Dorian Gray And Death In Venice Analysis English Literature Essay

Dorian colourize And termination In Venice Analysis English Literature EssayIn chapter one I have shown that both(prenominal)(prenominal) Aestheticism and Nietzsche promote trick for arts sake and moot that art justifies itself and does non need to have a occasion since art is purpose in itself, the purpose of sustenance. Nietzsche urges operatives to look in military position themselves and give splendor to both the Apollonian, that is, the rational and the Dionysian, that is, the passionate spatial relation of their personality. According to him, only by achieving equilibrium mingled with these two opposite and, in the meantime, comple mentary forces go out mechanics be able to create authentic works of art. This chapter centers on the synopsis of The Picture of Dorian colorise and Death in Venice from the Aesthetic and Nietzschean perspective. In both novels, the protagonists argon creative persons that cultivate cup of tea in their works and lives and that vib rate between the Apollonian and Dionysian. Since Nietzsche points out that both the Apollonian and the Dionysian govern the human existence, I will show how these two forces compete in each casing in their search for beauty. both(prenominal) Oscar Wilde and Thomas Mann struggled against what was prevalent and what was expected of an workman in their eras. They fought against becoming what victor Henry criticises in The Picture of Dorian Gray Modern pietism consists in accepting the standard of ones eon. I consider that for any man of culture to accept the standard of his age is a frame of reference of the grossest immorality (Wilde 92). Wildes new version of the old aestheticism deploys subjectivity, individuality, and the self-direction of art against the supposed objectivity and professionalism of nineteenth century science and its get-go in literature, that is, realism. In Oscar Wilde, Thomas Mann bursted much of the essential Nietzsche, his impetuous war on morality an d his transvaluation of moral into aesthetic values.As confirm in The Decay of Lying, Oscar Wildes philosophy on art insists on the item that art should find arrant(a)ion in itself, that it has as its object not simple truth, as Victorians expected it to express, but complex beauty. As he points out in the preface of the novel The Picture of Dorian Gray, the artist is the creator of beautiful things and those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are the cultivated (Wilde 5). A common feature of The Portrait of Dorian Gray and Death in Venice is their celebration of beauty in artistic man. Thus, passkey Henry Wotton believes that Beauty is of the great facts of the world, like sunlight, or spring-time, or the comment in dark waters of that silver shell we c whole the moon. It has its portend right of sovereignty (Wilde 29) and Aschenbach thinks that nature itself shivers with ecstasy when the mind bows down in homage before beauty (Mann 460). The artists pursuit of beauty constitutes both their inspiration, the purpose of their creation and their perdition.Through their celebration of art as a principal(prenominal) theme, The Picture of Dorian Gray and Death in Venice share nigh common points in their analysis of the artist. In his work, The Birth of Tragedy, Nietzsche affirms that artistic creation depends on a collaboration between two opposite forces which he terms the Apollonian and the Dionysian. He believed that true artistic creations have to be generated by people that were not only highly civilised and cultured, but also passionate. According to him, only in the counterpoise of these forces could art arise. Nietzsche described the right artists as maintaining a balance between two forces, the Dionysian, or those associated with the god Dionysus and the Apollonian, those associated with the god Apollo. While Dionysus was the god of fecund nature, spring, regeneration, wine, and intoxication, and orgiastic extravagance, Apollo was the god of light, of form which shapes drives and instincts into clarity and order. While Dionysus was often associated with music, a passionate, engrossing art form, Apollo was associated with sculpture, a rigid, detached art form. Like Nietzsche, Oscar Wilde and Thomas Mann believe that the conflict between conscious will and uncontrolled passion, between rationality or morality and passionate art dallys a very serious struggle in human existence. This is the reason why the artists trajectory towards death in both fictional works is a descent to either extreme and a failure to maintain equilibrium between these two opposite forces.In The Picture of Dorian Gray, the three major characters, Basil Hallward, Lord Hnry Wotton, and Dorian Gray are at the same time unalike aesthetes and split of the same self. In Death in Venice, the poet Gustav von Aschenbach is the only protagonist and artist in the novella, but he has common features with all three different characters from Oscar Wildes novel. Each of these artists, unique in their mode of thinking and personality, undergoes serious changes evoke by factors beyond their control.Aschenbachs resemblance to Basil is manifested in his Apollonian concern with toilsome work. They both believe that hard work leads to perfection and that perfection is the observe to the artistic talent. They both reject passion because they think it blocks the pursuit of excellence. Hallwards aestheticism is manifested in his complete devotion to exclusive artistic creations. His ambition and struggle is to ferment one with his art. He searches in the outside world for the perfect manifestations of his understanding and when he finds them, he can create masterpieces by painting them. His terminal misake is that in creating the portrait of Dorian Gray, Basil puts too much of himself into it, (Wilde 18), which Lord Henry criticises for at some point in the novel, by argumentation that an artist should create beautiful things, but should nothing of his own carriage story into them (Wilde 25).Gustave von Aschenbach is introduced as the extreme case of the civilised Apollonian, neoclassical artist who go bads a hero of the times given his self-controlled route of labouring on the edge of exhaustionGustave Aschenbach was the poet-spokesman of all those who labour at the edge of exhaustion of the overburdened, of those who are already worn out but still hold themselves honorable of all our modern moralizers of accomplishment with stunted growth and scanty