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Homosexuality As (Anti)Illness: Oscar Wilde's The Picture Of Dorian Gray And Gabriele D'Annunzio's Il Piacere , Edward S. Brinkley

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

This article treats Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray as culturally antagonistic but also as culturally conservative: Dorian's liminal position as a male who knows—who has experienced sexual contact with other males—is linked in the text both to a position of cultural/epistemological superiority (the "Greek" sexual act constructed as index of canonical mastery, back to Greek texts and artwork) and to a position of disease and dis-figurement. The latter association, read by other commentators particularly in the final pages as punishment for narcissism, hedonism, or homosexual activity, is here glossed as an accusation against Victorian injunctions against same …