English for Lycée: Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray
Œuvre au programme de lecture de l'épreuve orale d'anglais, langue de complément LV1, en série littéraire, pour l'examen du baccalauréat général, sessions 2005 et 2006
"There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well-written or badly-written. That is all."
Oscar Wilde. The Picture of Dorian Gray, The Preface.
"The sense of his own beauty came on him like a revelation. He had never felt it before... as he stood gazing at the shadow of his own loveliness, the full reality of the description flashed before him. Yes, there would be a day when his face would be wrinkled and wizen, his eyes dim and colourless, the grace of his figure broken and deformed. The scarlet would pass away from his lips, and the gold steal from his hair. The life that was to make his soul would mar his body. He would become dreadful hideous and uncouth."
The Picture of Dorian Gray, Penguin Classics, 1985 pp. 48-49.
"I am jealous of everything whose beauty does not die. I am jealous of the portrait that you have painted of me. Why should it keep what I must lose? Every moment that passes takes something from me, and gives something to it. Oh, if it were only the other way."
Ibid. p. 50.
"...Tartuffe has emigrated to England and opened a shop."
Ibid p. 232
The Picture of Dorian Gray was a set text for the Agrégation d'anglais in 1947 and 1948!
Selected online resources
Classic Booknotes with plot, character, topics, themes, quotes and more. Great!
Complete text of The Picture of Dorian Gray online at Sparknotes.