Tuesday 5 April 2011

Back to DORIAN GRAY

Like in Elizabethan drama where the setting is elaborately described in the course of the dialogue, in Oscar Wilde's THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY, the setting is not described in the narrative but in the witty conversation of the characters. Like in Greek tragedy where there are two or three characters speaking, in DORIAN GRAY, Wilde depends on three characters, Dorian, Lord Henry and Basil, in the construction of the novel

Lord Byron and Bob Southey

Robert (whom, out of belittling and not intimacy, Byron addressed Bob) Southety was neighbour of Wordsworth, class-mate of Coleridge, friend of Charles Lamb and foe of Lord Byron. The two had a long public quarrel, Byron accusing him of impotence and he accused Byron of incest. Southey went to Oxford where, after leaving it, he only learned, to quote him, "swimming and boating". Southey championed the French Revolution and in his heart he had seeds of Communism