How The Picture of Dorian Gray drew on The Symposium
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
The Symposium
Plato · c. 385 BCE
Ancient GreeceThe influenced
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Oscar Wilde · 1890
The Age of the NovelRelevance
6/10
On The Picture of Dorian Gray’s page
- Basil's love of Dorian's beauty is a rewriting of The Symposium's ladder — the soul climbing from a beautiful body toward the highest form of love
- Wilde knew the dialogue in the original Greek from his Oxford classics training, and the mentor-and-youth eros at its heart shapes the Lord Henry–Dorian–Basil triangle
- Read Plato first and Dorian Gray reads as the ascent gone wrong — beauty pursued, never transcended
On The Symposium’s page
- Wilde read The Symposium in Greek at Oxford, and its ladder of love — beauty leading the soul upward toward the highest form — is the scaffolding under Basil's worship of Dorian
- Plato's eros between an older mentor and a beautiful youth becomes the Lord Henry–Dorian–Basil triangle
- Dorian Gray takes the ascent toward ideal beauty and asks what happens when it stalls at the surface