Theme Of Boy Love In The Picture Of Dorian Gray

In Oscar Wilde’s novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, the character Basil Hallward is enamored with Dorian Gray’s youth and innocence. This love for Dorian is an example of Greek love or boy love that would have been popular during the late Victorian age, especially with the decadence. However, this love would have been frowned upon and in the case of Wilde, legally held against him. In the first chapter of the novel, Basil and Harry began speaking about Dorian. Basil tells Harry of his feelings toward Dorian:

The merely visible presence of this lad—for he seems to me little more than a lad, though he is really over twenty—his merely visible presence—ah! I wonder can you realize all that that means? Unconsciously he defines for me the lines of a fresh school, a school that is to have in it all the

This is echoed by Wilde and his description of Lord Douglass’ lips in the letter passage previously stated. This parallel that can be drawn between Basil’s love of Dorian and Wilde’s love of Douglass, lends itself to be incriminating. The undertone of sexual want and fascination of the youth man’s beauty connect to the theme of boy love, which would not have helped Wilde proclaim his innocence. The defenses use of Wilde’s novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, not only attempted to deem the book immoral, but more importantly, help the defense draw parallels to Basil and Wilde. The use of the novel in this way would help insure Wilde’s loss in the libel case and would make way to the other cases that would eventually lead to jail time (The Trials of Oscar Wilde). The theme of Greek love and Boy love is reflected by Basil in The Picture of Dorian Gray and by Wilde in real life. The parallel of Greek love in Basil and Wilde would only help society cast Wilde as a homosexual and his eventual