The following is Oscar Wilde's preface to 'The picture of Dorian
Gray'. I thought it might serve as the starting point for a
worthwhile discussion. "The artist is the creator of beautiful
things. To reveal art and conceal the artist is art's aim. The
critic is he who can translate into another manner or a new
material his impression of beautiful things. The highest, as the
lowest, form of criticism is a mode of autobiography. Those who
find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being
charming. This is a fault. Those who find beautiful meanings in
beautiful things are the cultivated. For these there is hope.
They are the elect to whom beautiful things mean only Beauty.
There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are
well written, or badly written. That is all. The nineteenth
century dislike of Realism is the rage of Caliban seeing his own
face in a glass. The nineteenth century dislike of Romanticism
is the rage of Caliban not seeing his own face in a glass. The
moral life of ma