Good artists give everything to their art, and consequently are perfectly uninteresting in themselves. A great poet, a really great poet, is the most unpoetical of all creatures. But inferior poets are absolutely fascinating. The worse their rhymes are, the more picturesque they look. The mere fact of having published a book of second-rate sonnets makes a man quite irresistible. He lives the poetry that he 40 cannot write. The others write the poetry that they dare not realize.” Will you please say something on this?
As you know, this novel by Oscar Wilde is a dark satire, the portrait of a man who sells his soul for superficial pleasures. Basil is the soul within him, the artist who has portrayed the true self of Dorian Gray, a life of beauty and goodness. However, Dorian Gray chooses a dark path instead. Though outwardly he remains young, his portrait takes the brunt of the evil ways of his life. It gets increasingly disfigured and mutilated while the actual man, Dorian Gray, seems to enjoy a hedonistic life of sensual pleasures.
The above passage indicates the strange logic that human beings often use to justify their fall. They shun that which is truly high and true and noble as something uninteresting while finding solace in the lowly, the average and the ugly. It is obviously a stupid argument, but one that is quite common in modern times. It is to denounce greatness as something unrealisable while appreciating the average, common thought as something universal and hence true!
Affectionately,
Alok Da
