words to inspire before you expire

Tag: Oscar Wilde

Off-Topic: What is “Literature,” Exactly?

Welcome back, class.

Today’s lecture might be profoundly interesting or dangerously boring; it depends on the level of pleasure you take in defining things.  I know that some of you couldn’t care less. I can see it in your eyes.

But for those of you staring unblinkingly, waiting with bated breath…have I got a treat for you!  You’re what the “academics” call “academics.”  Understanding theory and theoretical ideas actually interests you, and bonus points are in order if you like learning things that have no practical value in the working world whatsoever.  You’re my kind of people.


books-stock-photoA lot of my time in literature courses at college was spent asking the probing question, “What is literature?”  (We’ll get to WHY that’s an important question in a bit.) It seems like a simple enough question, but it always invokes a huge discussion that usually boils down to this: literature is art that uses words and language. It’s also described as a category of art—literature is always art but art is not always literature.

Some define it by examples: obvious ones like novels, plays, and poems, as well as more obscure examples like movies, blog posts (!), and essays. Even the most clinical or scientific documents can be told artfully, and can therefore be considered literature.  I know of a woman who wrote her dissertation claiming that kitchen recipes were a form of literature.

A T-Shirt Poem

A T-Shirt Poem

This leads me to one of my favorite claims: ANYTHING that uses words or text is literature.  A letter, an e-mail, a paycheck, a coffee mug, a T-shirt, a company logo, a video game, a poster, a political speech, a prescription label…all of it, literature!  So next time you have a surprise essay to write, and you’re stumped, argue that your T-shirt is a poem (at your own peril).

However, it’s worth mentioning that we don’t read tax reports like we read Shakespeare.  We don’t read stop signs like we read poetry, and we don’t read magic 8 balls like we read Harry Potter.  Something in our collective social standards distinguishes between high art and instruction manuals.  Some metaphorical blurry line exists out there between literature and other word-piles.

Or…maybe it’s all relative.  Literature is literature because someone somewhere says that it’s literature, and you can’t declare it non-literature because they have just as much a God-given right to name something literature as you do. Literature is in the eye of the beholder.

baby-reading-photoBut let’s bring it back down to something resembling sanity.  Why do we read?  Usually, to learn something.  When we read Shakespeare, we want to learn about the characters he’s created and the philosophy he’s trying to sell.  When we read a letter or e-mail, it’s to keep up correspondence and to understand their goal or message in sending their note.  When we read a magic 8 ball, we want a prediction, whether we believe it or not.

We read for the same reason we act at all—we want something.  We break the law of inertia and move against the stillness of the world because we, as human beings, have desires.  Maybe if a piece of art or text gives us something we desire, it “counts” as literature.

At this point, it might be easier to discuss literary characteristics than to try defining it head-on.  We can consider the books I’ve read for this class literature: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, the Harry Potter series, The Lord of the RingsThe Picture of Dorian Gray, and currently, 1984.  Everything you learned in High School English is there—characters, plot, themes, setting, dialogue, and various other indications of literature.  Each one gives us something to take away and use…some kind of message or lasting idea, whether we want it or not.  Does that make each of these novels literature?  If a painting or sculpture can accomplish the same feat, is it literature as well?


bookshelf-illustrationI’ve tortured you enough.  There is no definite answer to this question, and asking it is more academic “fun” than it is accomplishing ANYTHING. And yet, my follow-up question still stands: why is a question like this important? Don’t worry, it’s a much easier question to answer.

Defining literature is a lot like defining art or music.  As soon as you start drawing lines in the sand between music and not-music, anyone can come along and claim otherwise. Example: random drum banging, screeching guitars, and uncensored swearing is as much music as Beethoven.  Music and literature are art, and though their actual definitions are reliable, they are subject to change.

Oscar Wilde

Oscar Wilde

I’ve quoted Oscar Wilde in an earlier post, from his preface to The Picture of Dorian Gray; he claims that the only purpose for something useless is that it is admired, and that “All art is quite useless.”  This isn’t bad PR for artists; it’s Wilde’s way of saying that art is supposed to affect the soul, and it has no other practical purpose.

So asking ourselves how to define something like literature is our way of defining what serves our soul, and that’s worth keeping an eye out for.  Traditionally, the kind of literature that affects us most is poetry, but we’ve been open to suggestions for the past couple thousand years.  The once low art form of film has risen to new heights in the realm of literature, and in a hundred years, stop signs and tax reports may surprise us.


Your homework: fight me.  Take something above that you disagree with and challenge my views.  Don’t be afraid to comment: you’re a human being with opinions, and it gets lonely around here otherwise.  How might you define literature differently? What’s something you consider literature that most others don’t?

(No one turned in homework for last week. I’m very disappointed, students.  I know professors who kick out their entire classes when such mutiny occurs. You are very fortunate to have a caring and merciful teacher like me.  In any case, the option for commenting is still open, for this post and the previous one.)

