How The Picture of Dorian Gray drew on Phaedrus
A documented line of influence: Oscar Wilde demonstrably engaged Plato’s work. The commentary below is Gröblé’s, verbatim from each work’s page.
The source
Phaedrus
Plato · c. 370 BCE
Ancient GreeceThe influenced
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Oscar Wilde · 1890
The Age of the NovelRelevance
5/10
On The Picture of Dorian Gray’s page
- Lord Henry and Dorian are a corrupted Socrates and Phaedrus — Wilde wants you to feel the echo
- Read the Phaedrus first and the novel reads as a deliberate inversion: Plato's account of love and beauty as a ladder upward, turned into a descent
- Wilde (after Pater) defines his beauty and eros in Platonic terms precisely so he can poison them — the dialogue is the thing standing behind Lord Henry's every aphorism
On Phaedrus’s page
- Plato's dialogue on love, beauty, and the soul becomes Wilde's template — and his target
- Lord Henry and Dorian insistently evoke Plato's Socrates and Phaedrus, the older voice seducing the beautiful young listener
- Wilde takes the Phaedrus's arguments about eros and beauty and inverts them: where Plato's love lifts the soul, Lord Henry's corrupts it