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"Culture and corruption": Paterian self-development versus Gothic degeneration in Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray.(Critical Essay)

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From: Papers on Language & Literature
Date: 20030922
Author:Clausson, Nils

"Culture and corruption," murmured Dorian, "I have known something of both."

--Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

I hold that no work of art can be tried otherwise than by laws deduced from itself: whether or not it be consistent with itself is the question.

--Thomas Wainewright, quoted by Wilde in "Pen, Pencil, and Poison"

Recent genre theory reminds us of just how often our disagreements about the meaning or interpretation of a text are actually debates about how the text should be read, or, more precisely, what kind of text it should be read as. If we ...

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