빅토리아조 후반 동성애 담론과 윤리적 주체: 오스카 와일드의 『도리언 그레이의 초상』 (The Late Victorian Homosexual Discourse and Ethical Subject: Oscar Wilde’s The Portrait of Dorian Gray.)

서지정보

· 발행기관 : 신영어영문학회
· 수록지 정보 : 신영어영문학 / 56호 / 173 ~ 194페이지
· 저자명 : 조애리

초록

This paper examines Oscar Wilde’s The Portrait of Dorian Gray in terms of Foucauldian framework relating homo-eroticism to the problem of ethical subject. While the opposition between Basil and Henry has been oversimplified by most critics, this paper analyzes their relationships with Dorian in terms of ethical subject in boy love and Socratic eros. Confused by his attraction toward Dorian, Basil can neither control his desire nor allow Dorian to grow up and leave him, which means that he fails in constituting himself as an ethical subject. On the other hand, Henry’s discourse leads to the emergence of Dorian’s self through the force of beauty and truth as in Socratic eros. Under his influence Dorian awakens into “the true pleasure and joy of living.” However in the latter part of the novel he retreats from hearing Dorian’s revelation of murder; Dorian himself also internalizes Christian guilty feeling and thinks of the painting in the same terms Basil uses to explain the logic of moral consequences. While in Greece there is a continuum between sexual mastery, social mastery and ethical self mastery, Wilde cannot find the social space where the male love can be validated. Nevertheless it is his achievement to introduce and explore Greek love into the late Victorian patriarchal culture and to criticize Victorian normative values.

영어초록

This paper examines Oscar Wilde’s The Portrait of Dorian Gray in terms of Foucauldian framework relating homo-eroticism to the problem of ethical subject. While the opposition between Basil and Henry has been oversimplified by most critics, this paper analyzes their relationships with Dorian in terms of ethical subject in boy love and Socratic eros. Confused by his attraction toward Dorian, Basil can neither control his desire nor allow Dorian to grow up and leave him, which means that he fails in constituting himself as an ethical subject. On the other hand, Henry’s discourse leads to the emergence of Dorian’s self through the force of beauty and truth as in Socratic eros. Under his influence Dorian awakens into “the true pleasure and joy of living.” However in the latter part of the novel he retreats from hearing Dorian’s revelation of murder; Dorian himself also internalizes Christian guilty feeling and thinks of the painting in the same terms Basil uses to explain the logic of moral consequences. While in Greece there is a continuum between sexual mastery, social mastery and ethical self mastery, Wilde cannot find the social space where the male love can be validated. Nevertheless it is his achievement to introduce and explore Greek love into the late Victorian patriarchal culture and to criticize Victorian normative values.

참고자료

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