I don’t wanna feel Blue anymore...
In the Morgan manuscript, Wilde’s hand flows confidently, as if taking dictation, but the appearance of fluency may be deceptive: the autograph is probably a copy of an earlier draft that has disappeared. Although Wilde is celebrated as the greatest natural talker of modern times, he edited his prose meticulously. The opening paragraphs, describing Basil’s studio, are a masterpiece of precise evocation, and Wilde’s handwritten changes sharpen the imagery yet more. In a passage that compares the “dim roar of London” to the “bourdon note of an organ,” Wilde inserts the word “distant” before “organ,” adding a twinge of far-off religious dread.
At the same time, Wilde’s revisions to the opening dialogue between Basil and Lord Henry betray a rising anxiety, an urge to lower the emotional temperature. Exclamations over Dorian’s beauty give way to more reserved remarks about his “good looks” and “personality.” “Passion” becomes “feeling,” “pain” becomes “perplexity.” Wilde’s pen stops Basil from mentioning the time Dorian brushed against his cheek and from announcing that “the world becomes young to me when I hold his hand.” And when Basil explains why he is withholding the painting from London gallery-goers he is prevented from saying that “where there is really love, they would see something evil, and where there is spiritual passion they would suggest something vile.” Tellingly, Wilde removes intimations of a prior attachment between Basil and Lord Henry. He deletes a description of Basil “taking hold of [Lord Henry’s] hand.” One passage is so heavily scratched out as to be almost illegible, but in it Lord Henry seems to berate Basil for having become Dorian’s “slave,” and then blurts out, “I hate Dorian Gray.” In the end, Wilde cancels any hint of jealousy and gives Lord Henry the mask of an amused aesthete: “Basil, this is quite wonderful! I must see Dorian Gray.”
Even before Wilde sent his manuscript to the typist, then, he was hesitating over its homoerotic content, and especially over the pages devoted to Basil’s desire. The focus on Basil is not surprising, given that Wilde later declared, “Basil Hallward is what I think I am: Lord Henry what the world thinks me: Dorian what I would like to be—in other ages, perhaps.”
www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/08/08/deceptive...
At the same time, Wilde’s revisions to the opening dialogue between Basil and Lord Henry betray a rising anxiety, an urge to lower the emotional temperature. Exclamations over Dorian’s beauty give way to more reserved remarks about his “good looks” and “personality.” “Passion” becomes “feeling,” “pain” becomes “perplexity.” Wilde’s pen stops Basil from mentioning the time Dorian brushed against his cheek and from announcing that “the world becomes young to me when I hold his hand.” And when Basil explains why he is withholding the painting from London gallery-goers he is prevented from saying that “where there is really love, they would see something evil, and where there is spiritual passion they would suggest something vile.” Tellingly, Wilde removes intimations of a prior attachment between Basil and Lord Henry. He deletes a description of Basil “taking hold of [Lord Henry’s] hand.” One passage is so heavily scratched out as to be almost illegible, but in it Lord Henry seems to berate Basil for having become Dorian’s “slave,” and then blurts out, “I hate Dorian Gray.” In the end, Wilde cancels any hint of jealousy and gives Lord Henry the mask of an amused aesthete: “Basil, this is quite wonderful! I must see Dorian Gray.”
Even before Wilde sent his manuscript to the typist, then, he was hesitating over its homoerotic content, and especially over the pages devoted to Basil’s desire. The focus on Basil is not surprising, given that Wilde later declared, “Basil Hallward is what I think I am: Lord Henry what the world thinks me: Dorian what I would like to be—in other ages, perhaps.”
www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/08/08/deceptive...