resources. (Mann 426)He is, thus, the prototypical modern artist. However, the fact that he has spent his entire brio without ack promptlyledging his passions and desires foreshadows possible problems in the future because, according to Freud, repressed passions will sort of or later rise to the surface. Thus, he gradually abandons his commitment to Apollo when he first journeys to Venice and, later, when he decides to remain there. He passes beyond balance and reason, subbing beauty for morality, even though the cost of such a picking is death.Far from being fruitful to the artistic purpose of their lives, their vulnerability to the perfect classic beauty of both Dorian Gray and Tadzio overshadows the resulting art itself. both(prenominal) Basil and Gustaves worlds start revolving around their muses and, unawares, they grow dependent on their presence. Thus, Hallward admits that I couldnt be happy if I didnt see Dorian both day. He is utterly necessary to me (Wilde 18) and Gustave, once he meets Tadzio, can no longer appropriate Venice, even though the city does him serious harm He matte up the rapture of his blood, the poignant pleasure, and realized that it was for Tadzios sake the leavetaking had been so hard (Mann 455).The obsessive admiration for the perfect physical beauty is what binds Basil Hallward and Gustave Aschenbach and what leads them towards destruction. in one case they discover perfect beauty, the Dio nysian force is unleashed and it can hardly be controlled. Both artists worship beauty in their creations. As Aschenbach declares, in almost every artists nature is inborn a wonton and treacherous proneness to side with the beauty that breaks hearts, to single out aristocratic pretensions and pay them homage (Mann 441). The angel of beauty is represented in The Picture of Dorian Gray and Death in Venice by the youthful Dorian and Tadzio. Basil confesses that Dorian is all my art to me now (Wilde 16) and Gustave decides that Tadzio should be in a sense his model, his expressive style should follow the lines of this figure that seemed to him divine (Mann 461). However, the beauty of the two young men is not only a source of artistic inspiration, it very curtly starts exerting work on on the artists. Basil argues that Dorians personality has suggested me an entirely new manner in art, an entirely new mode of style. I see things differently, I think of them differently. I can now re create life in a way that was hidden from me before (Wilde 17) and in Aschenbachs case, Tadzios lovely apparition was that fill up him with content, with joy in life, enriched his stay, and lingered out the row of sunny days that skin into place so pleasantly one behind the other (Mann 457).Once conscious of the serious role beauty plays in their lives, Basil Hallward and Gustave Aschenbach become concerned to hide it, fearful that if they reveal it, they will in fact, put out their somebodys. Thus, Basil tells his friend, Lord Henry, that he will not exhibit the portrait, his marvellous masterpiece, because I will not bare my soul to the worlds shallow nosy eyes. My heart shall never be put under their microscope. There is too much of myself in the thing, too much of myself (Wilde 18). Aschenbach, too, feels a strange sculptural relief because the world sees only the beauty of the completed work and not its origins nor the conditions thence it sprang since knowledge of the a rtists inspiration might often but confuse and alarm clock and so prevent the full effect of its excellence (Mann 461).The tragic result of Basil and Gustave is a consequence of their inability to find a balance between the Apollonian and the Dionysian sides of their lives. Lord Henry warns the artist that the only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it. Resist it and your soul grows sick with longing for the things it has forbidden to itself, with desire for what its monstrous laws have do monstrous and unlawful (Wilde 26). Accustomed to resist any other thoughts than those relate to artistic creation, Hallward and Aschenbach find themselves incapable to control their excessive admiration for beauty and they are, therefore, destroyed by it.Lord Henry Wotton is an aesthete of the mind. If Basil is an artist who uses the brush, Lord Henry is an artist who uses words. Lord Henrys philosophy on life and art resembles in a great measure that of Nietzsche, in that they both celebrate the primacy of individual senses and feelings over reason and morality. Lord Henry, like Nietzsche, urges the artist to accept his Dionysian, dark and mysterious world of the instinct, to live his life to the full and take advantage of its pleasures, for art is a form of exaggeration, the product of spontaneousnessI believe that if one man were to live out his life fully and completely, were to give form to every feeling, expression to every thought, reality to every dream, I believe that the world would gain such a fresh whimsy of joy that we would forget all the maladies of medievalism and return to the Hellenic ideal, to something finer, richer than the Hellenic ideal, as it may be. (Wilde 25)Lord Henry, like Nietzsche, believes that the unsatisfactory placement of modern art is due to the individuals fear to acknowledge their passions, that is, the Dionysian side of their own selves, and turn them into something beautiful and authentic The mutilation of the savag e has its tragic selection in the self-denial that mars our lives. We are punished for our refusals. Every impulse that we strive to strangle broods in the mind and poison us (Wilde 25).The lick that Lord Henrys philosophy exerts on Dorian Gray can be compared to the influence that the trip to Venice has on Gustave Aschenbach. Both Lord Henry and Venice represent the voice that alerts the repressed side of Dorian and Aschenbach. Both Dorian Gray and Aschenbach change completely when they come in contact with the delightful influence of Lord Henrys magic words and the exoticism of Venice. When he meets Henry Wotton, Dorian feels that the few words that Basils friend had said to him had touched some unfathomable chord that had never been touched before, but that he felt was now vibrating and throbbing to curious pulses (Wilde 26). The perspective of travelling to Venice unleashed in Aschenbach a lust for freedom, release, forgetfulness which the artist admitted to be an impulse to wards flight, flight from the spot which was the daily field of honor of a rigid, cold and passionate service (Mann 420-421).