1.

WRITE A COMPOSITION TITLED The Picture of Dorian Gray and The Decay of Lying,
in which you compare these complementary texts written at the same time by looking at the way
the mere ideas in the essay function as a critical propaedeutic for interpreting and analysing the
novel. Before writing the composition proper, answer the following questions (by a plan of
ideas): How is the logic of art demonstrated to be in competition with the logic of nature in the
consciences of the various characters of The Picture of Dorian Gray ? What laws do each of the
characters uphold and what laws do they infringe? Who has access to (aestheticist) transcendence
and who remains imprisoned in contingent reality (whose tensions are addressed by literary
realism)? What is the relationship of the three male protagonists to the realistic paradigm and to
the aestheticist paradigm, respectively?

2.WRITE A COMPOSITION TITLED The Picture of Dorian Gray as a Demonstration about

the Impossible Synthesis between Hellenism and Hebraism by referring to the way these two
mentalities/qualities/cultural ideas are embodied in as many of the relevant fictional characters,
situations, development of the plot and its solution. (Focus on the motivations of the proper
names and upon the actual impossibility of applying the realistic plots of fortune labels to
Wildes novel. Refer to the various characters practices and encounters, which uphold or
infringe one or the other of these laws).

WRITE A COMPOSITION TITLED Oscar Wildes Opposition, in The Picture of Dorian Gray,
to the Synthesis of Hellenism and Hebraism As Advocated by Arnold. Start from the
embodiments of these two cultural ideas/mentalities in the fictional characters by referring to the
motivation of their names as stock characters and explain the intriguing complexity of the books
plot, which becomes manifest if one tries to apply to it the classification of Friedmans plots of
fortune, which is more adequate for realistic than for hedonistic literature.

WRITE A COMPOSITION TITLED Calibans Bildungsroman starting from the Preface to

analyse the limitations of the middle-class conscience as the target of Wildes satire in The
Picture of Dorian Gray; show how the novel opposes the logic of realism and of the
Bildungsroman species. (Use J.A. Cuddons (Penguin) Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary
Theory and the internet resources to understand how this historical species of Romantic, then
realistic fiction functions theoretically, then demonstrate how Wildes satire manhandles the laws
of this literary species)

WRITE A COMPOSITION TITLED The Hedonistic Mirror of Art in The Picture of Dorian
Gray Cast yourself in the role of the ideal reader represented by the aesthetic critic in order to
analyse Wildes novel.

WRITE A COMPOSITION TITLED Tensions in the Victorians <<Total Commitment to

Realism>> as Reflected in Wuthering Heights and The Picture of Dorian Gray in which to
prove how, through their handling of tension and the resolution of the plot, Wuthering Heights
remains more committed to realism than The Picture of Dorian Gray
WRITE A COMPOSITION TITLED Opponents to the Twin Souls in Wuthering Heights In
your analysis start from J.A. Greimass actantial diagram to explain the transformation of the
book from a childish romance to a culturally viable realistic book that seeks to reach out towards
transcendence from contingent reality according to the schemata of earlier literary species such
as romance and tragedy; focus on the narratological elements to study the way the novel
associates to 19th century social motivations , tragic, Gothic and archetypal elements that
translate the archetypal forces in opposition.