I’m continuing 1984, so expect a rousing political lecture next Wednesday!  Have a good week!

Prof. Jeffrey

The Picture of Dorian Gray

Hello again, class.

Per our discussion last week, I am unashamed to admit that I read most of The Picture of Dorian Gray aloud to myself in a terrible British accent.  When I got to the really dramatic parts, I slowed it down and pretended I was in a movie.  I encourage this sort of behavior in your free time.


Dorian Gray and his Portrait, from The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945)

Dorian Gray and his Portrait, from The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945)

Anyway, let’s jump right in—I’m surprised at how coincidentally similar Dorian Gray’s portrait is to Sauron’s ring and Lord Voldemort’s Horcruxes.  For anyone who is unfamiliar with Dorian Gray’s story, it details the life of a man whose soul is linked to a portrait of himself, manifested in two ways: he remains young while the portrait ages, and his sins damage the portrait while his soul remains undamaged.

Unlike The Lord of the Rings and The Harry Potter series, though, this is no adventure story—it’s more like a Victorian Gothic morality tale, criticizing morality.  Instead of “action,” the story relies more on dialogue and Dorian’s inner thoughts.  More than any of the books I’ve read so far for this class, it is unadulterated art, which makes it challenging and refreshing.

A Statue of Oscar Wilde in Dublin, Ireland

A Statue of Oscar Wilde in Dublin, Ireland

For a little backstory: author Oscar Wilde is actually better known for his plays. The Picture of Dorian Gray is his only novel, but it has moments that seem like a play—dialogue is uninterrupted by descriptions, chapters take place only one scene at a time, and the story splits evenly into two separate “acts” (Dorian as a young man and Dorian in his late 30s).  Wilde probably wrote it as a novel because he wanted to capture Dorian’s thoughts, which analyze the soul, art, God, evil, England, love, sin, and fashion…all at once.

Wilde included a preface as a way of defending his work, where he explains that art and morality are separate and criticizes nineteenth century treatment of art. I’m betting Wilde added this preface because people didn’t catch the messages in the novel itself.  No need to worry—Prof. Jeffrey caught on!  In every piece of dialogue between the three main characters, they discuss the battle between art and morality, and what that means for society.  These moments distance themselves from the story, and though they tend to come off as preachy, they’re always interesting.  These moments help the reader seriously consider Dorian Gray’s immortality and his addiction to sin.

Dorian Gray is something of a cross between a vampire and Peter Pan—stuck in the prime of his life but disconnected from his soul.  He is a lot like Shakespeare’s Hamlet—a youthful figure trapped between a tormented soul, a tragic fate, and lengthy dialogue—which further cements his status as an amazing literary character.  If you’re looking for a reason to read Dorian Gray, he’s it: his inner thoughts show us his temptation to commit evil acts and his obsession with his portrait, and the spectacle of his life is beautiful and tragic.  He disgusts, moves, and terrifies us because he is simultaneously the worst and best versions of ourselves.  Feel free to listen in on the art-and-morality lectures as you read, but you should stick around to experience the cataclysmic life of Dorian Gray.


I’m moving on to George Orwell’s 1984 next.  I’ve been remarkably stuck in the fantasy genre, and a little dystopian drama might shake things up a bit around here.  That being said, fantasy is probably my favorite genre to read in, and I’d like to hear what novels you’ve read.

Your homework: leave a comment describing your favorite fantasy novel.  Tell me what it’s like—I don’t want the summary I can find just about anywhere, because I’d much rather have your personal impression of it.  Why did you like it so much?  And the question of the hour—you know what this class is about—WHY should I read it?

I look forward to your comments.  See you next week!

Prof. Jeffrey

“‘Sin is a thing that writes itself across a man’s face.  It cannot be concealed.  People talk sometimes of secret vices.  There are no such things.  If a wretched man has a vice, it shows itself in the lines of his mouth, the droop of his eyelids, the moulding of his hands even… But you, Dorian, with your pure, bright, innocent face and your marvelous untroubled youth–I can’t believe anything against you.'”

–from The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

“This portrait would be to him the most magical of mirrors.  As it had revealed to him his own body, so it would reveal to him his own soul.  And when winter came upon it, he would would still be standing where spring trembles on the verge of summer.  When the blood crept from its face, and left behind a pallid mask of chalk with leaden eyes, he would keep the glamour of boyhood.  Not one blossom of his loveliness would ever fade.  Not one pulse of his life would ever weaken.  Like the gods of the Greeks, he would be strong, and fleet, and joyous.  What did it matter what happened to the coloured image on the canvas?  He would be safe.  That was everything.”

–from The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

“…every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter.  The sitter is merely the accident, the occasion.  It is not he who is revealed by the painter; it is rather the painter who, on the coloured canvas, reveals himself.”

–from The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

“We can forgive a man for making a useful thing as long as he does not admire it.  The only excuse for making a useless thing is that one admires it intensely.

All art is quite useless.”

–from “The Preface” of The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde