The Love That Dare Not Speak Its Name

Queer Relationships and Censorship in The Picture of Dorian Gray

Abstract

“There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written or badly written. That is all,” are the words written by Oscar Wilde in the preface of his novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray. The book follows the Victorian gentleman Dorian Gray, who, captivated by the eternal youth of his portrait, exchanges his soul to remain beautiful forever. It works, but Dorian’s portrait begins to slowly age in his place, a horrific display of his sins. One of Wilde’s most famous works, Dorian Gray, was a controversial novel during its release. While the preface of the novel claims that no book is immoral, many of Wilde's critics did not agree. In a period where any acts of homosexuality, private or not, were considered crimes (Bristow 1), Wilde's novel was heavily scrutinized due to the nature of the relationship between Dorian and his beloved portrait painter, Basil. In the original version of the novel published in 1890, Basil possesses a fervent adoration for Dorian, something that is toned down greatly in the next publication the following year. While censorship, attempted to create a more platonic explanation for the men’s relationship, Dorian Gray is an important novel displaying the historic practice of queer coding in novels.