 in its "Big Read" list, a list of the 200 most popular novels."

If books like Fight Club manage to become among the most popular 200 books, will this be a sufficient basis for saying that such pulp fiction books are 'classics'? I should hope not. I don't object to noting 'Picture' as a popular novel; rather, my complaint is that its popularity is not evidence of its being a classic. We need a reference from a publisher, critic, et cetera, that lists it as such. -216.145.255.2 21:50, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

This is a general problem with Wikipedia. We are not allowed (per NPOV) to make obvious and common sense value judgments (such as calling a book a classic) without a source, even if there is no disagreement and it is common knowledge. When you attribute it to a single person or source it opens a can of worms, as you have noted – usually though we get away with it because most people are not sophisticated enough to challenge the source as having a bias. I once had an editor suggest The Divine Comedy was not a classic because he had "never heard of it". Anyway, I removed the BBC sentence, it is original research to suggest it is a classic because of that, and being on a list of popular books isn't that notable. -- Stbalbach 15:23, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Sibyl, not Sybil

The etext http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/4078 verifies Miss Vane's Christian name as being spelled 'Sibyl', not the more common 'Sybil'. 84.136.31.42 17:34, 14 May 2007 (UTC) Wolfgang Maier, the author of the book Oscar Wilde. The Picture of Dorian Gray – Eine kritische Analyse der anglistischen Forschung von 1962 bis 1982, p. 7, states that this name is the name spelt wrong most commonly by the critics he examines (15 of 25 cases). 84.136.43.28 17:25, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Similarity to Mr. Hyde

The end of the novel is obviously inspired by the end of Mr. Hyde, since them finding Dorian's corpse now resembling the painting's corrupted form resembles how they found Jekyll's corpse turned into Mr. Hyde. Enda80Enda80 —The preceding signed but undated comment was added at 23:25, August 21, 2007 (UTC).

Marvel Illustrated – The Picture of Dorian Gray

http://www.marvel.com/news/comicstories.1393.WW_Chicago_2007:_Marvel_Illus~dot~_-_Dorian_Gray I think this deserves a mention somewhere in this article, but I'm not sure where. Kitaro53085 (talk) 18:46, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Maybe a one-two sentence mention under "Film, television and theatrical adaptations", and maybe change the header to just "Adaptations". Carl.bunderson (talk) 03:06, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Overtones or undertones

In one section of the article it refers to the novel's homoerotic/homosexual "overtones", while in another it is "undertones". Could someone fix this? TheListUpdater (talk) 16:31, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

Etymology of Dorian: Gift?

The connection of Dorian Gray to the Dorian Greeks is a reach, especially if it's simply been done to intimate homosexuality. When I first read the name Dorian, I immediately thought of dôron (τό δῶρον), "the gift"; thus Dorian would be "the gifted one" (consider Pandora, Isidore, Theodore, Dorothy). Especially considering Dorian's virtues, this seems to be a far more reasonable etymology. Mfryc (talk) 11:30, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

The bloated "popular culture" section

No offense, but the section is currently nothing but a huge list of trivia which is against wiki policies (WP:TRIV), especially considering two articles currently exist about Adaptations of The Picture of Dorian Gray and Music based on the works of Oscar Wilde. Most of that section should be either deleted or relocated, and the section should be changed to HOW the work has influenced popular culture and listing a few notable examples. The current length is unacceptable, especially compared to the length of the rest of the article.24.190.34.219 (talk) 05:01, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

I have removed all the duplicated information and replaced it with a link. I left several of the allusions that have nowhere else to go, but they may ultimately need to be deleted since they are not particularly notable (IMO, don't know if there's a policy for that). --Jieagles (talk) 01:43, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Fictional Immortal

Is it appropriate to use the "Fictional Immortal" category in classifying Dorian Gray? He is not actually made immortal in the novel; rather he simply does not show the effects of age and vice. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.244.143.84 (talk) 00:28, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

Interesting, I think he would've been immortal if he hadn't killed the portrait at the end of the book. In my opinion, someone who doesn't age is an immortal, so the category is valid. The fact that he dies in the end is irrelevant, because after all vampires die if they're staked, garlic, silver etc yet they're still thought of as immortals.VenomousConcept (talk) 23:39, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Destroying the last vestige of his conscious will absolve him

I believe the painting is a demonstration of the harm he has done to his soul and also protection from the harm hedonism does to one's body, rather than a part of his conscience. Destroying the last part of his conscience would only make him sin more cause he wouldn't have any conscience to compel him not to. Destroying the painting because it allowed his hedonistic lifestyle without punishment makes more sense. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sdmitch16 (talk • contribs) 20:23, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

Cover photo is fake

The cover photo shows the cover's text continuing over parts of the cover page that are torn off. This is physically impossible. 108.7.208.4 (talk) 00:54, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

Plato's Republic

In the Allusions to other works section there is no specific reference to say that Wilde explicitly used the same device as Socrates. Is it actuAlly mentioned in the novel or is it an inference? 86.128.240.4 (talk) 00:21, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

Sentence fails to communicate

The following sentence, from the "Characters" section, fails to clearly communicate its message:

• "He indulges in every pleasure (moral and immoral) which life eventually leads to death."

The sentence's "which" demands being offset by comma, but everything following the parenthetical interjection fails to communicate (as well as grammatically). Is the intended meaning "every pleasure... in life that will eventually lead to death"? "every pleasure... in life, a course which will eventually lead to his death"? Le Prof 71.201.62.200 (talk) 08:27, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

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Acceptable sources for song lyrics

The U2 song "The Ocean" refers to--and was inspired by--TPoDG. As a reference for this fact has been demanded (even after I pointed out that the SONG ITSELF is the reference), I was wondering if there was any particular lyrics site (of the dozens and dozens available) that is seen as a better source than others? While I view demanding such a reference as a bit trivial, I will provide one. Hallward's Ghost ^{(Kevin) (My talkpage)} 22:31, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

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Proposed deletion of List of cultural references in The Picture of Dorian Gray

The article List of cultural references in The Picture of Dorian Gray has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:

Completely unsourced trivia.

While all constructive contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, pages may be deleted for any of several reasons.

You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{proposed deletion/dated}} notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page.

Please consider improving the page to address the issues raised. Removing {{proposed deletion/dated}} will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. In particular, the speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion.

That page was split from this article by user:Laddiebuck in 2006. The two comparable pages in Category:References in literary works have citations, but the one for Dorian Gray has none. – Fayenatic London 09:34, 11 January 2018 (UTC)

I have converted the prod to an AfD: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of cultural references in The Picture of Dorian Gray. LadyofShalott 21:41, 12 January 2018 (UTC)