By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University) In 1890, Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray was serialised in Lippincott’s Magazine. The following year, when the novel was published in book form, Wilde added a famous ‘Preface’ which consisted of a series of statements and axioms about literature and art.
Tag: Quotations
The Meaning of Blake’s ‘A Robin Redbreast in a Cage’
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University) ‘A Robin Redbreast in a Cage / Puts all Heaven in a Rage.’ This couplet constitutes the other most famous quotation from ‘Auguries of Innocence’ after ‘To see the world in a grain of sand’. But what is the meaning of this quotation?
‘Each Man Kills the Thing He Loves’: Meaning and Origin
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University) Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) gave us many memorable lines. The majority of these are one-liners and witticisms which he either used in conversation or sprinkled throughout his clever comedies – his plays which were performed to great acclaim during the first half of the 1890s. […]
The Meaning and Origin of ‘Wherever Books Are Burned, Men Also, in the End, Are Burned’
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University) ‘Wherever books are burned, men also, in the end, are burned.’ This observation – which is sometimes rendered in slightly different wording – has become famous as a kind of warning statement about the dangers of extreme forms of censorship. But what is the […]
‘Dark Satanic Mills’: Meaning and Origin
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University) Let’s begin with a quiz question: what is the title of the poem in which the phrase ‘dark Satanic Mills’ appears? Is it a) ‘Jerusalem’ or b) Milton? Most people would probably go for a), but although we know commonly know William Blake’s poem […]