" The Picture of Dorian Gray is the quintessential decadent novel by that great aesthete Oscar Wilde. We must remember that Wilde was primarily a poet and playwright, and, if I am not mistaken, this is his only novel. It is a great novel, of course, if a bit heavy handed in its moralising, something Wilde was at pains to do, as his personal life and his "sins" were to be his downfall. Wilde was such a sensitive soul, that it is easy to forget, as he he is so well known for his barbed humor and aphorisms. But, as is usually the case, such a prickly exterior usually masks a remarkably refined and cultivated soul. His tales for children, such as the The Rose and the Nightingale are heart-achingly beautiful. And the witticisms of his plays, The Importance of Being Earnest, An Ideal Husband and Lady Windemere's Fan, are precious examples of Vicrtorian comedy at its finest and most sardonic. His observations on class distinction, its superficial absurdities, and its frivolousness are captured perfectly in each and all his plays, but he also had a talent for the Gothic, and if he was no Poe, he certainly sought to capture a darkness reminiscent of that other great aesthete Baudelaire. Wilde was a true romantic and had the great folly to fall in love with a well connected society man, and that sealed his fate, he would be indicted for such unseemly charges as "sodomy" and for what its worth he was a homosexual martyr who fate could not have been worse. And yet, he was always be celebrated as an advocate of "art for art's sake," and his rivalry with Whistler was well documented. It is important, too, to remember that he was an Irishman, and he led a long line of some of the finest writers in the English language who are also Irish, such as Yeats, Joyce, and, of course, Beckett. "
— John, 1/31/2014