The Picture of Dorian Gray
The studio was filled with the rich odour of roses, and when the light summer wind stirred amidst the trees of the garden, there came through the open door the heavy scent of the lilac, or the more delicate perfume of the pink-flowering thorn. From the corner of the divan of Persian saddle-bags on which he was lying, smoking, as was his custom, innumerable cigarettes, Lord Henry Wotton could just catch the gleam of the honey-sweet and honey-coloured blossoms of a laburnum.
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Summary
Wilde's only novel opens with sensory excess: roses, lilac, hawthorn, and the heavy languor of an aesthete's studio. Lord Henry Wotton is lying on a divan smoking. There is no plot yet — there is only atmosphere, and atmosphere in Wilde is moral. The lush surface is itself the warning.
Themes to continue
- Surface as moral surface — Wilde does not separate beauty from ethics; he insists they are the same problem. Continuations that describe well will be trusted.
- The aphoristic voice — Lord Henry will shortly speak in epigrams. A continuation can reproduce his cadence: short, witty, slightly cruel.
- The unseen portrait — the title hangs over the opening. Foreshadowing without naming is Wilde's trick.
Vocabulary
- Divan — a long, low couch without a back, often associated with Eastern interiors. A status object in late-Victorian aesthetic homes.
- Persian saddle-bags — exotic textile, cited to mark the studio as worldly and expensive.
- Laburnum — a small tree with hanging yellow flowers, the honey-coloured blossoms Wilde lingers on.
Continuation prompts
- Continue the description of the studio. Bring in a third character, the painter Basil Hallward, mid-stroke.
- Have Lord Henry speak — a single epigram.
- Diverge: introduce a sound from outside the garden that breaks the spell.
About the author
Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) wrote The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890, expanded 1891). The novel was scandalous on publication and was used against him at his 1895 trial. Wilde died in poverty in Paris five years later. The work is now a fixture of decadent and Gothic literature.